Meet the Team

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Tony Buckingham   Chairman

With over 30 years experience, Tony is recognised worldwide as a leading authority on first day and commemorative covers. He was the first winner of the prestigious Rowland Hill Award for his contribution to philately. Together with Cath, Tony founded and ran Benham (the UK’s largest cover publisher) until he sold the company in 1997. He edited Collect FDC for nearly 20 years and has served on the Philatelic Trade Society Council. He is a regular contributor to Stamp Magazine, Gibbons Stamp Monthly and other leading collectables publications. He has also written two murder stories (all he needs is a good editor!). Outside work, he enjoys cricket, jazz, cooking and wine. More

Brian Austin   Head of Covers & Buying

Brian deals with the older British First Day Covers at Buckingham Covers. He started in stamps in the summer of 1985 and has been with us since 2002, so he's been in the trade for 25 years. Brian deals with the selling of the older issues via our various magazines, specialist lists, eBay and your wants lists. He also deals with the buying and valuation side and is always available for any advice you require on an area of cover collecting. You may be thinking about starting to collect or there may be a cover you may be after or have even found. We can't show our entire stock but if there is something you are particularly after Brian may know where there is one! He is happily married with two smallish children (Ella and Ben) and lives in Folkestone. His interests away from covers include 'The' Arsenal, Children's Taxi Driver, his allotment (don't mention the slugs!) and Music (he's happiest spending his summer sitting in a field listening to a Zimbabwean guitar band!).

Sue Knox   Customer Service Manager

Professional Member, the Institute of Customer Service

Sue has been working here since June 2005, having spent many years in customer service. She is our Customer Service Manager - which means Sue is in charge of making sure you're well looked after on a day-to-day basis! As well as processing your your orders through the post and online, answering your phone calls and emails and putting your orders together, Sue also spends her days trying to make our customer service better and sorting out any problems. Outside work, Sue enjoys socialising, pub quizzes, shopping, swimming and has a tortoise called Speedy!

 

Sarah Bush   Customer Service Team and Flexi-Pay

Professional Member, the Institute of Customer Service

Sarah is one of our Customer Service team, who looks after you. She processes your orders through the post and online, answers your phone calls and emails and puts your orders together. Sarah also manages our FlexiPay service, which allows you to spread payments interest-free. She joined Buckingham Covers after 8 years at Benham, during which time she spent 5 years in Customer Care and 18 months in Production. Sarah lives in Folkestone with her partner Ian (another ex-Benham employee) but there are no children (unless you count Ian!). Interests are varied - as diverse as pub quizzes, amateur dramatics, choral (and occasional karaoke) singing and family history. Sarah also enjoys the usual pursuits of reading, films (she's a big James Bond fan) and music and is happy either clubbing or listening to African drums in a field. She's also recently re-discovered Dr. Who and describes herself as a 'born-again fan'.

Beth Williams-Brazier   Customer Service Team

Professional Member, the Institute of Customer Service

The newest member of the Customer Services team, having joined Buckingham Covers in April 08, Beth processes your orders through the post and via the website and takes your calls. Beth lives in Folkestone with her husband, Dan, her beautiful son Rhys, who is 6 and their four goldfish, whose names change too often to remember! When Beth is not busy getting excited about selling rare and expensive first day covers, she works hard at her other full time jobs of Mum and Domestic Goddess. Beth has recently discovered she can cook and, much to Dan's delight, is becoming an expert at pies! She also likes to make pieces of art using textiles and mixed media and loves printing. When Beth gets any spare time, which is not often, she likes to read and sleep!

Ellie Hopkins Sales Director

Professional Member, the Institute of Customer Service & ultimately responsible for the service you recieve

Ellie is Sales Director of Buckingham Covers. She is responsible for our websites and online marketing, press releases, cover clubs, customer service, HR and training. She's also Mum to 3 year old Caitlin and currently brewing a baby number 2 (bump gets bigger daily!). Working closely with Tony requires a huge amount of energy (supplied by eating far too much sugar) and excellent concentration skills as projects get bigger and more complicated by the moment! Ellie has an MA in English Literature from The University of Edinburgh and, before being lured into the world of covers, was a Researcher at Saxton Bampfylde Hever, the headhunters in Westminster, London. Outside work, she runs a small zoo (!) consisting of Rolo Cat, 2 guinea pigs, 2 bunnies and a horse. Her main love is spending time with husband, Tom and her family - but when she has time, she also likes reading about history, aerobics, running and horse riding.

Tracey Spratley   Production Manager

Tracey is Production Manager for Buckingham Covers. She coordinates the production of all new covers, which means never being far away from a deadline! She really enjoys working with Tony and loves to see the covers develop from the ideas stage into finished products. Before joining Internet Stamps in 2001, she worked for Benham and prior to this was a pupil at the local girls grammar school. Tracey lives in Hythe with her husband Sean. Outside of work, she enjoys reading, shopping, rollerblading, socialising and shopping. Oh, did we mention, she likes shopping?

 

Cath Buckingham   Design Director

Cath Buckingham is one of the world’s leading cover designers and winner of 8 Royal Mail awards for cover design and 3 Fasson Awards for design and printing. Cath designs all Buckingham Covers, including the envelope, the postmarks and all our Cinderella stamps. Cath does all her own picture research, working with top artists to source the best illustrations for each cover. Outside work, Cath enjoys horse-riding, going to the gym and making delicious cakes (the first two counteract the last!). She has two noisy cats, sings in a choir and loves spending time with her family (Tony, Ellie and Tom). More

Nikki Wright   Design Team Manager

Nikki Wright is our design team manager. She has worked with Buckingham Covers for five years now and plays a key role in putting together all our magazines, especially Cover Collector and Cover Lover. She also designs many of our advertisements and readers' offers. Nikki has started to design our smiler sheets (one of which was our Paddington sheet), which she is really enjoying. Previously, she worked for a publishing company in Maidstone called Pantek Arts. Nikki lives in Walderslade with fiance, Ben. She has a dog called Ellie, and her newest addition to the family her daughter Jazmin. She loves to collect Piglet (from Winnie the Pooh) memorabilia. She also enjoys bowling as she has her own purple glittery ball.

Clair Palmer   Designer

Clair studied a Fine Art Degree at Kent Institute of Art and Design in Canterbury graduating in 1999, moving straight into the design and print industry where she has remained. Clair has been involved in reprographics for some major magazines before becoming a designer/picture editor for Saga Holidays and then a researcher for a picture library based in Maidstone. Clair joined Buckingham Covers in October 2006. Her roles for the company include working on all our publications as well as reader offers and adverts, more recently Clair has started to design covers and postmarks including some of the recent James Bond covers. Clair lives in River, near Dover with new husband Andy and her two cats Lily and Oscar. She is a keen painter and photographer, recently gaining an A* in GCSE Photography at college. Clair also tries to keep fit by reguarly attending the gym and by swimming. She also enjoys cycling and walking. Clair is also a big Spurs Fan.

Isobel Fraser Underhill   Designer

Born in Ottawa Canada, Isobel has lived in England since 1985 where she grew up in Surrey. In 1993 she started at the boarding school Christ's Hospital where she did her GCSE's and A-Levels. She graduated with a BA Hons in Visual Design and Advertising from the Universty of Kent in 2005. Having graduated she got a job at a printers in Ashford where she worked until she made the move to Buckingham Covers in 2006. Here she designs a lot of our Rail Club covers and postmarks amongst other new issue covers, and also helps with the publications. Recently she has started to work on the web design of some our new specialist sites. Outside of work she enjoys reading anything about ancient Rome, sketching, visiting museumsand enjoying anything Formula 1.

Gina Chantler   Trade & Despatch Co-ordinator

Professional Member, the Institute of Customer Service

Gina started with Buckingham Covers in July 2000, having previously worked for Benham. She looks after all our wholesale accounts, manages our stock, puts together the daily invoice run and helps the production team. Gina has 2.4 children (James and Kirsty) and a husband, Gary. They have celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary this year! When not doing household duties, she likes walking, dancing classes meeting with friends for nights in or out but, most of all, SHOPPING!

Vi Arnold   Despatch

Vi works in the Post Room and is kept extremely busy all day, checking orders and dealing with specific postal requests. She previously worked for a book publishing company for 34 years until retirement as an invoice and order clerk plus postal dept duties. Vi is married with one son and grandson and for many years enjoyed Ballroom & Latin dancing with her husband. She enjoys working here as everyone gets on well together and it is a friendly company to work for.

Dawn Caird   Production Assistant

Dawn works with Tracey in the production of covers. She was a Buckingham Covers outworker, sticking stamps on covers etc, for us for a few years and she joined the team in February 2007 after Tracey asked her very nicely. Previously she worked for an insurance broker for 20 years and decided she needed a change. Educated in Dubai and Kent (!), she lives on the Romney Marsh with her husband Mark, two sons and one mad dog called Dylan. Her favourite hobby is gardening if Dylan lets her in it.

 

Emma Whyte   PA to the Chairman

Before she had her daughter in 2003, Emma ran the production of all the new issue covers. Nowadays, she has her work cut out trying to keep control of the Buckingham Clubs, producing many of our email newsletters and working with Tony many different projects! An ex-Benham employee, her working life has been dedicated to covers and she's worked in pretty much every area! She joined Tony's team in 1996 in Benham's post room and moved to Buckingham Covers in 2000. Outside work, Emma lives with her husband and their two little girls, Bethany and Holly. She loves being a mum, and enjoys paper crafting, reading & writing when she has the time. Her biggest ambition is to have a book published one day. Emma is Tracey's big sister!

Peter Rawles   IT Director

Peter grew up in the South East and, despite various forays into other parts of the country, notably University where, unfortunately, he found rowing to be more fun than study, then working for Dunlop as a trainee engineer, he found the allure of the Wealden woodlands too attractive and returned here after a 6 month trip abroad. He ‘does’ the IT and is currently the man to blame if something goes wrong on the computer side of things. Among other companies, he has worked for BAA where, hopefully, some of his software correctly informs passengers the times of their flights, and CMG, where he worked on projects for British Gas and the MoD. When he’s not replacing old bugs in the computer system with new and different ones, he enjoys playing golf and walking through those woods with his wife Janet, their three boys (now at an age when they don’t really want to come with him) and fellow ramblers.

Janet Ewins   Finance Director

Janet is Queen of our Books and keeps everyone in order (and we mean everyone). She has had the good (or bad) fortune to be involved with Tony Buckingham for much of her life. He taught her at primary school for 2 years (where Tony says she was a fantastic runner, netball player and star of the school play). She joined Benham after leaving school and stayed there for 19 years before rejoining Tony again in 2000 here at Buckingham Covers. Janet lives locally with her husband, Martin and has three boys, Jack, Charlie and Harry. She would love to have hobbies of her own but for now enjoys supporting her children with their football and other activities. Gina is her twin sister!