The Fathers of invention

What A nice surprise to get a mention under the heading Father of Invention…

”Most of us spend hours devising new ways to get around old problems. It’s a kind of therapy. More often than not our solutions travel no further than our own workshops, at best the tips pages of magazines. But from time to time eureka moments hit woodworkers four-square between the ear defenders, and they come up with an idea that’s worth developing, manufacturing and selling.

More like a slowly brightening low-energy bulb than a sudden flash, it happened to Martin Godfrey when, in 1983, he lent his router to a friend. “I had a little workshop and was thinking of making toys,” Martin recalls. “My friend inverted the router in a bench, and I began thinking that it doesn’t do much upside down. If it was the right way up, I thought, you could pull it forwards, and then I wondered if you could have a pointer on the left which a router would copy on the right.” The WoodRat was borne. “They say necessity is the mother of invention. For me it’s idle moments that create the best ideas. When you have an idea no one’s had before it’s a surprise; you don’t know where it’s come from. Suddenly you have an idea no one really wants because they’ve got on for years without it.”