Hattons Originals RJD-Book001 "What they don't teach you in Harvard Model Railway university" by Richard Davies, Hattons Model Railways

As a 8-year old boy I was a customer of HattonGÇÖs, spending hours devouring their glorious spreads in my dads monthly subscription copy of Railway Modeller magazine. The occasional foray to Smithdown Road was made, often in the lead-up to Christmas or following a birthday. I was always intrigued by the ringing phones and what was going on behind the scenes.

In 1999, then aged 21, and having studied Computer Science at Liverpool University, I approached HattonGÇÖs and asked if theyGÇÖd let me build them a website. They relished the proposal, given customers (particularly ones living abroad) had already been asking us to establish a web presence

Nearly 20 years on, HattonGÇÖs are a dramatically different prospect from the dusty, local store we used to be. My story, written with award-winning Mike Elliston, describes how we grew, and the challenges we faced, including the fight-back after the tragic death of our Managing Director, Keith Hatton, in September 2008

In March 2018 we gained another accolade, being recognised as being an IRUK Top 500 retailer, and in typical HattonGÇÖs fashion, our response was to say GÇ£Not good enough, need to get into the Top 150GǪGÇ¥