People

Ben

since hi school days Ben has had a abiding passion for climbing and this has determinded his working life. His career has been very varied. He started work as a shop assistant at the then premier outdoor shop in London "Black's of Greenock". Very soon rising to become assistant manager. After serving his apprentership in the outdoor trade, and finding a wonderful house in north Wales, it was decided to move out of London and start our own company.
Wintergear was born, using the then new fabric 'Gortex' to make climbing bivouac sacks. This led onto tents and Wintergear's designs are still current even after 30 years (Quasar for instance). Wanting to move on he sold the tent designs to Wild Country, and for several years ran a small mail order business making and selling otdoor clothing. The resession at the end of the 80's put paid to that.
So a career change was made to computing, designing and coding software. Having first hand experience at running compaines, it was easy for Ben to understand the types of processes businesses needed. By 2000 it was obvious that the web was going to very important, and since then he has been producing web applications. Working for companies like Channel 4, Jet2.com, and the DTI.

Marion

Marion Ben's wife and partner. She started her career as a apprentice couture dressmaker, working for companies such as Harvey Nicholls, and Harrods, before moving to a small corture dressmaker Charles Hunter.
When Wintergear started this skill was put to good use, training, running, and inspiring the workforce to produce the very best products. Her other great passions are climbing and gardening.

Tom

Tom was Ben's Father.
Tom had strong views on many things, and wrote with humour and passion.   He wrote books and articles about war and history and politics.   His letters and poems range over love and pain, courage, disappointment and anger.
The biography (see below) describes the life of this complex, charismatic, much-loved man, with his ideas, his convictions, his friends and family, his enemies, his achievements, his hopes, and his mistakes.   All this is illustrated in the book with many quotations, both from Tom's own writing, and from contemporary writing about him.
Tom made important contributions to several events of the first half of the twentieth century: for example to the General Strike, the Spanish Civil War, the creation of the Home Guard, and of the Communist Party in Great Britain.  
The Book!
The Last English Revolutionary, a biography of Tom Wintringham, has now been written by Hugh Purcell.   It was published by Sutton Publishing in September 2004.   ISBN 0-7509-3080-2