Our parents gave us so much responsibility when we were growing up. It was so special. Our father was a big inspiration to us: he was an aeronautical engineer, but he was also amazing with his hands, and his idea of heaven was coming back from work, putting his jeans on and going straight into the workshop. There he'd be making everything from violins and banjos to airplanes we still fly, to motorbikes, to cars we restored. He was interested in anything mechanical, and our mother encouraged us, too. She’d buy an old clock at a car boot sale, and say: ‘Boys, see if you can make this work.’ Our passion for watches and clocks stemmed from that whole time, and our father fuelled it by telling us about the history of British watchmaking.
Flying is a huge part of our lives, sailing was a bit as well – our father built a boat, and he took us off from school for quite a few months and we sailed around the world. He introduced us to flying when I was around nine years old, Giles a couple of years younger. We'd go to air shows with our father in the back of his aeroplanes, and while still in our teens, Giles and I started flying too. We had access to a small 1940s aeroplane, a Piper Cub, when we were 18 and 16, and we'd be allowed to head off to places like Spain for two or three weeks. We had so many adventures.
All three of us, Dad, myself and Giles, trained with the RAF through university. In 1995 I had a nasty flying accident with Dad – I was quite smashed up and broke 30-odd bones, and was in hospital for a long time. At the time, in our early 20s, Giles and I were both working in corporate finance in the City. When I recovered, we decided to do something different, and resigned from our jobs.
We got involved in restoring historic aircraft, and a few years later, we decided that we really wanted to make something and, combining our love of engineering with our love of vintage watches, we set up Bremont. So we went with this blank sheet of paper to Bienne in Switzerland, and it took us five years until our first watch was launched. It was a long old haul, and ever since we started, the number one passion for us as a company – and also as individuals – is to bring watchmaking back to Britain.
We're doing things the hard way, but now we've got two facilities around Henley – with trainee watchmakers and experienced watchmakers. And it's growing quite quickly. For three years now we've been working with a very well known watchmaker/movement designer called Stephen McDonnell, who designed the Perpetual for MB&F. Giles and I had some firm parameters that we wanted to achieve, in terms of the movement: to be designed from scratch on first principals, to be a workhorse movement, to be strong, to be accurate, obviously, and it had to have longevity, in terms of design, so we could do different things to it. It’s a properly British-designed movement.
At the turn of the last century, probably 60 per cent of the world's luxury watches came out of the UK. Plus maybe 70 per cent of the innovations in a mechanical watch – many of which are still being used – came from British horologists. We've got a long way to go, but we're coming on in leaps and bounds, which is exciting.
I'd love to be able to look back in 10 years' time and say, wow, Bremont really has played a part, no matter how big or small, in the reinvigoration of watchmaking in this country – with proper watchmaking, watch manufacturing, making watches from scratch. And we were told when we started that we were mad to attempt it. The only regret for Giles and me is that our father wasn't around to see us achieve this. Our mother loves hearing the stories – and about our brand ambassadors, who number explorers and adventurers – but because our father was our inspiration, he would have loved all of our developments. He'd have been fascinated with everything.
bremont.com
Bremont co-founders Nick and Giles English are discussing the future of exploration with Bremont brand ambassador Charley Boorman, at Bremont Townhouse, One Horse Guards Avenue SW1A 2HU, hosted by TheWeek.co.uk editor, Holden Frith. Tickets are £10; theweek.co.uk/offers
No comments: