From Uptown Funk to Up & Over

My love affair with garage doors (by Mrs Elite GD)

I have to admit when I was growing up I didn’t dream of garage doors. My bedroom walls were adorned with various posters from Smash Hits as opposed to a timber side hinged in base coat stain.

I always wanted to be a dancer. Not a graceful, elegant ballerina type dancer, oh no, I had visions of me doing the locomotion with Kylie and drove my mother bonkers ‘teaching’ myself the introductory dance sequence in Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation music video.

To make my parents even prouder I ditched my plans for psychology, sociology and English a-levels and decided a BTEC in Performing Arts was for me! (They were surprisingly understanding). But it soon became apparent that my dream of dancing on Top of the Pops wasn’t to be and my dancing abilities were limited to Kudos on student night (Hooch was £1 a bottle).

So I got a ‘proper job’, in an office, and stumbled from one office to another and in 2002 landed at Cardale Garage Doors in Brackley. My first job with a manufacturing company it was quite an eye opener and I really enjoyed walking through the factory, the roar of the machines, the smell, the ‘doing’. Watching the garage doors being created, it was a real live product, something you could touch and hold, tangible. Having worked in service industries I hadn’t seen that before. And I liked it.

Fast forward nine years, I had moved away, was working in the NHS, separated, with two small children when a colleague from Cardale popped up on social media. Mark still worked at Cardale, now manufacturing in Luton, we met up, we got married and Mark made the decision that after over 20 years of working for the manufacturer it was time to do something a little different.

Elite Garage Doors was born and within a few months I had left my job with the NHS and joined Mark, working together supplying, installing and repairing garage doors.

It’s surprising how excited I can now get over a sectional in golden oak. I love talking to customers about our products. The range is vast, most customers when they first approach us have no idea just how much choice is available to them. The colour range has expanded, the roller doors have become much more affordable, steel doors that look like timber, doors that bounce back when knocked and there are now solar panels to power your motor!

I’ve fallen in love with garage doors. They found me my husband and my own company, they pay the mortgage. I’m my own boss (don’t tell Mark) and I get to spend time with my children when they need me. Garage doors might not sound very exciting or sexy but they mean the world to me. As my four year old said just last week ‘garage doors, garage doors, it’s all about the garage doors’ and yes, yes it is.

As for the dancing, I save that for holidays with the kids. I do a mean Choo Choo Wa (on your marks, stretch your arms, clench your fists, thumbs up, choo choo wa choo choo wa choo choo wa wa wa…;)