After leaving school he spent six years in the family engineering business with four years at college studying engineering and management, and took over the running of the business just as the 1980 recession took hold, and the company closed. Fitch was faced with the choice of unemployment or seeing if the hobby could become a business . . .
Starting with six lights and a dimmer board (laughably described as 'portable', Fitch recalls), and working from the garden shed, Fitch made inroads into the local school and amateur market. Aquiring second-hand lanterns, he build up a stock of some 40 lanterns in the first year.
After 10 years he and the company moved into larger industrial premises (1,200sq.ft) in Erith, Kent. Now with three staff and over 120 lanterns, and still mainly serving the school market and some amateurs, the company was beginning to find more professional theatres were beginning to hire its projection equipment and some of the special items.
Another 10 years on, with some 300 lanterns (all new) and a new range of very large mirror balls often seen on television, the company expanded into another unit adjacent to the first, giving them a total of 3,500sq.ft.
The company now employs four full-time staff and two part-time staff, and is open six-and-a-half days a week to provide their services to customers from schools, amateur and professional theatre, television, concert, film, marquee and wedding services. New additions to the stock include flambeaux effects, which will be seen on television and in film shortly. The company stocks a number of hand-held props such as candles, as well as fake food props, for hire.
In 2006, the company celebrates its 25th anniversary and the 45th year of lighting for Fitch himself - and is looking forward to many more years of lighting.
(Lee Baldock)
