Dan & Rebekah

R I really hate this. 

You ready? The first piercing question…can you juggle?

R I think so. Do you want to give me something? I'll try.

You know, that's actually the first time anyone's ever said that, I think. 

R I'll juggle a few bags of coffee. It smells fantastic. Despite her initial optimism, Rebekah could not juggle.

What about you Dan?

D Um, I tried it as an autistic teenager and thought this really is not my cup of tea.

How is living with autism?

D It's fine. Rebekah tells me that on a daily basis.
R He's fine. It's me that struggles.

Do you have any tattoos? 

R Yes, yes. My one and only regret in life. It was on a little back street in Bali and I didn't have any tattoos prior to that. I took a photograph and every year that we went back, I kept seeing it and I was like, I really love that. So then we were out in Belfast with Dan's friend, they live up there and we got really, really drunk together. He is a tattoo artist and I was like, I really want a tattoo. He told me he was free tomorrow morning at 10AM  and I agreed to it. Then we woke up in Belfast and Dan was like, you know, you're getting a tattoo at ten o'clock. And here it is. 

What does it mean? 

R The meaning of it. I will leave that up to you. I think you see what you want to see in it.

What's yours?

D Um, a seagull with a ship in a bottle; a diving girl; a whale; and a big octopus.

So the whole Sea Life Centre then?

D Yeah, literally Sea world. Actually, the whale is on the whole back of my hamstring. It was a six hours sitting, and then the next one was another six hours for shading…it's never been shaded. See, I thought for years with the surf school you can't have visible tattoos because you're teaching so many kids. That’s why all mine are hidden, but I'm also close to forty, and I don't think that's really a thing that I want to do on my forehead or something.
If you were in the early two thousands or late noughties in Cornwall in the surf scene, and you didn't have some form of piracy tattoo, then you weren't in. 

Why were you in Cornwall? 

D I went to college there, they did surf science and technology. I struggled to learn at school then I went there and they explained everything from a surfing background and I was like, oh, I get that! Then I passed everything and could have gone onto university and done something with it, but I kind of came home and did surf school instead. 

R We met whenever Dan was back. 

D Becca's four years younger than me. 

R I had no life. I left school and then went straight into work. I didn't go to university until I was twenty one. I did accountancy which is great because we do our own books but still need an adult to sign them off. 

Where would you be if we weren't in Northern Ireland? 

D South of France. Yeah. I've actually looked at the shop there and then every we every year we went back. It seemed as if the high street was like constantly changes. If no one could figure out how to make it work with the rent and everything, I just don't want to be part of that.

R No, yeah. Don't get into business. Dan's parents always tell us to take a year, pay someone to manage the shops and just go live there for a year. Even if that means going to be a waitress and working for someone else for a year, properly learning the language and just testing the waters to see. But we've not actually taken the leap and done it yet. It's very difficult to leave someone with the responsibility of running your brand and your business.

D And then you come back and it just completely fails because you've left that responsibility to someone. Your reputation goes down the drain.

R Yeah. So it's not that easy. Otherwise we would have done it. We should have done when we were younger. It's not too late. Too many direct debits. 

D So when I was out surfing in France, I was on the water and had a miscommunication where I said I spoke English. Suddenly the guy I was next to paddled away and I was like, oh, okay. And then the next guy came out and then he said, ‘where are you from?’ And I was like, oh, Ireland. And then the other guy was like, ‘you said, English!’ I was like, ‘no, no, no, I speak English, but I'm from Ireland.’ He's like, ‘you should have said that.’ And then he came back over and was super friendly. 

What would you do if you didn't do this? 

R I would. Find a rich man and be a stay at home wife. I'm joking.

That's fair. There's actually no judgment here.

D That's good, I’d be a joiner. Joiner or a lorry driver. Yeah a lorry driver. I've got all my licences. You know, when you flip over your driver's license, mine is full. 

You wouldn't want to drive something in the sky?. 

Rebekah furiously shakes her head
D Uh, we did look at that and I got flying lessons, then it got way too expensive. 

R I thought he'd forgotten about planes. I think I always feel like I can't leave hospitality because it's the only thing I know. So I know how to do the books but I know I don't want to work in an office. Something still within hospitality.

D I think I could go and work in a good four or five star hotel and do a really good maitre d job, for someone else. I'm really good at selling other people, but shit at selling myself.

Dan and Rebekah then uno-reversed the interview 

The question is, you're sitting down at a wedding, you're having a glass of champagne and randoms at your table ask, “where did you make your money?” What would be your imaginary backstory? 

Blue roll. That's my backstory. I made so much money in blue roll thatI got fed up and moved into speciality roasting for a brand with the same colours as blue roll. 

R So we were at a wedding and met this really fun guy, Derek, and he told us a story about a crab spider. The crab spider was so big that he put it into a pit and it killed five rats. Oh, yeah he says he did like three tours in Afghanistan.

D There's no way that was real, but I guess there's no way of figuring out whether it was or not. Yeah, it's a great backstory. He was living a storyteller’s dream

What's next for you guys?

D We've actually looked at a few different places around Northern Ireland. But I don't know. I don't think that getting any bigger is for us. I think like keep it small, keep it us. 

Me and Rebekah don't know anything other than being self-employed. But when people come from stability and then they jump into self-employment, that's when they're like, ‘oh my goodness, what is this?!’ Like that's where the breakdowns happen. 

You just being self-employed your entire career is just one long, slow, gentle breakdown.

D You hear about people on their annual leave and their sick pay and everything else. We’re like, whoa, this is so cool that like, people like, get this man. I hurt my back in March and was in a zimmer frame for a month. Not one bit of insurance can cover me. 

How'd you hurt your back? 

Surfing. Eunan saved my life. I turned then three discs slipped at the bottom of my back and I lost feeling in my legs for six hours. They had to fully cut me out of the suit, get an ambulances and all that nonsense. But yeah, so once I got home and I was like, right, I'm gonna have to try and like, take some time off. I ring an insurance company, they're like, ‘ah, if it was anyone, any member of your team, yeah, you're covered. But you, you need, you need to have a director's insurance for you separately.’ 

What’s it like working together? 

R Yeah, I don't think that is an issue. I love it because when you have a really bad day, you both have the same understanding of the situation. Whereas if you were going home and had a really rubbish day, but then your partner maybe had a rubbish day in their place of work too, it's hard to properly understand each other's situation.