Few British internet companies have a story quite like Nildram's. From a bedroom software project with a punny name to one of the UK's most respected ISPs, the journey took just over a decade - and the people behind it were as unconventional as the name itself.
1980s
How It All Started
The story really begins with a menu system. Adrian Mardlin was working his first proper job - programming in a 4GL language called Sculptor - while quietly moonlighting on his own software in the evenings. One of his projects was a memory-resident menu system for DOS. The clever bit was that it used virtually no RAM - nil DRAM, in the parlance of the day. He called it the Nildram Menu System, and distributed it as shareware.
It wasn't lost on Adrian that "Nildram" was also his surname backwards. Some things are too good not to use.
Going It Alone
The software did well enough to validate going it alone, and in 1991 Adrian left his job to focus on his own projects full time. He set up a small operation in Tring, Hertfordshire, with a computer, a modem, and a Bulletin Board System - the Shareware Support BBS - which served as an early gathering point for the UK shareware community long before most people had heard of the internet.
For the first few years it was a two or three person operation: developing software, running the BBS, and distributing US software titles in the UK. At one point Nildram was the UK agent for Epic MegaGames - the company that would eventually become Epic Games, creators of Fortnite. Not bad for a small outfit in Hertfordshire.
Going Online
1995 was the year everything changed. Nildram acquired its first leased line internet connection - a 64Kbps line for £15,000 a year, which felt both ludicrously expensive and impossibly exciting at the time. A bank of six modems in the Tring office meant the company could offer dial-up internet access to paying customers at £10 a month.
From there, growth was rapid. Each year was roughly double the previous one, driven by word of mouth and a genuine commitment to doing things properly. The company's motto - Real service in a virtual world - wasn't just a tagline. It shaped how Nildram operated at every level.
The Broadband Years
By 2000, Nildram had outgrown Tring and moved to a larger office in Aylesbury with over 30 staff. The broadband revolution was just beginning, and Nildram was well placed to ride it. New customers were signing up at a rate of around 100 a day.
One of the things that set Nildram apart was its attitude to its most demanding customers. The gaming community - heavy users who didn't pay much and weren't shy about complaining - might have seemed like a problem segment. Nildram took the opposite view. If you could keep the 1% happy, the other 99% would be happy too. It was a philosophy that paid off. Performance and reliability became the company's calling card, and its reputation spread largely through the kind of word-of-mouth that money can't buy.
2002
Splitting Focus
With the business growing fast and a young family on the way, Adrian brought in business partners to take on day-to-day management, allowing him to focus on the technical side. The structure worked well, though it wasn't without tensions - Adrian felt that areas like domain names, web hosting and email were being under-served and needed dedicated focus.
When he couldn't get agreement to build those out within Nildram, he set one up separately: APM Internet Ltd, focused on email services, was established at the end of 2002. That company would later become The Very Good Email Company.
The Sale
Nildram itself continued to grow, and was eventually sold to Pipex in 2004 - a fitting exit for a company that had come a very long way from a 64Kbps leased line and a handful of modems.
The People Behind It
The core team who built Nildram from a shareware outfit into a national ISP.
Adrian Mardlin
Founder
Adrian started writing games for the Commodore VIC-20 at 14, sold one to a magazine, tried university (Birmingham, Mathematics), thought better of it, and ended up building one of the UK's best-loved ISPs almost by accident.
After the Nildram sale he went on to run The Very Good Email Company, providing email services to businesses across the UK. He now lives in southern Spain, still codes, and has channelled his long-standing interest in golf into Open Golf Events - a free global directory of amateur golf competitions.
Iain Ogilvie
Marketing
Iain joined the internet industry in 1997 and was part of the Nildram team during the key growth years. He coined the phrase Real service in a virtual world in 1998 - a line that became central to Nildram's identity and one he stands by to this day.
Iain is now part of the team at The Very Good Email Company, championing the cause of actual humans answering actual questions. Away from work, his passions are firmly in the air and on the road. A lifelong aviation enthusiast - inspired by watching four silver Lightnings thunder off the runway at RAF Coltishall as a four-year-old - he was told as a teenager that poor eyesight would keep him out of the cockpit for good. He proved that wrong in 2007 when he obtained a National Private Pilot's Licence, and now has a share in a de Havilland Chipmunk based at Turweston. He also does aviation photography, illustration and scale modelling under the Aeronut name. On four wheels, he is the current owner of what is believed to be one of the highest-mileage Lotus Elises in existence, with approaching 300,000 miles on the clock.
Jonathan Gilpin
Technical
Jonathan was part of the technical team during the Nildram years, helping to build and maintain the infrastructure that underpinned the company's reputation for reliability.
After Nildram, he went on to found fluent Ltd, a UK-based email and web hosting specialist that has been quietly serving businesses and resellers since 2001. The Nildram alumni had a habit of staying close to their roots.
Away from the world of servers and hosting, Jonathan and his wife run Lydford House Hotel - a family-run hotel on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon, which they operate together with their three children. Built by the Victorian artist William Widgery and operating as a hotel for over 100 years, it is about as far from a server room as you can get.
Paul (PJ) Evans
Web & Front End
PJ came to Nildram from Dr Solomon's and took charge of the company's web presence and a good deal of its front end development - no small task during the years when the web was changing faster than anyone could keep up with.
He was also ahead of the curve in other ways: an early adopter of the electric car, he was among the first owners of a first edition Nissan Leaf. A long-time supporter of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park and a committed Raspberry Pi enthusiast, he is now a writer and software engineer based in Milton Keynes, contributing regularly to The MagPi magazine and volunteering at Electromagnetic Field camp. He is originally from Liverpool, which explains a lot.
Colin Swan
Technical Support Manager
Colin was part of the core team during Nildram's growth years, helping keep the operation running as the company scaled rapidly through the broadband boom.
His behind-the-scenes contribution was a significant part of what made Nildram's reputation for reliability possible.
What Happened to the Brand
Nildram was sold to Pipex in 2004, who later sold to Tiscali, and eventually to TalkTalk - a familiar trajectory for independent UK ISPs of that era.
The @nildram.co.uk and @gotadsl.co.uk email addresses that customers built up over the years are still supported today. Email hosting for those addresses is handled by The Very Good Email Company, and connectivity and other services by TalkTalk Business.
It's a fitting outcome for a company that was always, at its core, about looking after the people who relied on it.