AN ANDOVER couple whose jobs were hit hard by the pandemic are celebrating the successful expansion of their lockdown-born handcrafted home fragrance business.

Tom Holman, 36, and Paul Moorhouse, 47, decided to take the plunge and set up Hampshire Candles in March 2020, amidst worries about how they were going to make ends meet.

Tom, who previously worked as cabin crew for British Airways, was furloughed from the end of January 2020, and quickly started looking for a new challenge.

“The travel industry got hit first. For the first month it was great, it was like a holiday! But the novelty soon wore off,” he told the Advertiser.

“I had always dabbled in home fragrances, for personal use really, but during lockdown I sent a few to friends and family, and then listed a few bits on Ebay and I got some great feedback from that.”

Meanwhile, Paul, who works in the TV and events sectors, was also struggling to get work.

Tom continued: “All of his events were cancelled as well, so we thought, hang on a minute, we need to have a proper go at this. Because we needed to survive Covid, and no one knew how long it was going to go on for.

“We started with around 10 fragrances, and now we have more than 70! We have now expanded our range and sell reed diffusers, refills, room sprays, wax melt burners and offer wholesale and a monthly subscription box service.”

The couple started up their business from home at Augusta Park, in Andover, and soon saw that the market for their products was there.

They recently moved to a new, much larger space, at Eastover Farm in Abbotts Ann, and are already preparing for the busy Winter period.

“If Christmas this year is going to be anything like Christmas last year, I said we can’t do that again! The new unit means we can make so much more.”

During the quieter summer period, the couple travelled round various events to help get their name out, including the Wiltshire Show, Hampshire SHow, and makers’ markets in Romsey and the New Forest.

Around three months ago, Tom resigned from his job at BA, and has plans to hire staff in the future to help them to further expand the business.

“It has to work now!” Tom said with a laugh.

“The response has really surprised me. It's a very saturated market, because a lot of people found candle-making as a bit of a relaxant over the course of the Covid period.

“But now that the shops are opening and people are going back to work and things like that, people are still using wax melts and things like that. Especially now going into winter.

“Christmas has already kind of started for us - the unit literally smells like Santa’s workshop!”

Looking back on the past eighteen months, Tom says that despite the tragedies of COvid, he feels its been the making of him.

“It’s definitely made me happier,” he said.

“The thought of having to get up at 4am to go to Heathrow, I wouldn’t want to do that again! The world has changed now, and [cabin crew[] isn’t the job that I signed up for anymore. Now, I’m always on UK time!”

He added: “There has been so much negative about Covid, but it has also brought out the best in a lot of people.

“It’s absolutely destroyed some people and sadly lives have been lost. But, for me, as much as at the start it was stressful, worrying how we would cope financially, I am so much happier now.”