About me

I hope to share with you my vision for Disabled Holidays and some of the more recent parts of my life journey in later posts but for now I’ll start with a little background information about me.

I was born in 1965 and brought up in Denton, Manchester living with my mum, dad and younger sister, Gaynor. I was blessed with caring parents and a good education that set me up to take hold of some of life’s opportunities.

I started dating Gillian (my wife to be) in 1983, the year before enrolling on a degree in mathematics and computing at Sheffield Polytechnic. Despite the good start and opportunity my parents created for me, my mission at that time was to party as much as possible and hopefully still get a degree at the end of it.

My mum had Multiple Sclerosis which started when I was born and gradually degenerated until she died on Valentine’s day in 1987 when I was just 21 years old. At that time my life wasn’t going too well. Gillian and I were living together in Preston on work placement for the vocational part of my degree course. We were in a lot of debt and my grades were very low so I was considering dropping out to look for a job rather than go back for my final year. We had just started attending a lively church in Preston (Fullwood Free Methodist) and I was searching for answers. The death of my mum made me question my views on spiritual things and was one of the factors that led me to take a step of faith to believe in God. The big surprise was that when I turned to Christ I discovered a spiritual reality that went far beyond my beliefs. Deciding to live for Christ also helped me to discover my destiny and turn my life around by removing the destructive habits in my life. This led me to complete my final year degree after retaking my second year exams. We also stopped living together and we were married in August 1987.

After graduating in 1988 we moved to Derby where I trained to become an analyst programmer at Rolls Royce. A year later we moved back to Manchester and bought our first house in January 1990 a few days before my son Peter was born. We had started attending a church called Endeavour Christian Fellowship in Ashton Under Lyne where we lived and was pastored by the most influential man I have ever met. This man, Bryn Barrett, was a visionary with an infectious passion for Jesus. He had a gift of helping people discover their destiny and he encouraged me to start my own business. Bryn died a few years later leaving behind him an example to all who knew him of a life committed to bringing the best out of those around him. Over twenty years later we now attend a fast growing church in the centre of Manchester (http://audaciouschurch.com/) which is led by his son Glyn Barrett. You can hear Glyn speak about vision on YouTube here:

(I know the highest compliment I can give Glyn is to say he preaches just like his dad).

In 1999 I had a dream where I saw a business opportunity to create a website where people could share reviews with each other on the products and services they used. In the dream I was even given the domain name http://www.reviewcentre.com. I awoke, bought the domain and immediately started to develop the website. I wrote reviews of everything in the house (my tv, my mp3 player, my camera and even my wife’s handbag. I continued to work on the website for several years with little success until 2003 when the web site starting appearing at the top of some search engines. I made money from selling the advertising space around the reviews and used the income to employ people to help me further develop the web site. The business grew and grew until I sold it in 2008 deciding to explore new business ideas.

I pursued several businesses without success until 2010 when I was again envisioned by a man I knew through The Message Trust named Simon Sullivan who told me that God would give me a new business strategy. I was intrigued having no idea what that would be until the following morning when I awoke knowing exactly what to do. The strategy was to buy a niche travel website already at the top of the search engines that could be developed into something bigger. After a short search I came upon www.disabledholidaydirectory.co.uk which was number 1 on Google for anyone searching for disabled holidays. I contacted the owner, a wonderful Welsh lady called Sian who had founded the business ten years earlier because of her own disability. She said she would consider selling as she was ready to retire but wanted to sell to someone who would run the business with the same commitment to caring for people with disabilities that she had. Could this be an opportunity for me to honour my mother by running a business that helps people with disabilities. It felt like the next stage of my destiny was opening up before me. We agreed a deal and I took over the business in July 2010 with clear directives from Sian to look after the customers diligently.

The Disabled Holiday Directory did precisely what it says on the tin. A directory of accessible holiday accommodation where you could contact the owners to book a holiday. Having bought the business we proceeded to convert it into a niche travel agency, selling holidays to customers as well as selling directory listings to property owners. We added cruises and flights, developing the website to increase the number of hits from the internet search engines. The business has been the most challenging yet the most rewarding thing I have ever done. Four years later the business has grown to employ 34 people and God willing will continue to grow and be a great blessing to all who use our services.

I look forward to telling you more about our vision to change the landscape of holidays for the disabled in a future post.