Eric was an artist. He taught his granddaughter Rebecca to paint when she was very small, and kept teaching her, on and off, for the rest of his life.
Albert was a maker of a different kind. He was forever in the shed at the end of the garden, tinkering, building toys and games, working on whatever the latest thing was.
The two men never met. Their grandchildren did.
(Eric & Albert Wooden Silver Fish On Elk Mountain)
Starting From Nothing
Rebecca and Martin married and had a son, Dylan. Neither of them had any professional background in making things. She was a marine biologist working for a government agency. He was an IT consultant. What they had was years of crafting together as a hobby, and two grandfathers who had shown them how.
In 2017 they made a few wooden animals, put them out into the world, and found that people wanted them. They named the company after Eric and Albert.
Kent to Wales
The first workshop was a converted garage in Kent, which they outgrew. In 2020, between lockdowns, they moved the whole operation to mid Wales, to a rural school house in Powys with a workshop a mile down the road in a courtyard of farm barns built in the 1800s. Snowdonia is half an hour away. Claire and Zoe joined the team that October.
Martin cuts and shapes every piece by hand from British hardwood. Rebecca paints them. The colour is a plant-based stain rather than paint, so the grain stays visible underneath, and since each one is finished individually, no two are quite alike.
What Gets Handed On
There is a version of this story where the interesting part is the wood, or the stain, or the hills.
The interesting part is that two people who were taught to make things by their grandfathers now make things for a living, in a company named after them, with their own son in the workshop. The skills were handed down. So was the habit of making. The toys are what that looks like from the outside.