Sheridan and I met in 1995 in the playground where our eldest sons went to infant school (Holmesdale in Reigate). My son was 6 years old at the time. He is now 21 and at university studying to be a primary school teacher.
Sheridan was a trained suzuki violin teacher and I a trained Maths teacher. After many chats and countless cups of tea and coffee we put together an audacious plan to start a new preschool club called “The Building Blocks”. We searched for places in which to advertise the club but, at the time, there were no magazines targeted to parents. So, in order to launch and advertise the club, we planned a phonebook for families and called it “Heard it on the Grapevine”. Research started in November 1995 and the first magazine was produced in February 1996 containing the advert for our new club.
You can see a copy of the first magazine here February 1996
We received a few calls asking about The Building Blocks club but many, many more about the phonebook. Seeing a way of providing useful information and a way to make a living it only took a few seconds to decide that the phonebook had more potential than the club. The Family Grapevine was born.
I left the Family Grapevine group in 2009 to concentrate on a local community magazine and on collecting information for a book on the “Lost pubs in Wells, Somerset”. It was great fun but I missed The Family Grapevine and the whole group; so when Sheridan decided to sell the East Surrey area, I jumped at the chance to get involved again. It is really lovely to be back and I have great plans to make The East Surrey Family Grapevine even more useful for families and for local businesses.
