It’s now thirty years since Tina in our Accounts Team asked if we had any jobs going in the warehouse “as my little brother hasn’t found anything since he left school”. At the time, there were just twenty of us at White Light and we were based in a converted stable in Fulham. Tina’s younger brother, a chap called Andy Cullen, duly arrived the following week and began work in the Cables Department (then known as ‘The Cage’ due to the amount of cable storage racks giving the impression of a prison cell).
After a couple of years with Cables, Andy soon began to work his way through most of the departments in the warehouse, including what we then called the “Front Bench” where kit was checked in and out of the building. Fast forward to 2001, and there were now 100 of us, meaning we had to leave Fulham and make our way across to our current home in SW19. Andy was a huge part of the team involved in relocating the business over just one weekend!
A few years into life at Wimbledon and Andy decided to apply for a role in the growing Hire Department. He has been there ever since and is now the Hire Team Leader. Andy can be overseeing up to 20 projects in a week and has excelled in looking after the large West End shows where a close working relationship with the show’s production staff is essential. Recent ones include Harry Potter, the Les Mis tours, War Horse, A Comedy About a Bank Robbery and Kite Runner. Andy is also known as the Panto King in the office – for no other reason than he was the principle contact for over ten years for First Family Entertainment as they were growing from strength to strength before being taken over by Qdos. He still looks after the majority of the forty odd Christmas Pantomimes the company supplies year on year.
So what started off as someone’s younger brother looking for a bit of work has turned into a life-long career for Andy, who has only ever worked at WL. His technical knowledge, energy and customer service ethic has meant that the company has built the team around him, to the point where new joiners are generally sat next to him in order to learn from his experience and approach. His long service and continued dedication to looking after our customers means that we are incredibly proud of him and all he has achieved over the last three decades. We don’t expect him to do another thirty years as we will probably let him off with ‘good behaviour’ after twenty but we honestly can’t imagine the place without him. He is one of the true heroes of our company and I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you Andy for thirty years ‘hard labour’!