Inventor Peter throws himself into the Dragon’s Den
It was more than 25 years ago that Peter Hill made his first money walking a dog owned by former BBC Dragon Nick Jenkins’ parents.
Little did he know that one day he would be walking into the Den himself armed with only a positive attitude, a lunch box for pets and a phone for cats.
Mr Hill grew up in Market Drayton, going to the Grove School as a child.
And now he will showcase his new inventions for animal lovers in the next episode of Dragon’s Den, set to be broadcast this weekend.
They are just the latest in a long line of ideas that he has tried to get working.
“One of my first inventions – as a child – was a two-metre straw for reaching a glass of water without having to get out of bed,” he said.
“The prototype didn’t work very well. No matter how much Sellotape I used, it always leaked. But my inventing mindset wasn’t quashed.
“Every summer, I camp out in the woods by a beach. It was there, in 2007, I created the world’s first self-heating camping bath. Two large pails of water placed above six candles and a four-foot storage container with bubble bath nearby.
“I love my candle-powered camping bath, but I don’t think the Dragons or the world would have much interest in it as a consumer product.”
The pedal dish is a lunchbox for pets, and began life in a similar way to the camping bath.
“It was a homemade invention which made my life better,” Peter said. “The first Pedaldish was a pedal-bin with a ramp attached. Built to stop my cat food being spoiled by flies – it saved me a large amount of waste.
“Unlike my camping bath, I knew this product could be of interest to many other people.”
His other product – a high pitched cat whistle called the Katfone – had a less focussed creation.
“It was a lot more accidental,” Peter said. “At night, I would whistle to owls in the trees behind my garden. Rarely was I visited by an owl but increasingly my cats would turn up for some late-night fuss.
“Eventually, with just a couple of whistles, my cats would come running home. When I told other people, I was surprised how many used a high-pitch whistle to call their cats.”
It was watching Dragon’s Den that Peter decided to take his entrepreneurial efforts to the next level.
“I watched it from the first series,” he said. “It showed me that inventors didn’t have to be eccentric men with pipes and massive beards. Under the stress of the cameras, the inventors on Dragons’ Den were just ordinary, fallible people. If they could do it, perhaps I could too.”
His first brush with the Dragon’s Den happened some year’s before.
“At the age of 14, about 1992, I made my first money walking Mr and Mrs Jenkins’s dog called Kai. Years later their son Nick would go on to make millions from Moonpig before taking his own chair in the Den.”
Peter’s episode of Dragon’s Den will be on BBC Two at 8pm on Sunday.
