My first dealing with ACME whistles was in the 1970's. I was training as an accountant and briefly was one of their auditors. The only story I rember from then was a TV series with Eric Sykes. a sketch had eric on the railway and his lines included that he was blowing his ACME Thunderer. The factory were so impresseed they sent him a case of champaign. his response was wait till next week and his was a football referee, again he said he was blowing his ACME Thunderer and another case of champagne was duly sent. As a business, 15 years ago we ran sports shops and so bought ACME whistles. I sold my retail interests but kept the small Refkit and Teamkit started to sell football kits by mail order so we incorporated a small range of ACME whistles. In 2004 Teamkit/Refkit were invited to the NEC in support of Casio watches (we are wholesalers of Casio watches). SimonTopman, ACME's MD was due to join us bringing a range of whistles. At 8am he was a no show and when he finally arrived at 11.00 his excuse was that meeting he had the previous day in London had gone on longer than expected. It appears he was unable to leave early as he was at No 10 Downing St with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown at a DTI presentation - he was then with us - how the mightly have fallen. After 3 days of Simon blowing his whistles on the stand we agreed to sell the fully range of ACME whistles and set up a seperate website - hence whistleworld was born.