Built on these values since 1995 Ancient Wisdom has grown to be an international giftware company with agents and company warehouses in Indonesia, China, India, Nepal and Morocco all focused on sourcing beautiful giftware.

In Europe there is an artisan aromatics factory in Yorkshire and distribution warehouses in Slovakia, Spain and the UK.

AW customers are gift traders with simular values, not big companies, not public companies, mostly family business.

Our suppliers are also mostly small family businesses, and AW retailers/customers are the same. At AW we join the circle. In 2020 over 50,000 business depend on AW.

The most surprising thing about AW is that it has been built without salespeople, without tradeshows without the hard sell.

The principle time and effort is put into finding, designing and making great products, not selling them, at least not beyond marketing and online sales. We like to think we humbley, openly offer our wares, and the right (good) people will find them.

While AW has grown, added new products and new customers every year since 1995, it has not been without blood, sweat and tears. Along the way there has been serious challenges, set backs and lessons to be learned. But through it all the support, feedback and suggestions of customers has guided and shaped AW.

The family of AW has endured and the key people at AW have grown up with the company. Some people at AW have 15 years plus service.

There have been plenty of phoenix moments at AW, where together the AW family have had to face disaster and come through it together.. more than a few time. There is a saying: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and the team at AW has very much been forged in the fire.

On the night of the 3rd July 2020 in the midst of the coronavirus challenge AW faced the abis. A problem beyond imagination.

. A fevered wind blew across the AW warehouse complex as Tomas, the director made a last check of the property, locking up for the night. June normally the quietest month of the year had turned out to be crazy busy as lockdown Britain clicked online for the type of products AW stocks... Soaps, essential oils, candles, gifts. The busiest month at AW by far 85% up on the previous June.

Tiered exhausted after a week of of 12 hour days, he barely registered a waste bin by the back entrance. Health and safety requirements were that bins be stored 5 meters away from the property, and the other twenty bins were in place, for some reason this one had been missed. It sat next to a storage container of grapeseed oil...that health and safety had insisted was stored outside.

6 hours later at 23.23 whisps of smoke began escaping the bin lid. At 23.35 a small fire appeared all captured on the outside security CCTV cameras. The investigation later discovered it was caused by face masks reacting with waste oils reacting in the humid heat of that strange night. Self combusting.

23.40 the fire died down and seemed to be ended. Then minutes later like a demon with a mind of its own it reignited and flared up. By 23.55 it was a small fireball, the nearby container of oil wafted by the unseasonably warm wind caught fire, the oil spilled and alight flooded across the car park and crucialy to the walls of the warehouse on fire.

On the inside of the warehouse was two IBC (1000 litres) of hand sanitiser fluid, ready to be made into useful coronavirus killing pocket sprays. When the fire ignited these it was the end.. An explosion blew off the doors windows and a massive fire ball rolled across the car park, melting the wall panels on nearby warehouses. And that fateful wind blew the fire through the 35,000 Square foot warehouse like a steel city furnace.

Impessively only 19 minutes after the fire started the fire engines arrived and started to pump water.. But it was too late, within the hour the warehouse was burning beyond saving. Millions of pounds of destruction in the space of less than two hours.

David, the founder of AW was stuck in lockdown in Bali. For the last few months he had been able to focus and develop products with time and space like never before working with Ringo the Indonesian agent. Counting the hidden blessings of the pandemic. It was a peaceful and productive corner of Ancient Wisdom.

It was 7am with the sun just rising in Bali that David's world was abruptly turned upside down.

In David's words..
"I was sleeping peacefully, just waking up to the dawn and birdsong of Bali when I became aware of my phone buzzing again and again. It was Tomas.. At this hour.. very strange. I will never forget that sight of opening my WhatsApp and seeing Tomas's face framed by fire, and the warehouse that was my life engulfed in flames behind him. Him saying tears streaming down his face.. David we are fucked, we are fucked.. it's over, its over.

Somehow I found the strength to say be strong we can manage this. Its not over I said not believing my own words.

After my mind is a blank, but neighbours reported hearing me howling like a wolf".

As it happened the Bali International Airport opened up up to expatriate flights that week. David returned home to help deal with the crisis.

More to come...