Stone Mania, How It All Began
The story of Stone Mania began on a scorching hot day in Delhi in 2001. A visit to a street market and the random purchase of some jewellery led to a journey that has taken me around the world and given me more enjoyment than I could ever have imagined.
The last twenty years have been quite an adventure. It hasn't always been easy, but it's certainly been worthwhile.
Before Stone Mania
Growing up in a quiet north London suburb, I spent more time than I care to remember working with my dad in a south London market.
Market life, especially during the cold British winter, really wasn't for me. Ironically, many years later I found myself once again working in markets.
Having left school at sixteen with basic qualifications, I was offered a government-funded placement with Thomson Holidays, earning just £25 a week.
When the scheme ended after twelve months, I was offered a permanent job. I initially worked in Personnel, as it was once known, and then Customer Relations. I then moved overseas to work as a holiday rep.
By 1989, I'd had enough and returned home. For the next six months, I did temporary work while looking for another job.
Having seen an advertisement for Cabin Crew with a new airline called Virgin Atlantic, I applied. Less than three months later, I was operating my first flight to New York.
Exploring India
In 1999, a new route to Delhi was announced. The cabin crew initially had a five-day layover, so there was plenty of time to explore. I have great memories of those early days in India.
Despite the heat and dust, I spent every waking hour exploring the city, enjoying the sights, sounds and smells. I loved every minute I was there.
Street markets in India are noisy, vibrant, and exciting places with plenty to see and buy.
The Business Takes Shape
While shopping for gifts, I decided on some jewellery but ended up with far more than I needed. Once back in the UK, I gave some away and sold the rest on a new website called eBay.
With each subsequent trip to Delhi, I bought more silver and gemstone jewellery and before long, was buying from several places around the city.
What began as a bit of fun quickly became more serious. By the summer of 2002, I had created a company called Silver People, built a website, and had taken a stall in Camden Market.
Later that year, I changed the name to Stone Mania to reflect the style of jewellery I was buying.
The business took off, and within a few months, I was struggling to bring back enough stock.
In the months that followed, I transferred to a part-time contract. Doing fewer flights each month meant that I could now travel to India on my days off. That enabled me to spend more time buying jewellery and to take on an additional market.
Over the next few months, the style of jewellery I bought gradually changed. Quality became my priority, and I also wanted to offer a wider selection of gemstones.
In my spare time, I read as much as I could about rocks, minerals and gemstones. I used what I learned to write articles for my website. In 2006, content mattered to search engines just as much as it does today. A website offering interesting, trustworthy information has the potential to attract far more visitors.
Each link at the bottom of the homepage led to an article I had written.
My newfound interest in rocks and minerals was ironic, considering my grandfather and great-grandfather were both diamond polishers
For the first couple of years, the type of jewellery I bought varied, but that changed after I was introduced to a new supplier.
This company specialised in pendants and rings and used a wide variety of gemstones.
The pieces I bought from them initially sold like hotcakes, and before long, I was bringing home up to one hundred kilos of jewellery at a time.
Although Stone Mania was doing well, by 2004, I was bored with ready-made jewellery.
Having discovered that Jaipur is where most of the world's coloured gemstones are cut and polished, I headed there to see what I could find.
After a challenging few days, I found a company that cut and polished gemstones from raw rocks and minerals. From that point, everything changed.
I was also introduced to a small team of artisans who, I was told, could handcraft the jewellery that I wanted.
Instead of buying ready-made pieces, I could now select my own gemstones and have each ring or pendant made by hand. This also allowed me to use a much higher purity of silver than had been used for the ready-made jewellery.
Goodbye to Markets
The new style of jewellery I was having made was really too expensive for markets. Therefore, I decided to find a more suitable outlet.
In the early 2000s, shopping online, especially for jewellery, was in its infancy. When I recommended that people visit my website, many told me they could never buy jewellery online.
Within a few months, I was travelling the length and breadth of the UK, doing county shows and retail events, which was a completely different environment from what I was used to.
With effective advertising, traffic to my website increased, and before long, it was generating a decent amount of business.
Surviving the Credit Crunch
Taking a stand at the London Ideal Home Show in 2006 was a risk and significant expense. Thankfully, it paid off, and I returned for the next two years.
Although 2008 was profitable, takings were down, and there was talk of a looming credit crunch.
The atmosphere quickly changed, and consumers were being far more careful. Newspapers were full of doom and gloom, and while the events I was doing remained busy, people were not spending anywhere near as much.
Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, had warned that turmoil in world financial markets was taking a turn for the worse. There was the potential of a property downturn ahead and a "feeling of chill in the economic air". (Mail Online, 30 November 2007)
Stone Mania had come a long way since that first day in Camden Market, and I wasn't prepared to take risks. The looming credit crunch was predicted to be the most significant economic downturn in many years.
I was sitting on a large amount of stock and had paid deposits for regional shows for the next twelve months. If they weren't profitable, I would be in serious trouble.
Every day, I heard stories about another business that had gone under.
Despite being an incredibly difficult decision, I cancelled all future shows and decided to trade solely online through my own website.
Changing Direction
Over the next two years, many businesses I had worked alongside disappeared.
Although all my money was tied up in stock, my expenses were minimal, and my online business remained fairly steady.
It was Christmas 2010 before sales really began to pick up. As consumer confidence returned, I decided it was time to change direction once again. The jewellery market was saturated, prices were cheaper than ever, and it was incredibly difficult to remain competitive.
The time had come for me to explore something else and crystals, rocks, minerals and gemstones were the obvious choice.
A few weeks later, I was on my way to Cape Town.
Crystals, Rocks, Minerals and Gemstones
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By 2012, I was once again trading in St. Albans market, but the high street had changed significantly. Many shops that had been there for years had closed down and been replaced with charity and discount stores.
It had always been difficult to get a place in this market, especially as a new trader, but that was no longer the case. On some Saturdays, there were plenty of empty stalls, which was, at one time, unheard of.
What had once been a large, bustling street market was now smaller and considerably quieter. Everything revolved around price, which meant the pendants in my collection were no longer as popular as they once were.
However, the crystals, rocks and minerals attracted considerable attention and sold well.
Christmas 2015 was one of the quietest I had ever known. There had been a surge in new traders in the market, most of whom were selling cheap imported products.
In the run-up to Christmas, we were trading every day, yet at times, the entire street was deserted.
Shopping habits were finally beginning to change, and most of my business was being done online through the Stone Mania website.
In 2016, the market was taken over by new management, and despite having been run in the same way for many, many years, they were intent on change.
Lack of experience and failure to engage with stallholders meant that new ideas didn't work and were not well-received.
The Day the Stall Collapsed
On a cold and very wet February afternoon, while serving customers, our entire stall suddenly tipped over backwards.
In this street market, each block was made up of six stalls attached to one another, stabilised by horizontal iron bars that also supported the countertops. Traders selling clothes often removed these bars so customers could walk through from either side. It was fine with one or two stalls, but our neighbours had done it with four in a block of six, which left the entire unit unstable.
As they started packing away and removing the merchandise hanging at the front of their stalls, rainwater that had collected in the back section of the overhead tarpaulins caused the block to become unbalanced. Unlike us, they hadn't been draining it during the day, so as the front became lighter, the entire block tipped over backwards.
The result was absolute carnage, and it was a miracle that nobody was hurt.
My entire stock was thrown across the pavement. Hundreds of tumbled stones and expensive gemstone pendants fell into a street drain. Beautiful stone spheres rolled across the road, and many natural crystals and minerals broke.
The market management refused to take responsibility and told me to sue my neighbours. I never returned to St Albans market and sued the council for enough money to replace my stock.
On a happier note, I spent a wonderful week in Cape Town and had a few amazing days at the Tucson Mineral Show in Arizona. By the end of both trips, my warehouse was once again bursting with amazing crystals, rocks, minerals and gemstones.
Following that horrendous day, I decided to say goodbye to market life for the third time in my life. Stone Mania now only trades online.
Stone Mania Today
Although we still have a small collection of pendants and rings, we no longer deal in jewellery. Stone Mania now focuses on crystals, rocks, minerals and gemstones.
Over the last twenty years I've learned a great deal about running a business and navigating difficult times. Covid presented a new set of challenges for me personally.
In August 2020, after thirty years with the airline, the last nineteen as an Inflight Manager, I was made redundant. The final two years of my employment were the most difficult of my working life.
I'm currently writing a book about what happened, which I hope to publish shortly.
It began with a flight on Christmas Eve 2018, after which I wrote developmental feedback about a crew member, a former police officer, who had been with the company for eleven months. Four weeks later, he raised a grievance against me. What followed was an investigation, disciplinary proceedings, an appeal, and a second grievance before the first process had concluded.
Within eighteen months, after thirty years with the company, an immaculate work record, and consistently being told that I was a high-performing employee, I received a final written warning for gross misconduct. A second grievance investigation followed before the first had even been completed. The sanction was a written warning.
When the airline announced redundancies due to cutbacks in response to the pandemic, I was informed that I had been selected because my performance fell below company expectations.
A story like this is not easy to tell. The legal implications are considerable, particularly when it involves such an influential company. For that reason, the book is built around the documentary record: the feedback I wrote, the employee's complaint, my responses, multiple witness statements, meeting minutes, photographs, internal correspondence, and written findings. The evidence speaks for itself.
This was far more than a workplace dispute. Over the course of twenty-one months, I lost my career, suffered significant and lasting damage to my mental health, and was put through an ordeal that almost cost me my life.
Thank you for reading my story.
Article Photos
The first photo in this article was taken in 2002 on one of my first trading days in Camden Market. The second was taken around 1996 in Upper Class on a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747.
The shop in India is the first place where I bought jewellery specifically to sell.
The next photos are of my first two websites and early company logos. They're followed by my stall in St Albans Market (the first time around) and choosing gemstones in Jaipur, India.
My stall in three different county shows and the London Ideal Home Show are next, followed by my first buying trip to Cape Town.
The final photo was taken in St Albans market in 2016.
Most images are clickable and redirect to the original photo.
