An interview with
Alastair Moodie

Alastair Moodie talks to CANDY EVANS about inspiration, exploration and Force Ten tents in Vango’s 50th year

An interview with Vango founder Alastair Moodie

By CANDY EVANS

Posted on 13 July 2016

Q What inspired you to start Vango? A My family had been in the textile business for several generations so I took a degree in applied chemistry to become the manager of the factory, which dyed and proofed the materials that were sold on to Blacks of Greenock and other tent and tarpaulin manufacturers. We were middlemen between the fabric manufacturers and the users. But then the users started to get a little greedy and go direct to the mills to buy their own stuff, so my brother and I decided we should start to make tents. We took over an existing tent manufacturer in a district of Glasgow called Goven – James Mcllwraith and Co. I very soon found that my customers, particularly those south of the border, could neither spell nor pronounce Mcllwraith or – perhaps most importantly – address their cheques correctly. So I took the letters of the word ‘Goven’ and moved them around into the word ‘Vango’ and that’s how Vango began. We weren’t originally able to register the name because the registrar said there were seven families living in the London area with the same name. However, I finally managed to register Vango Scotland Ltd. Shortly afterwards I received a letter from a dear old lady in London saying: “Dear Mr Vango, I too am a Vango...” and I had to tell her we didn’t come from the same family, but from Goven. We wanted to have a catchline to go with the name and I happened to be in Sloane Square in London and there was an advert for the play A Man for All Seasons. I thought, how about ‘a tent for all seasons’. And that catchphrase was used many times over a period of 20 to 30 years.