To inspire me for my first blog I have decided to have a brief look back over the last 10 years and for those of you that don’t know us tell you a little bit about me and Christine.
Strangely the best place to start talking about Barratt Tours is to go back 12 years to a young couple from North East England holidaying in Ireland called Richard & Christine Barratt–Atkin. Richard was quite a successful area sales manager for a large European truck company with expense account and company car but no time and Christine was a very gifted but woefully underpaid and appreciated florist. They had a wonderful week in Ireland and were enjoying a few (too many!) drinks and a fantastic Irish meal in Kilkenny City on their last night. The conversation over dinner strayed to how they would love to move to Ireland one day but couldn’t think of how. They thought it would be great to use some of their skills to show people the Ireland that they fell in love with and all of a sudden it came to Richard – why not offer coach tours ( he loved old buses and romantic visions of Ireland in a magnificent old AEC swam round his already swimming head). Chris, being the sensible one said “yeah great but how” and it was generally decided that it was a daft idea.
Almost a year later Richard was visiting one of his clients who is now a good friend (hi Collin!) who dealt in old buses when he fell in love – with a bus. There stood a magnificent 1975 Bristol which would be ideal for touring Ireland – small yet classy and comfortable. Over dinner Richard announced that he had found a bus that would be ideal for Ireland and they could have a look at the weekend. It would be fair to say Chris was not all that struck by the bus but to cut what is already a long story short a deal was done. Over the next few months every weekend was spent restoring and improving Bertie (as he was then known) to tip top condition.
In 1997 our couple went to Ireland again dreaming but looking for opportunities for Business and during that visit they went to Limerick City for a couple of nights, they looked at coach tours in the City and found only one company – was there room for competition? They also strayed into an Estate Agent (or Auctioneer or Realtor to some of you) browsing at houses and then they saw it – a house with enough land to park Bertie at an affordable price so they took a look and fell in love (again!).
Within 6 months a deal was struck and the house in England sold so the scene was now set for the adventure to begin.
If you would like to know what happened next keep an eye on this space and as you have gathered our heroes are myself and Christine the owners and operators of Barratt Tours.
I will add some more topical blogs as they come along but I quite like the history of Barratt Tours idea – what do you think? – let me know!
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