Managing Director of BISON, Mark Bidewell, recounts his mother Melanie’s everlasting influence on the company.
For the first two years of my life, my mother Melanie ran a print business from a caravan.
Literally!
Inside that caravan sat an IBM 72 Selectric Composer, one of the early computerised typesetting machines transforming the print industry.
This was the 1970s.
Melanie’s career began in the export office, then Dad’s secretary at William Nash Paper Mill in Orpington, where they met.
Later married, company policy meant Melanie had to move on, so she joined Scarbutts Printers just as the industry was transitioning to computerised systems. To their credit they trained her on one of the early IBM machines.
She later moved to Clarke Clement & Hughes, a respected brand and marketing agency in Maidstone that produced work at national level including Royal Mail postage stamps.
By a strange twist of fate their offices were two doors away from the building that would become BISON HOUSE around ten years later.
In 1975 my parents moved to Egerton, where they built what is still our family home today.
And I mean built.
For the first two years of my life we lived in a mobile home while the house was constructed by hand. At the same time they farmed sheep while my Dad travelled the world doing business.
Meanwhile Melanie kept working.
That IBM typesetting machine was moved into the caravan so she could continue producing work.
It was during this time she created ROMAR, named after her two sons Ross and Mark, helping local businesses with typesetting, design and print through a nearby printer called Stedmans.
I now see Melanie was essentially running a small creative print service from the dining table.
Growing up I watched it all.
Trips to the printers.
Collating thousands of sheets around the dining room table.
Stapling and folding booklets for a local nursery.
Looking back I realise it was the foundation of everything.
When I later came into the business, very much with the mindset of “the answer’s yes, what’s the question”, Melanie was the quiet backbone supporting the diversification that helped shape MADE BY BISON into what it is today.
From a stationery and copy shop to the brand, print and signage business we now run helping companies stand out in crowded markets.
When people talk about the fifty year story of MADE BY BISON they often talk about my Dad. And rightly so.
But the backbone was always Melanie.
Her grit, determination and resilience made far more possible than she will ever take credit for.
Today I feel incredibly lucky my children get to spend time with their grandparents and learn those same lessons.
For me International Womens Day is about recognising people like Melanie.
The quiet grafters.
The backbone.
The ones who do not seek recognition but without whom everything would fall over.
Melanie, thank you. You are my hero.
And yes I know you will be cringing reading this.
Happy International Women’s Day.
Behind most family businesses there is someone quietly holding everything together.
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