Welcome to the June issue of Professional Electricians Wholesaler. It creeps up on you doesn’t it? One day you’ve still got your heating on and the next you’re looking for your floor-standing fans to cool you down.

This time last year we were looking forward to the Euro 2024 football championships – where has that time gone? I say ‘we’ when my own real interest only extended as far as whether my team in the office sweepstake – Albania – could maybe win me some money. It turned out that outcome was about as likely as Danny Dyer being named as the new Pope.

So it’s safe to say that tournament didn’t exactly light a football spark in me that I never knew existed and I’ve been quite happy living in blissful ignorance of the sport since then. Well until recently, however, when former England footballer Stuart Pearce was announced as the new Patron of the Electrical Industries Charity (EIC). “Odd choice”, some people might think. “Why does an ex-professional footballer have any interest in our industry charity?” Well, as many of you will already know, Pearce started out as an electrician before signing his first professional football contract and he has continued to be a great ambassador for the electrical trade, speaking at industry events and highlighting how useful a working knowledge of a trade can be in life.

Reading up on him a little bit more, he did continue with his ‘second’ career even after turning professional, doing jobs for teammates and famously advertising his business in matchday programmes. Now, I’m not going to turn this column into a “How many of today’s millionaire players would do that?…” kind of rant – as I’m sure you can do that yourself!

It’s a fantastic appointment for the EIC as it continues its amazing support for people in the electrical industry who have suffered or are suffering personal hardships.

Stuart Pearce’s ‘sliding doors’ moment, in terms of his career at least, got me thinking about our own paths we’ve taken, and what our alternative lives might have looked like had we followed a different route. In the extended team in just our office alone we’ve got staff who have previously worked in other areas that could have led them in a different direction. One is a former motor racing journalist, another was a stage manager in the West End, while a third enjoyed a brief stint at the BBC with Top Gear, (no, they weren’t The Stig.)

Personally I wanted to be a fighter pilot – but I wasn’t allowed as I was too small!

Enjoy the issue!

– Tracey Rushton-Thorpe

Catch up on previous ‘Editor’s Viewpoint’ here