Swapping marching for matching

Jul 15 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A FORMER soldier turned matchmaker has taken over a North East dating agency and brought it back to its roots in the region.

Louise Northwood bought Elegant Introductions after working as a matchmaker and interviewer for the company, which was based over the Scottish border, even though it concentrates on single people living in the North East.

Hexham-born Ms Northwood said: “I bought the company and brought it back to the North East.

“I worked for Neil Morrison, who ran the business from Scotland. I was doing the matchmaking and interviews.

“Neil decided he didn’t want to run it anymore and the opportunity came up to buy it. In mid-May, I moved down with two children to the North East.

“I’d already been dealing with all the members previously because I had worked with the previous owner.”

Heading up the business has drawn on a variety of skills Ms Northwood picked up during her varied career. After five years in the Army, where she served as a movement controller in logistics and won a medal for her service in Bosnia, she became a civil service trainer and a college lecturer.

But her role with Elegant Introductions is perhaps more akin to her original ambition of becoming a social worker.

The business, which also employs two receptionists, aims to help clients find love by using the personal touch that Ms Northwood believes is missing from today’s online dating.

She said: “It’s a very bespoke service. I interview everyone myself. Everyone has spent time with me, I write the profiles.

“They’ve got the continuity and the personal touch. There is certainly an element of relationship coaching. It’s going for the personal approach, but not like online dating, which is faceless.”

“I think having been in the Armed Forces for five years, you don’t get much more discreet than that. Having worked in male-dominated workplaces, I can talk to men.

Elegant Introductions, which was amalgamated with Classic Introductions around 18 months ago, has around 600 members but only half that number are “active” at any one time.

“People are only matched singly, one person gets one profile at a time. Four members have recently left because they were happily matchmaked,” said Ms Northwood. “It has to be the lowest paid job but it has to be the most rewarding.”