I’m Lisa Grainger and I own LDK Print & Embroidery. I formed my company in 1995 after I left my job as a coach driver.

In 1998 me, my husband Dave, and our eldest daughter Kim, went on our first narrowboat holiday. I was pregnant with our second child, so we only went for one week, but we enjoyed ourselves that much that we became hooked. So, for the next couple of years, we hired. But instead of just having one week, we always went for 3 weeks.

In 2003, we sourced a boat builder, sold our house and, in December 2004, moved onto our brand new bespoke 70ft narrowboat. We named our boat Caitlin Jayne after our second daughter, because LDK stands for Lisa, Dave & Kimberley.

I ran my land-based business from a small shop which was only a 5 min walk away from our mooring. So, after being granted permission from British Waterways to have a small “A” Board on the roof of our boat so that I could advertise my business, my workload grew.

At this point I never thought about trading from our boat, but after 4 years, I got a letter from BW, basically saying I had been reported for trading from our boat when I didn’t have a Roving Traders’ licence. This got us thinking, maybe we could trade from our boat. After we researched what was needed to legally trade, we applied for the Roving Traders’ licence and the extra business insurance, and we started to trade in 2017.

In 2018 we invested in our second Barudan 15 needle embroidery machine that was bespoke made to fit in our boat. So now our services include embroidery or printing to clothing and personalised gifts, 3D printed and engraved products. I have a unit in Burton on Trent where my business is based, but take some of the equipment on board our narrowboat and trade from the canal at various floating markets and boat festivals in the summer.

This has proved to be a successful outlet especially for giftware where, back at our unit, there is minimal footfall. Also, floating markets/events is a way of advertising my business by trading on the canal and it has also proved to be successful in providing aftersales work after the event has finished and we have returned back to base.