‘You can’t tell the story of Thomas Cook Boot and Clothing Company without also telling the story of the Cook family. And you can’t talk about the family without mentioning Thomas Cook boots.’

One of the joys of working on this book was discovering the personal stories that are entwined with the company history. Like the story of how Sue and Murray Cook first met:

As kids, Sue and Murray lived a few doors apart in Bulleen. Murray was five years older and, as you might expect with that age difference, they mostly ignored each other. That all changed when a twenty-four-year-old Murray was out in front of his house, talking to his neighbour, and saw a young woman walking up the street and into a nearby house.

‘Who is she?’ he asked.

It was, of course, Sue.

Murray was working on a plan to strike up a conversation with Sue, but in the end, he didn’t have to. Sue had been invited to a Western night at her work. But where to get a costume, she wondered. Of course! Didn’t her neighbours run a country clothing business?

It was a sunny afternoon in Bulleen in 1982 when Sue wandered over to find out if Murray had a cowboy hat she could borrow. Murray was already in the driveway, cleaning the Honda CB900F Bol d’Or motorbike he’d bought second-hand from a police auction. He was using a brand-new degreaser and, distracted by his charming neighbour, failed to read the instructions on the can.

‘Of course,’ he told Sue when she asked to borrow a hat. He could drop some over later that evening. They chatted, and time disappeared.

So did the alloy on Murray’s bike. The degreaser was designed to be removed after two minutes, and it had been nearly an hour by the time Sue left. Murray watched his paintwork dissolve and kicked himself, but he had something other than that motorbike in his mind. How could he spend more time with Sue? He came up with a foolproof plan. He would bring her a whole truck full of boxes of Thomas Cook gear to choose from for the party. Hopefully, it would take her a while to go through all twenty-five boxes, and he could spend the entire time with her.

So, you might say, the business bound them together from the very beginning.

When it came to how the book looked, our challenge was to create something with the same quality and attention to detail that Thomas Cook products are known for. Design and production were inseparable from the start. As the cover concepts evolved we pored over fabric swatches, leather samples, Pantone guides, foils and slipcase prototypes. Every decision was collaborative. Choosing a material sometimes meant reworking the design, but each step in the give-and-take brought us closer to the right solution.

After months of gathering stories and refining design, the book truly reflects both family and brand. Presented in a VIP case with rose gold embellishments, a hardcover wrapped in brown leather with a hot-debossed title and translucent pages with rose gold pull quotes, it is a book as carefully crafted as the products it celebrates.

– Rairu Rebolledo, Designer