2 Freebournes Court, Newland Street, Witham Essex CM8
Andrew Braybrook and Steve Turner, who founded Graftgold, had both written an outstanding selection of games for the C64 and ZX Spectrum and were well known before 1987. It seems odd their company was not but Graftgold doesn't begin to create an identity of its own until the company moves away from Hewson Consultants, who had published all their games to date. There isn't necessarily anything sinister in this, it was probably an arrangement which suited both companies. Hewson benefit by being seen to have a hands on role in the development of well regarded games while Graftgold can develop them in a more low pressure environment. It's also not the case that the consumers weren't interested in the fine detail of who was responsible for what. CRASH and ZZAP64 both treated programmers like pop stars and were diligent about naming game authors, and happy to credit developers when appropriate. Independent developers Denton Designs, and Rare both get mentioned in reviews and articles but Graftgold remains largely invisible. The problem is, a low profile makes it more difficult to track down Graftgold's address and the whole raison d'etre of this blog is to find, visit, and photograph those SSIs (Software Sites of Interest). Hewson Consultants' address, 56b Milton Trading Estate Abingdon, is all over the company's adverts and instruction manuals for Graftgold games, but you can look in vain for a mention of the developer itself beyond a single line credit. Fortunately I have an advantage in this treasure hunt. The awesome power of inside knowledge!
I lived in Witham. It's a small unregarded Essex town. It's more famous now as the birthplace of Olly Murs than the home of Quazatron and Richard Leadbetter, who I was at school with before he went to London to climb the EMAP computer magazine empire, and work on COMPUTER & VIDEO GAMES, MEAN MACHINES, and SEGA SATURN MAGAZINE, and do whatever he does now at Digital Foundry to earn a living. Going to school with Richard was the first and most tenuous of my three Titanic-like grazes along the side of the UK gaming industry, although in this metaphor I'm not sure if I'm the iceberg or the ship. But I digress.
At the far end of Witham, above a chip shop, was a hairdresser which I patronised as a surly teen because they didn't try to talk to me while I was getting my hair cut. One day around 1990 I noticed the next door along carried a small plaque next to it, and the plaque read "Graftgold". The idea that such a well regarded developer was based next door to where I got my hair cut was incongruous but I couldn't do a lot with the information. It seemed unlikely they'd want to talk about the possibility of a Spectrum version of Gribbly's Day Out, and they probably wouldn't be interested in distributing my BASIC programme Black Square Moves Around The Screen Controlled by a Joystick (working title). Finding Graftgold's office did at least make sense of a throwaway remark from Richard Leadbetter a couple of years previously when he talked about attending a local computer club and letting down the tyres on Steve Turner or Andrew Braybrook's car*; alas, I can no longer remember whose car it was, time has ravaged my memory (but fortunately not my youthful good looks). The plan when I started this blog was to amaze all and sundry by including Graftgold among the companies covered, and explain how I knew where they were based via these charming teenage anecdotes. Typically, I've subsequently found all the information and more is available for free on the internet which renders the whole thing less exclusive than I'd hoped.
Dickens House, 3/5
Guithhavon Street, Witham, CM8
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Steve Turner's Graftgold website gives a thorough history of the company from its foundation in 1985 using royalties from earlier games. Wikipedia confuses the situation by lumping Steve Turner's three pre-1985 games into the mix and claiming the company was formed in 1983 but the Graftgold website is clear the first two games were Paradroid and, on the Spectrum, Avalon (probably the 1984 original rather than the 1985 sequel Dragontorc of Avalon). Graftgold was run "out of Steve's dining room," in the early days, according to Andrew Braybook in THE ONE magazine, issue 70 (July 1994 page 22). The company didn't move into its first real office until 1987 after it doubled in size to four staff with the addition of John Cumming and Dominic Robinson. Dickens House is a nice looking Georgian building opposite a car park in the middle of Witham. It's plainly not this first office which was "above a greengrocers in Witham". The Companies House report on Graftgold omits the first two years of operation, for some reason, so there's no way to know if Dickens House was the first registered address. If it was, it was probably a business address provided by another company, as Johnson Murkett & Hurst did for Rare in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, while Graftgold's actual office was elsewhere in the town.
2 Freebournes Court Newland Street, Witham Essex CM8
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| February 2022 |
Graftold moved to Freebournes Court in 1992. Now, this is where things get confusing for me. I assumed 2 Freebournes Court was the office-next-door-to-the-barber's I remembered. It isn't. Freebournes Court itself is a late seventies/early eighties row of brick buildings set back from the main road and facing a desolate plaza surrounded by raised brick flower beds which get in the way when you are trying to take a wide shot.
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| February 2022 |
This is the view of the entrance to the plaza in front of Freebournes Court, the steps down are just to the right of frame by the tree. The door at the corner of the white building is the steps up to the previously mentioned hairdressers; called Sweeney's Barbers. Despite what I've written above, there is no "door next to it." What's going on? I don't know. Is it possible this was the location of Graftgold's first office? No, unfortunately not. I've since discovered this blog by Steve Turner in which he locates the "above a greengrocers" office with depressing accuracy. "It was a couple of
rooms above a greengrocers, now a flower shop opposite the George
public house." That would be this building here, which I wish I'd known about prior to my return to Witham because I walked right past it. Twice. Is it possible there was a fourth, unknown office? Well yes. I can sit here speculating about, and inventing, unknown offices all day but it makes me sound unhinged. Is it possible I saw the Graftgold plaque elsewhere in Witham and have conflated two memories and thus am wrong about this? I don't have time to sit here all day answering your questions.
Leaving all this aside, Companies House formally records the change of address to 2 Freebournes Court as 16th January 1992, but this job advert from NEW COMPUTER EXPRESS issue 134 (1st June 1991 page 44) shows they were in the office a year earlier.
8 Freebournes Court Newland Street, Witham Essex CM8
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| February 2022 |
A short move to the other end of Freebournes Court followed in 1993. The same year Mobygames lists five Graftgold games released, The Ottifants,
Superman: The Man of Steel, Soldiers of Fortune, Uridium 2, and Mick &
Mack as the Global Gladiators but lean times were coming. The Graftgold website makes for gloomy reading as Steve Turner describes how the company bounced between different publishers while projects fell through, against a background of spiralling development costs. Graftgold's last game International Moto X was published in 1996 and the company was wound up in 1998; although the liquidation process took another six years and was completed in 2004. Jester Interactive acquired the rights to Graftgold's games, as part of the liquidation process, and still hold them at the time of writing.
*I should protect my legal standing by clarifying I don't recall Richard Leadbetter directly admitting liability for letting down the tyres of a respected programmer. He may have been part of a joint enterprise to do so, or he may have been reporting the activities of unspecified others. I apologise for any misunderstanding.
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