Linda toys with success

She started her own business in 2006 and it is going “from strength to strength” as she continues to work in Bexhill High nursery.

It was her practical knowledge of how children wanted to play and what child minders were expected to provide them with that gave her the idea to start her own company.

She saw the need for all sorts of ethnically diverse products and games as well as toys for special needs and set about finding them to sell online.

She is now based at Napier House at the Elva Centre off Ninfield Road from where she sends parcels to customers all around the world, items such as the hugely popular Living Puppets or little dollies in wheelchairs, or with crutches, especially created for youngsters with disability. Multiculturaltoys4u has already outgrown the unit it is in, and she is now planning to move to a larger one in a couple of weeks.

Linda left Bexhill High nursery for a while to work as a child minder and it was during this time she saw what was required by Ofsted and how hard it was to find different toys, games and equipment, as well as expensive.

She began trawling the internet for the better priced toys she knew child minders wanted and then sold them at a fair in Brighton which was when her business began to take off.

She now works at the nursery in the morning and then heads off to Napier House to take care of business, assisted by family members as well as partner Martin Smith. .

Linda commented: “I don’t want to give that up. I love the interaction with children, and I love going there in the morning and being with the children.

“It is hard though. It is getting to that state where I will need to give up the nursery, and that is a shame.”

A particular favourite on the catalogue is the soft squashy muppet show style Living Puppet, which are great particularly for children with special needs who can put their hands inside and really interact.

“They are things I think are fantastic,” she said.

“I get them from the UK and they are great. I am also impressed by the special needs play section, the multicultural play food such as sushi and even Mexican food, they are fantastic .

“I do love trying to find more things you can sell. And child minders don’t have the funding that schools and nurseries have so these things are needed because they are reasonably priced.”

She is pleased by the success of the company and considering her options for growth in the future, and said: “If you have got an idea you should go for it. I have had no help for this, I financed the whole thing on my own. I couldn’t get funding but I went for it anyway. It started in my back bedroom and grown to this, and it is exciting.

“I am so pleased now with what I am doing – I am selling on Amazon, on Ebay as well, and it is expanding – but I need more time in the day. I am always looking for new ideas, and I can actually approach manufacturers now and ask if they have something – for instance, an African Goldilocks and the Three Bears, or Goldilocks in a wheelchair. It’s nice to be able to be part of it all...but you have to start small, there are so many things out there you can probably sell, and you have to do the research. I don’t think of this as a job...I come in here and look at these smiley dolls and they put a smile on my face. It is not a job to me – it is almost supplying a service.”