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Sporting Events and Holidays

Sporting Events and Holidays

Sport is not only about playing – it is also about watching the particular sport played at the very best level, and I was lucky enough to be able to do this on many occasions.

During the ’80s and ’90s one of the perks on offer as a recognition for business from my Insurance Brokerage involved tickets and VIP treatment for top sporting events, which included Cricket, Tennis, Formula One, Six Nations Rugby and Horse Racing at Ascot and Sansdowne.

Wimbledon and the Queen’s Club
Wimbledon hosts the one annual Grand Slam event on Grass Courts, and the main Tournament is usually in July. I have been lucky enough several times to be in the “Tented Village” marquees enjoying strawberries and champagne, as well as being one of the many queuing for hours before occupying stall seats on Centre Court or Nos 1 and 2 Courts. As true tennis lovers will confirm, the point of being there is to get involved in the matches, and to try and get a seat which is behind the players rather than mid-court.
Queen’s was only a few miles away from home, and hosts a Grass Court Tournament every year before the main event at Wimbledon. Many of the top tennis players take part as preparation for Wimbledon, and tickets are much easier to obtain and the facilities for both players and spectators are excellent, and so some of my fellow tennis club members would organise a “day out”. Some were also members of the Queen’s club, and I remember on another occasion playing on one of the main courts as a guest with Richard Furber.

Silverstone F1
The F1 British Grand Prix is held at Silverstone at about the same time of year as the main Wimbledon event. Silverstone is situated in Northamptonshire, and so getting there from London requires some planning. On Race Day, the roads near the circuit are jammed with traffic. Because of this, it is preferable to have transport organised, and to be able to arrive by bus or coach, which I was lucky enough to do courtesy of the sponsors. Once there, the VIP package included private marquees lunch and of course, TV coverage. In truth, the noise and atmosphere of “live” F1 can only be fully experienced by being close to the Pit Lane and Paddock, and obtaining a vantage point which allows you to see as much of the circuit as possible. Otherwise, in my opinion, TV coverage provides a much better idea of what is actually happening in the race.

Lord’s, The Oval and Antigua Test Match Cricket
In London. we are fortunate enough to have two grounds for Test Match cricket, Lord’s and The Oval: The Oval was a few stops on the train from my home in Chiswick. Lord’s on the other hand is in St John’s Wood and when a Test Match is in progress, can take an hour or more to reach. I have been to both London venues on several occasions – both sponsored as a VIP and privately – to watch the England Team in action.
The best experience at Lord’s was as a guest of Charles Sayers father, who was a full member of the MCC which meant that we had lunch in the Members Dining Hall and other privileges.
The Oval is the ground for the Surrey Cricket Club and has Test Match status. Although it does not have the same history as Lord’s – which is also the ground for Middlesex Cricket – it was more convenient for me to attend and had all the amenities necessary.
Antigua – On one of my holidays which was in Antigua, I heard that there was a Test Match in progress at the Recreation Ground where the West Indies team were playing another nation (not England!) and so I spent one day there: the WIndies team was in the field and Courtney Walsh was the main “strike” bowler. The noise and atmosphere generated from the Caribbean crowd was quite unlike anything else I have experienced from watching a cricket match!

Twickenham and Six Nations Rugby
Twickenham Stadium is the Home ground for the English Rugby team, and was 15 minutes drive from Chiswick. I attended two or three international rugby matches played there, again with tickets and lunch provided by the sponsors although I cannot remember who the opponents were on those occasions. The facilities at Twickenham were comparable to those at Lord’s and the Oval, and I do remember attending one other event at Twickenham. when it hosted an Eagles reunion concert – one of my all-time favourite bands or groups.

Sporting Holidays
During the ’80s and ’90s, I went on several holidays which were primarily with the intention to play sport better – and take some exercise!

These included several tennis oriented trips within the UK – to Norfolk and Surrey – and one to Malaga in Spain, organised by the Riverside Club.

There were also a few holidays which featured windsurfing as the major attraction for me – amongst those were trips to Crete (Greece), Eilat (Israel) Bodrum (Turkey) and Antigua (in the West Indies). In Crete, Michele and I stayed many times at the Dolphin Bay Hotel, where conditions for windsurfing were good for beginners and intermediate levels, and my resident Windsurfer Instructor was a charming Greek called Stavros.

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Sports Clubs, Friends and Tennis Buddies

Sports Clubs, Friends and Tennis Buddies

Sports clubs – and in particular tennis clubs – have been really important to me. Apart from the exercise involved in playing sport both competitively and socially, it is a great way to meet people and make new friends, many of whom will share the same interests.

The first club I joined after I had moved to London, in 1976/77, was the Ealing Lawn Tennis Club. The club had great facilities and a large number of members. I did not find it to be a very sociable club but I was not there long enough to find out for sure, because I soon moved to Neville Road in the Pitshanger area of Ealing, where the local tennis club was the Brentham Lawn Tennis Club

Brentham Lawn Tennis Club

The club was in Meadvale Road and adjoined Pitshanger Park, within easy walking distance of my home at the tme. I was a member between 1978 and 1985 which coincided with the time period of my first marriage. The club was excellently run with a large clubhouse, and had grass tennis courts – which I preferred to play on whenever possible – as well as one or two hardcourts for winter tennis. They also had an active cricket team with home pitches, and the games I remember watching were of reasonably high standard. I played in one of the mens tennis teams for many years – the format was three doubles “pairings” per team and we played in the West Middlesex Tennis League, the aim being to win our “division” and get promoted to the next level – or to avoid relegation! I enjoyed my time there – it was a social club – but I do not remember any specific friends from that period.

Riverside Racquets Club

Although this club is now part of the Virgin Active Group, when I became a club member with my second wife Michele in about 1986, it was a privately owned club – part of the Beckwith Brothers property empire – and set up under the Business Expansion Scheme (BES), a scheme which I later used to raise finance for my Telecoms business. I had noticed the new club listed as a BES opportunity a few years earlier and had applied for a small number of Shares.

The club, near the River Thames in Dukes Meadows Chiswick, had every facility you could wish for in a modern Health and Fitness club, with dance studios, a fully equipped gymnasium, a large heated swimming pool with sauna room, and even a creche for overburdened parents. The tennis facilities were superb with indoor courts, outdoor courts with astro turf and even some clay courts – the only disappointment for me was that there were no grass tennis courts.

Friends from The Riverside Club

Tony Haslam The Manager of the club at the time and a great friend of mine to this day. Tony knew the Beckwiths personally, and under his guidance, the Club was well run and in excellent hands! Unsurprisingly, the club membership flourished – at one time I believe there were about 2,000 members – and Michele and I both met and became friends with some special people, most of whom like myself were entrepeneurial by nature.

Amongst those friends and tennis buddies were also:

Marcus Cullen
“Cynical and obsessive. Excited about things that change the world, skiing, mountain biking and surfing.” I was doing some research to see if I could find a Linked In profile for Marcus, or something similar, and came across the above quote for somebody called Marcus Cullen: if tennis was substituted in place of the other sports I would believe it was the Marcus Cullen I know from Richmond! The link provided does show that he remains very active in business, and still trading from his Kew Bridge Road property.

Marcus is a great fellow, and a very generous person: he is also an entrepeneur with some past experience in telecoms, and like myself, he has family history involving Africa. He is also a pretty mean tennis player with a wicked top spin shot – of which I was forever jealous! I remember him telling me one story about him (nearly) being drummed out of one tennis club for drilling a ball in the middle of one supposedly social game, which nearly took out the lady on the other side of the net! Michele and I socialised many times together with Marcus and his wife Claire.

Charles Sayer
Charlie probably knows more about me and my personal life and business history than any other friend, and I have covered our friendship in more detail elsewhere. He shares my passion for both cricket and tennis. Suffice to say that as my neighbour in Chiswick, we were both members of the Riverside, and played a fair amount of tennis together, including sometimes on our Sunday morning sessions when we were a player short – see below.

Fuad El-Hadery, Paul Webster and Mark Oppe
Fuad Paul Mark and myself made up a reglar foursome for Sunday morning tennis at the Riverside Club, which was followed by coffee and doughnuts and gossip. This went on for many years until I left the Riverside in about 2006, but I did invite them to the new club at Richmond so we could continue the sessions on grass courts! All three were great company: Fuad lived in Barnes and was a computer software consultant, and a very good friend and neighbour of Paul – who was/is a professional photographer specialising in the food industry with offices in Hammersmith. Mark was an independent consultant for various businesses in the Courier industry, and a keen sailor. He also played for one of the local cricket teams as wicket keeper. The last time I heard from him, he was on his boat in some exotic Caribbean location!

Carlo Vagliasindi and Bridget Hunt I met both Carlo and Bridget first at the Riverside Club, and they became great friends of ours. Carlo played tennis to a good standard, and we often played together during the week. Bridget, on the other hand, could be found in the Gym or in the dance studio. Carlo was from Sicily, and I think his family were well connected He drove at the time a black Ferrari, and I remember on several occasions all four of us proceeding at very high speed down the A3 road to one of the clubs where Salsa music and dancing was the chief attraction – both Carlo and Bridget (who was excellent) were “into” Salsa at the time, and I think that is how they first met Always immaculately turned out, Carlo owned an upmarket Men’s Clothing shop in Richmond: some years later they both invested in another upmarket shop called Danielis Gelateria which has had rave reviews and I can confirm that the icecream is outstanding! Bridget also has a strong “on-line” presence with her workout programmes, Six Pack Chick. As fellow entrepeneurs, I am glad to see that they have both achieved great success!

The Bevans – Chris and Fiona, Simon and Anne-Marie
Chris and Simon are brothers – twins if I remember correctly – and they both married very attractive girls who were formerly air hostesses! Chris and Fiona at the time lived near us in Chiswick, and became great friends. As I recall, Chris did not play much tennis, but they both used the other facilities on a regular basis – particularly the gym. Chris was an Air Traffic Controller for many years, and had a PPL (private pilots licence) and part ownership of a light Cessna aircraft (I think it was a Cessna) which was serviced at an airfield 40 miles out of London. Knowing my interest in flying, Michele and I were invited several times on private flying trips – normal destination Brittany, France. Just as my parents had done, Chris and Fiona work together on “doing up” properties using Fiona’s skills and contacts in design and property refurbishment. Simon Bevan was a Captain in the Royal Navy, and when I met him, he was doing a desk job at the MoD (Ministry of Defence) and pondering his future. We visited them and their daughter Lia at their home in Esher on several occasions, and I remember some particularly special “black tie” events that we attended with both Bevan families. I notice that Simon and Anne-Marie moved home in 2014.

Julian Feinstein – Deceased Julian was South African and formerly a professioal bodybuilder, with a great sense of humour. He lived in Richmond and was often at the gym at the Riverside. He was a terrific character, and he knew some of my previous friends and colleagues from Merchant Investors, in particular Chris and Jenny Efstratiou, and Robin Fielder. He was a Director of Robin’s company Leadership Development Ltd and a popular public speaker and motivator. Michele and I spent enjoyable times socially with him and his wife, and I was very sad to hear of his death in Feb 2016.

Team Tennis

The club had five teams of men’s tennis, playing in the same West Middlesex League as my previous club, Brentham: the first team had seriously good (young) players which often included our professional coaches. During my time there, I played in all five teams – on only one occasion for the first team when they were desperate, and short of a player. I seem to remember that my unfortunate partner was Marcus, and – unsurprisingly – we lost every set.

Richmond Lawn Tennis Club

After my temporary business set-backs in about 2002/2003, I left the Riverside Club and joined the Richmond Lawn Tennis club which is in Old Deer Park about a 5 – 10 minute drive from my home in Chiswick, and very close to Kew Gardens. There were other good reasons apart from financial considerations – Riverside membership was more than £230 per month. For the preceding 10 years or so the Riverside had for me lost the ambience that it once had. The facilities were still excellent, but the club itself was not the same as before.

The Richmond Club at the time had 9 grass tennis courts as well as hard courts, a large club-house (part of which could be rented for any event – I remember running an “open mic” music event there for several months) – a large car park, Cricket, Archery, Rugby fixtures in the winter months and – probably most important – the members were very sociable. Many of the members I played tennis with were also refugees from the Riverside Club. The only downside was that all courts were “outside” and so we were at the mercy of the English weather.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and again played tennis for the teams in the same West Middlesex League. Weekends in the summer were idyllic, when on a sunny day and armed with a Gin and Tonic or Pimm’s, one could sit and survey the various social tennis games under way, and check out the talent!

Friends from the Richmond Club

In common with the Riverside Club, there were many great characters at Richmond, but to name a few that I remember particularly well:

Jason Squire Jason is an entrepeneur like myself, and we did have an unsuccessful attempt at winning the club doubles senior tournament together. An experienced tennis player and all-round great bloke, I see on his LinkedIn Profile that he is also an author – something he never mentioned to me! I see also on Facebook that he has now gone south to live in Brighton and Hove and still playing tennis – good for you mate!

Andrew Billinge Andrew was a regular member of a mens doubles that we organised, and we played together many times. Another really nice guy, some years later he and his family – they live right next to the Richmond Club hard courts – visited Crete and stayed in the same Villa that I had previously rented, and so he understands better than most why I left the UK!

Colin Pow I lost touch with Colin but he was one of our regular foursome for men’s doubles. He has a twin brother Andy, and both were originally at Riverside Racquets. Despite being Scottish, both are all-round good guys and decent tennis players!

Peter Brook (deceased) Peter was a lovely man, one of the world’s true gentlemen, and we played social tennis together on many occasions before he became too ill to play. There is a Peter Brooks Memorial Mixed Doubles Tournament in his memory. Sadly missed.

Lee Neale Lee, another great character, is a Community Tennis Coach, and was on the winning side of the men’s doubles final that Jason and I lost – see above! Apart from his interests in tennis, Lee is a very talented guitarist and performer, which meant that we had more in common than tennis.

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Domain Buddy and Sport

Introduction.

Sports are very important to me. I am good at Sports – this is not immodest, but a fact: I have good hand and eye co-ordination, and have played just about every ball game possible. And I love the adrenalin produced by Sports – mostly playing, but also watching.

I have also met most of my friends through a shared love of Sport – particularly Tennis.

One of the good things about life in the 21st Century is that TV sports coverage is excellent, and I look forward immensely to watching international Tennis, Rugby and Cricket – and of course, Formula One.

I suppose my love of sport first started by throwing around (or kicking) a ball with my father, whose particular passion was tennis. In Uganda as a boy, I played some cricket before going to Kenton, my prep school in Nairobi, Kenya

At Kenton, I loved sport and was in all the school teams for Cricket, Football, Athletics, Swimming and Hockey. I was pretty fast over 100 yards, but pretty hopeless at the 440 and longer race distances . Roller skating in the school yard was also a favourite

At King’s School Canterbury, the love of Sports died somewhat – to be 4 foot 10 inches tall when your fellow inmates were a foot taller and three stone heavier was rather a disadvantage. The main games played were Rugby and Cricket (football was not supported or encouraged) but I did eventually make the school 3rd Cricket Team and played House Rugby. I also discovered Squash, where physical size was not so important, and had a very brief attempt at Boxing.

By the time I went to RAF Cranwell, I had caught up physically, and started to enjoy my Sport again. I went on to represent Cranwell at Cricket and Squash. I also played some tennis at a rather average level.

After leaving the RAF in 1972, and as life became more business and family oriented, team sports like cricket, rugby and football became much harder to organise, and apart from the occasional “friendly” cricket match, were no longer a possibility.

Because I needed the exercise, I turned to sports that one could do “solo”, or with a small number of other “playmates”: tennis became my favourite sporting outlet, together with clay pigeon shooting (thanks to Ron Hollett) and windsurfing. And of course, working out in the local gym.

Best Team Sporting Moment (Cricket):
Helping RAF Cranwell beat RMA Sandhurst at cricket with an unbeaten half century

Worst Team Sporting Moment (Athletics):
Failing to win the 220 yards at Kenton’s Athletic Day. Having won the 100 yards, and in the final of the 220 race, I was in 4th or 5th place on the outside bend with 50 yards to go, and I felt I had the energy to make a decisive break to the front of the field. For whatever reason, I decided to hold my position, and ended up losing the race. Of small consequence in the scheme of things, it is something that I still remember and regret – one of the “what ifs…” that everyone encounters in life.

Biggest Sporting Regret
Never learning to hit a tennis ball with topspin: all my shots were “old school” slice, which meant that whenever I came up against a half-decent player, I was annihilated! Also, because of my previous squash expereience, there was too much “wrist” in my strokeplay. Without topspin – as any tennis player will tell you – you cannot hit the ball with power, because any shot will go sailing out of the court. I tried to correct this later, with some coaching etc. but topspin is something to learn as a child, so that it comes to your game naturally.

Sports I have Attempted – with varying degrees of success.

Cricket – Stopped after skippering the RAF Marham Team 1972
Tennis – Still playing if I get a chance. Played for club teams in local West Middlesex league matches over 20 years.
Hockey – Played at centre in Kenton College Team
Football – Played on the wing for Kenton College Team
Rugby – Last played at RAF Cranwell inter Squadron matches. Fullback or Centre.
Squash – Last played at team level RAF Cranwell
Badminton – Played socially but nver really rated the sport.
Clay Pigeon Shooting – I owned three shotguns and particularly enjoyed the Sporting Shoots
Windsurfing – I found mastering the conditions difficult. Just about managed the water start. Far too cold for me as a UK sport, although I did try the local Queen Mary Reservoir
Water Skiing – More of a hobby – achieved mono-skiing – last attempted in Rhodesia 1976/1977
Snow Skiing – Not my finest hour – various holiday attempts – but better to start from the age of 3!
Swimming – At Kenton, school team for backstroke. Otherwise useful for windsurfing!
Boxing – Learnt the basics and had a few “fights” or rounds at Kings Canterbury
Formula Ford – Driving course at Snetterton, and drove at circuits Oulton Park and Donnington
Athletics – I was basically a sprinter – finest hour at Kenton College.
Horse Riding – My cousin Robin in Rhodesia kept horses. Finest hour – taking one of the racehorses called Brigadier around the Salisbury Race Track at full gallop.

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Merchant Investors 1974 to 1977

Leave a Comment / 1974 to 1977, Business, Merchant Investors Assurance Co, Ltd / admin

Merchant Investors 1974 to 1977 - The Revolution

Background.

Merchant Investors, formerly Old Broad Street Securities, was one of a new breed of Insurance Company formed by Financial Institutions to exploit new financial products available – particularly from the Unit Trust Industry. Not exactly Insurance products, although they did have a nominal amount of Life Insurance associated with the package to keep their status as a life insurance product, the plans were linked to the underlying performance of Unit Trusts. Therefore – in theory at least – they provided a much better return on investment than the conventional Life Insurance Endowment product, and many financial institutions jumped “onto the bandwagon” and set up Direct Sales Forces to exploit this new market.

Shortly after the GCP London event, I received a call from John Golding inviting me to a personal meeting in London. At the meeting, he explained that in his opinion there was a better opportunity than GCP available, and that he had identified an Insurance Company looking to build its sales force.

John’s plan was brilliant in its simplicity and clarity of thought. The first part of the plan was that an instant sales force was needed – what better sales force could there be than GDP distributors who had already proved their worth in sales and team building? The second part addressed the problem all sales people face, which is how and where to find prospects. John’s solution was that sales leads would be provided by canvassing – preferably by an attractive girl – asking members of the public to complete a simple form which contained one key question: “Would you be interested in a Savings Plan designed to beat Inflation?“

And so our “team” of ex GCP distributors started at Merchant Investors in approx 1974 selling financial products. Our open plan offices were on one floor in an office block in London’s Holborn District at Thaives Inn

Our Regional Manager was Sid King and Branch Manager Terry Bilham: both were “old school” insurance salesmen, and were not expecting the sales revolution that was to come. After some basic training, our new team of some 20 or 30 individuals – most of whom I had not met previously – started to do business, using the canvassing method proposed by John. For those of us not fortunate enough to have our own canvasser, excess “leads” – completed enquiry forms – were shared between us, and sales started to come in at record breaking levels.

The products that we sold were either monthly savings plans or Single Premium Insurance Bonds, and linked to one or more Unit Trusts: the Unit Trusts were managed by the Merchant Investor fund managers. The premiums paid purchased a number of units in the Unit Trust depending on the unit price at the time, prices that were regularly published in the Financial Times and other journals. It was also possible to switch accumulated units in one Trust to a different Trust within the “portfolio”

All the salesmen were “self employed”, meaning that we relied on commission earnings from successful sales. The commission was generous – particularly on the monthly savings plans – and was paid in advance, but would quickly be “reversed” if the customer cancelled his contract within two years.

Potential customers were followed up by phone once the canvassing or enquiry form had been completed, and were invited to a “one on one” meeting at our offices, where the paperwork for any successful sale was concluded.

Personalities

Some of the personalities that I remember well were:

Chris Efstratiou – Chris was one of the most successful in the group, and with the largest team, regularly headed the sales charts, and we were all jealous that he had the best canvasser and source of leads in the fabulous Jenny Auret. They later married and to this day are two of my closest friends.

Robin Fielder – Robin was one of the leading lights at GCP and drove a Ferrari. Slightly older than the rest of us, he later ran his own Motivational Business – LDL – focussing on leadership and sales training.

John Golding (Dec’d) – As I remember, John was a quiet individual, and not that interested in sales “per se”. I lost contact with him but he was a key member of the team in the early years.

Alan Forbes (Dec’d) – I was probably closest to Alan in the way we worked and our ethical priorites. We also had adjacent desks. Alan was a little older and more experienced than most of us and had a gorgeous young girlfriend at the time – Avella Hatton – who was only 19 and a top canvasser for “leads”.

George Kelly – George was an Australian Greek and close friends with Chris Efstratiou. He was more interested in team building than selling insurance products, and was in my opinion well suited to play a Mafia character in any film! His canvasser was the lovely Jan, a top model, whom he later married.

Rai Hamilton – Rai was a bit of a loner and had wealthy connections, which meant that he only had to complete a few sales to top the sales charts. Always turned out in a pinstripe suit, he married Margarita a well known record producer and studio owner. Rai is listed now as a “financier” but the only source of public information I have relates to Walton Castle which he apparently bought in 1984 with Margarita – they are now divorced.

David Lewis – David achieved great success in GCP and also drove the obligatory red Ferrari. I got to know him and his wife Suzy reasonably well, visiting their home in St John’s Wood on several occasions. A complex character, and interesting, I am not sure what happened to him post Merchant Investors.

Bob Patmore – Bob was very close at the time to David Lewis, and was previously a professional bass guitarist and a professional footballer. He sold me my first decent electric guitar – a Fender Telecaster – for £200 Always “down to earth” and modest, he went on to become very successful in his own right as can be seen from the above link.

Terry Bilham – Terry was our Branch Manager and a great bloke – a bit of a “Jack the Lad” with a London cockney background. He also favoured pin stripe suits, had a very smart house in Surrey and owned an Aston Martin, which trumped my E-Type! I am not sure what happened to Terry in later life, but I imagine he stayed in the Insurance industry.

Merchant Investors Crete Sales Convention October 1975

Without doubt the best sales convention I have attended was at the 5 Star Elounda Beach Hotel in Crete. I qualified for the event after my own record sales month in March 1975, part of the earnings going towards a Jaguar E-Type. Apart from the hotel itself – which was superb with all the facilities one could ask for – wives and/or girlfriends were included in the all expenses paid trip, and I invited Rosie whom I married the next year. Having the top sales people together with wives and girlfriends was a pretty special time for all of us.

All Good Things Come to an End

When you have a group of high achievers together – all with big egos and a lot of talent – there comes a time when what is “on the table” is not enough. Bottom Line – we were making money for other people, when we all knew we could be making more money for ourselves: most of us realised that we had outgrown Merchant Investors, and in about 1976/1977 the company started to lose its new sales team.

Chris Efstratiou for example formed his own company Berkeley Walbrook, taking most if not all of his team of salesman with him; George Kelly – who was politically very astute – eventually did the same. Rai Hamilton left to form his own consultancy. Robin Fielder decided that the Insurance Industry was not for him, and formed Leadership Development Ltd. Alan Forbes I believe also left the company to set up his own business.

For my part, I had also decided that I could do better outside Merchant Investors, and in 1977 I had set up Noble Warren Investments Ltd as an Insurance Brokerage operating out of the top floor of 50 Maddox Street in London W1. All my personal clients from Merchant Investors retained me as their financial advisor, and I had a small team of 2 or 3 consultants: I had never been entirely comfortable with the ethics at the time in direct sales “Merchant Investors” style, and although I was happy with Insurance and Investments as a “profession”, I wanted to give customers a more professional service, which encompassed all possible products, and not just high commission paying savings plans and single premium bonds with the one company.

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Golden Chemical Products 1974

Leave a Comment / 1974 to 1977, Business, Golden Chemical Products / admin

MLM with Golden Chemical Products 1974

The leaflet on my car was one of the ways in which Golden Chemical Products attracted and grew its “sales force”: meetings were organised in smart hotels, and a presentation was given to outline the product (basically soap) and the sales opportunities arising, particularly if you were successful in assembling a sales team of your own.

The USP (unique selling point) was that the various soap or detergent products – covering household and commercial use – were made from non-toxic chemicals and were therefore environmentally friendly. This was a concept that was a little ahead of its time – there was not the same public perception towards the hazards of pollution, and the powerful Green Lobby, as there is today.

The hotel meeting was professionally done, and to join Golden Chemical Products (GCP) there were three “levels” of distributorship available to purchase – namely Local (£25) Area (£200) and General (£1100). Each distributor received product to the value of his/her “investment” and more importantly, had the right to build a sales team and benefit from a percentage of all sales made by the team. The sales structure was described by others as a Pyramid Selling or Multi Level Marketing scheme.

GCP was looking to compete with the giant multinational chemical companies – such as Procter & Gamble – who used and still use conventional sales outlets for their products, namely shops and supermarkets, and who spent fortunes on brand awareness and advertising. I am not aware whether or not GCP ever made significant inroads into the actual sales achieved by the multinationals, but GCP did become the subject of political lobbying, and was finally closed down in 1976 after being castigated as a Pyramid Selling Scheme.

My own view – some forty years on – is that GCP did nothing wrong, and that the product worked and was environmaentally friendly: the bad publicity arose through stories of large amounts of money being earnt by individuals at the top of the sales “tree” and – allegedly – unfortunate individuals having a “garage full of soap” that they could not sell.

In my case, I handed over £200 to become an area distributor, used the product myself, and sold the product – not the most easy of tasks in the middle of farming country in Norfolk! I also built a small local sales team and did enough over six months to become a General Distributor.

However, the most important benefit was to come – and that was attending GCPs main sales convention in London in late 1974, where I met and listened to various speakers and top salesmen and women who had been in the company far longer than I had. Amongst the people I met were John Golding and Robin Fielder: John held the key to the next phase of my business life.

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How I Started as an Entrepeneur

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How I started as an Entrepeneur -The First Five Years

Foreword

In my opinion, most people don’t start out in life determined to be an entrepeneur: it is more to do with an aversion to being an employee, and valuing personal freedom. Money is in itself important but understanding how the “money” system works is even more important, and since this is not “taught” as such, it is a self learning process.

I recently saw a Video which sums up the situation extremely well – Entrepeneurs Need to Know About Money.

My Journey

In 1974, I was no longer part of the RAF – discharged, by choice – and living in a derelict cottage in the middle of Norfolk: I was a qualified electrical engineer, with a BSc Honours degree to show for it, but had no intention of pursuing a career in any way connected with engineering. I had some money saved, but not very much.

To be honest, I had at the time no clear idea or vision of what I wanted to do, only that I was interested in making money, preferably in a way that did not involve a “9 to 5” existence and which also did not involve climbing some corporate ladder.

Within a few months of leaving the RAF something happened which changed my life and started me down the “entrepeneurial” path – from which there has been no return! Little did I know what fate had in store for me…but I am very grateful that I was shown a path.

One day I noticed a leaflet stuck to the windshield of my car, which invited me to check out a Business Opportunity, with an introductory meeting at a Hotel in Norwich – the “capital” town of Norfolk and about 25 miles away.

The opportunity was from a company called Golden Chemical Products.

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Mars Landing 2021

Fantastic Video landing shots of the latest Space Mission to Mars

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Second Marriage

Leave a Comment / Family, Marriages, Second Marriage 1987 to 2012 / admin

Michele Veronica West - 1987 to 2012

I should start by saying that Michele is still very much alive and well, and what follows is only in the “past” tense because they are my memories and recollections of our time together.

I am also well aware that we still share friends and connections, and it is not my intention to cause any rift or upset, or attempt to change the status quo: it is just an honest account as to why things did not work out after 25 years together.

In many ways, Michele was a completely opposite character to my first wife. She was working in London when I met her in 1985 and did not drink, and was vivacious and amusing without being extravert. She was also extremely attractive with a great personality.

Michele was born in November 1948: her father George West was serving as an officer in the British Forces in 1946 at the time of the occupation of Palestine (now Israel). Her mother, Alice (Babs) was Jewish, originally from Vienna Austria, and was one of those who managed to escape from the concentration camps and make her way to Palestine – her own experiences would have made a great book. Babs worked in the same office as George, romance quickly followed, and he returned to the UK to marry her in approx 1947. They lived in Thames Village Chiswick. There was one younger brother, Peter, who was at the time we met, involved in the early stages of the computer software industry in the UK: he later became a US citizen and currently lives with his very attractive wife, Alice, in California with their family and his precious Mercedes (a “must have” status symbol for Peter!)

In 1985 Michele was working in London with her best friend and partner, Ana, and running a small printing and proof reading service for local businesses using their computer skills: I remember being impressed that the girls were in business, although I did also know that some of their clients were not the most reliable of payers, which led to cashflow problems. Some of their clients were “interesting” characters: I remember being introduced to one customer – Peter Jeffries, a Canadian – who was operating an investment fund called the “Growth Strategies Fund” which was administrated and run from a rented office in Grosvenor, and seemed to me to be a slightly “dodgy” enterprise.

At the time, my Insurance Brokerage – Noble Warren Investments Ltd – and Investment Management company – Jarretts Bond Management Ltd – were both doing well and operating out of 50 Maddox Street. I invited Michele over one evening ostensibly to discuss redecorating my offices, and the romance began.

Michele was living in rented accommodation which was actually one floor of a privately owned house in the London W1 area. There were issues with the “tenancy”. When I moved out of Sandall Road, I moved in with Michele and, after a short time, we decided to set up home together using the £5000 she would receive for vacating her rights of tenancy. The first property we bought was a 3 bedroom flat at Belvedere House, Kew Bridge Road for which I arranged the mortgage. Her parents were living close by in Thames Village, and I was impressed with the location of their property. I remember asking her parents to let me know as soon as any of the Thames Village properties with a river frontage came onto the market, and within a year, No. 56 Thames Village was available, and we moved in shortly afterwards.

We were married at St Georges Church Hanover Square in October 1987, which was 100 yards from my office in Maddox Street. The reception was at the Westbury Mayfair Hotel and my best man was Chris Efstratiou. The honeymoon started with the Eurostar to Paris where we joined the Orient Express to spend some romantic days together in Venice, visiting Harry’s Bar and St Mark’s Square and enjoying together the normal tourist trips – in a Gondola, and a visit to the famous glass making factory.

I am detailing this only to show how important it was for me to demonstrate to Michele how much I appreciated her trust in me and to give her a honeymoon that she would always remember. Unfortunately, she was not too well throughout the honeymoon, and to make matters worse, the trip back to the UK (Orient Express to Paris, and then Eurostar to Waterloo, London) coincided with the worst gales to hit the South East of England in living memory – October 19 1987.

We settled down to life together in Thames Village. Michele’s former business in London was closed, the main reason being that it was no longer viable, in that the rapid advance in computer programming meant that potential customers could now do the same job with their own office based computers.

Our attention turned to raising a family, which was terribly important for Michele, and she had my full support. We tried unsuccessfuly for some years and in the early 1990s we turned to IVF treatment, visiting some of London’s top specialists, but without success.

Our life together in Chiswick was a comfortable one – we were both members of the Riverside Club where there were all kinds of facilities including tennis, dance classes and a fully equipped gymnasium. Here we met and became great friends with Tony Haslam and his future wife Nona, who was formerly a solo dancer at the Royal Festival Ballet. Another great friendship started with Carlo Vagliasindi and his partner at the time, Bridget Hunt, both living in Richmond. Also Chris and Fiona Bevan and his brother Simon and wife Anne-Marie, and many other friends were made, who used the facilities at the Club, including my fellow tennis players – so social life was full and interesting!

Although Thames Village had more than its fair share of elederly residents, we were fortunate to have interesting and friendly neighbours immediately adjacent to us: in particular Nadine and Tony Darke-Partridge and Laurence and Jules York Moore.

Tony was a senior executive for Gillette, before it was taken over by Procter and Gamble and had his fair share of overseas postings, including some years in St Petersburg. Having a slightly unusual surname did result in some amusing postal delivery problems – perhaps the most amusing being a letter addressed to them both in Thames Village as Mr & Mrs Dank-Porridge! Both were very charming and generous and we visited each other on a regular basis.

Laurence is a qualified architect, and his wife Jules was closely involved with the BBC in a professional capacity as a makeup artist for many of the top shows. Both were charming and we socialised with them on many occasions, before they made the decision to move to Cornwall.

We also took regular holidays abroad – many to Crete. Our immediate family was complemented with white cats, that were raised from kittenhood. Michele was also an excellent cook and hostess, and all seemed to be going well, except for the bad news about having children.

In the late 1990s, disaster struck in the shape of a “double whammy” – the first being the forced closure of my insurance and investment businesses through changes in Financial Regulations, and the second being extremely high Bank interest rates, the combination of which eventually forced me into Bankruptcy. I have covered – or will be covering – the circumstances that led to this disaster in the Business section of this Blog. Luckily some years previously I had taken the precaution to transfer ownership of our Thames Village property into Michele’s name, thus avoiding a complete disaster.

I had to abandon the offices in the West End and set up my new “office” in the spare bedroom at home. To her credit, Michele was supportive, and even helped me in selling tourist phonecard products in London, the first job I could find following the disaster. I will always remember the extreme generosity of her godparents, Vroni and Gunter, originally also from Austria, who provided a much needed non repayable “loan” of some £9000, the only people to help us financially.

After a few years, I was back “in business”, creating a small telecoms company, and from 2001 or thereabouts, things steadily improved. However, it was apparent to me that Michele was not particularly happy: she had tried her hand at a few things, including making woollen jumpers for private sale. She had always been interested in professional Make-up, Nutrition, Natural Remedies and Homeopathy, so she took a few courses, and started to try to attract customers.

When younger, Michele had played piano, was a talented singer and also had studied Acting and Performance at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. As we had an excellent “adult and further education college” a few miles away in Twickenham called the Richmond upon Thames College – I think it was circa 2003 or 2004 – I persuaded her to enrol in the college with me, and we started with singing classes. The College was a social hub for all kinds of talented amateurs interested in arts music drama and theatre, and we met many people who went on to become good friends of ours. One connection was Deirdre O’Kelly, our singing teacher at the time: her father, talented actor and singer, Fergus O’Kelly, was very much involved with the Barnes Charity Players, now called the Barnes Community Players, who put on excellent amateur productions of plays and musicals. I found out that they were auditioning for one of their new productions and persuaded Michele to come with me to the audition. Although she was not successful at the time, and for that particular show, the “seed” was sown, and she went on to perform regularly in the shows that followed.

I mention this because I wanted Michele to have another “outlet” and so I pushed her out of her “comfort zone” so that some of her talents could be fulfilled and she would have more of an interesting life with more purpose. As it turned out, by being there, I also benefitted by becoming part of the same group, and we took part together in a number of shows and musical events for the next ten years.

So What Went Wrong?

In my opinion, there were three main reasons for my decision to break up our marriage.

No Children The first reason was our inability to have children together, which caused Michele much sadness: there is no doubt in my mind that she would have made an excellent mother and having children would have changed both our lives and our priorities: it would also have given Michele her desired main “role in life” as a mother. I am sure that if we had had children, we would not have divorced.

Disagreement over Finance When her mother died, Michele inherited a fair amount of capital: the amount happened to be approximately the same as the mortgage outstanding on our home. Over the years, it had been necessary for me to refinance – by way of increasing the mortgage – in order to support and grow the new telecom businesses. These various businesses were at the time doing reasonably well, but the monthly mortgage repayments were a significant part of our outgoings: the obvious thing from my perspective – and financial experience – was to repay the mortgage with the inherited capital, and I did not understand why this was a problem for Michele.

Trust and Support It had become increasingly obvious to me that Michele was relying on the opinion of “friends” rather than myself in many matters affecting our life together. For me, there was too little honesty or trust left in our relationship.

I also had my own problems in coming to terms with living out the rest of my life in the UK.

Although I had a comfortable lifestyle and many interests – both sporting and musical and amateur theatre – I yearned for a more sunny climate: my businesses could be run from anywhere with reliable internet available. So in approx 2010/2011 I decided to spend some months out of the UK: Crete was somewhere which we both knew well, and I started by renting a property there to “test the water” and to make sure that it was what I was looking for. Michele joined me on several occasions, but I knew her “heart was not in it” and that she wanted very much to remain in London with her friends and familiar lifestyle.

In 2012 I told Michele that as far as I was concerned, the marriage could not continue, and our divorce was finalised in November 2014. Michele received the majority of the proceeds of the sale of 56 Thames Village – a not inconsiderable amount.

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First Marriage

Leave a Comment / Family, First Marriage 1976 to 1987, Marriages / admin

Rosemary Ann Proctor - 1976 to 1985

Rosie was my first wife, and mother to my only son, Russell.

Born in May 1946, her father Harry was senior partner at the law firm Hunt and Wrigley based at the time in Thirsk Yorkshire. The family home was a large house in Osmotherley, North Yorkshire, which was where we had our wedding reception in September 1976. Her family was comfortably well off, with holiday homes in nearby Filey and elsewhere.

The wedding day was not auspicious as it poured with rain, threatening to destroy the marquees and other structures brought in for the occasion. My best man was Hugh Slater, a good friend from the King’s School Canterbury.

Rosie’s mother Miriam was a commanding presence, and used to getting her own way: Harry, on the other hand, loved the quiet life, and golf. Rosie had a younger brother Chris, who at the time was training to be a solicitor at the the Guildford Law College.

I first met Rosie in about 1972 at a party held at the home of the O’Connor family in Hockley Essex. She was friends with a boy named Steve, who also happened to know Dianne – one of the O’Connor girls – and Steve was studying at the same Law College in Guildford as Rosie’s brother Chris.

My first impression of Rosie was that she enjoyed parties and alcohol, and was more “extravert” than I was used to seeing. She did not seem to have a job as such, but was financially independent with her own MG Midget sports car – she was actually a pretty good driver!

We got on well, and she later visited me in my cottage at Saham Hills in Norfolk. Our relationship of boyfriend/girlfriend was “on and off” and we separated for a year before re-uniting in 1975, as I was beginning to do rather well with Merchant Investors as an insurance salesman.

I invited her to come with me on my annual sales convention to Crete in September 1975 – all expenses paid 5 star holiday – where she met the other leading salesmen and women from Merchant Investors. Shortly after this, we jointly decided (it was not a romantic “on one knee” moment with engagement ring to hand) to get married.

I did not tell my parents immediately – they were in Rhodesia at the time – preferring to tell them when we visited together in early 1976, but our surprise news was slightly overshadowed by the decision of my younger brother Robert to get married to Judith (from the same Merchant Investors connection) in Rhodesia at the same time on the same visit. From this marriage came my niece Camilla, who is now doing rather well as a Social Media professional.

Rosie was a very pretty girl, with a nice character, but she used alcohol as a way to emerge from her “shell”, and the resulting lack of inhibition many times caused problems. I was well aware of this, having witnessed it before, but thought that once we were married this would no longer be an issue. I believe that the problems that she had were a result of her mother’s controlling influence in her childhood – Miriam did not drink or smoke at all, but both her children did so, and sometimes to excess.

We started married life in a flat in Corfton Lodge, Ealing, West London and then moved to our first purchased property Rose Cottage in Neville Road Ealing, which was very close to the Pitshanger Lane Tennis Club (at the time they had grass courts, and we did sometimes play together) and not far from Hanger Lane Tube Station used for my daily commute to the City. By this time, there was an addition to the family in the shape of a crazy Red Setter male puppy called Gemini (Gemmy)

We planned to start a proper family as soon as possible – Rosie was in her 30s – and she became pregnant in 1978. Unfortunately, the baby boy (James) was premature at only six months and survived only three days in an incubator. The autopsy confirmed jaundice and lung failure, owing to the premature birth, and I and Rosies’ parents were told privately by the doctors that it would be advisable for her to give up smoking and drinking before trying again.

To her credit, she did so, and Russell was born in November 1980, perfectly healthy.

We did not have any help with the baby , but we managed OK, and business was going well, so I “upgraded” our property to a large 4 bedroom detached house in Sandall Road, Ealing, which was more suited to a family.

Our main friends, with whom we socialised on many occasions were Chris and Jenny Efstratiou, working with Merchant Investors and lving in London (and later Oxford), and Ron Hollett and Daphne Roughead in Hampshire (and later Wiltshire). Daphne was Rosie’s best friend, and they had a son Chris who was a little older than Russ. Ron was a very talented Art Director working in London, and his passion was clay-pigeon shooting, a sport which he introduced to me, and we spent many hours in different parts of the South of England at various organised shoots – with prizes on offer often won by Ron!
Chris and Jenny Efstratiou had three children, Melissa, Marcus and Rowena, with Marcus about the same age as my son Russell.

So what went wrong?

In the next four years or so, life was comfortable financially, but Rosie seemed bored and not particularly happy, resulting in a return to smoking and drinking in the old style. She was not at all interested in getting some help or counselling for this, and was not particularly maternal.

There were frequent alcohol induced rows at home: after one episode at a friend’s house, which resulted in a violent altercation between us, I realised that I could not spend any more of my life in an environment which may have led to more violence, and that it would be better for all concerned – including my son – if I left the family home.

I realised that when I made this decision, legal custody of Russell would certainly go to Rosie, even if I portrayed her as an unfit mother, but I assumed – rightly – that she would return to Yorkshire and get the necessary help from her parents, and so Russell should be in good hands.

I left the family home taking only my car, some clothes and a few personal belongings. Once Rosie had left London in approx 1986 after selling Sandall Road, and keeping the proceeds ( some £100,000 plus) she returned to Yorkshire with Russell to live with her parents. She never married again, and died of (as I understand it) heart related causes in about 2015: I was not invited to attend the funeral.

After the separation and final divorce, she did everything possible to prevent me from contacting Russ, and whilst still in London, when I did take my son out for the day, it was obvious that she had poisoned his mind against his father to an unacceptable degree. On one occasion, my second wife Michele and I took Russ on a week’s holiday to Spain: it soon became apparent that he had very recently contracted measles, and of course we were not told in advance.

It took 15 years for Russ to re-establish contact – he was studying at the Royal University of Holloway in Egham, not far from our home in Chiswick. I was happy to hear him say (in confidence) that he did not blame me for leaving Rosie, and by his own account, his life in Yorkshire was not ideal: I was not happy and I do very much regret, however, that I had missed out on the most important formative years of his life, when father and son would normally bond.heart

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Domain Buddy on Love and Marriage

Leave a Comment / Domain Buddy Opinions and Comments / admin

Foreword - My Personal Views on Love and Marriage

I should explain that I am not the easiest person to live with – I have opinions about life generally which are unusual and atypical, and there are some things or values in life which are to me more important than others, which can be difficult for a partner to accept.

I am entrepeneurial by nature, by which I mean that I would far rather be my own boss, than climbing up some corporate ladder, with a safe salary. This can go “against the grain” for many women, who naturally prefer the comfort of safety and security in the marital home.

So what is love exactly?

If I am honest – and that is the point of this Blog – or “memoirs” – love has always been a tricky word for me to understand. When I first meet someone of the opposite sex, the first thing that has to happen is sexual chemistry – in other words, I have to find her sexually attractive. For there to be a possibility of an ongoing relationship, I have to continue to enjoy her company, and find her interesting and/or stimulating.

At some stage in that relationship, for it to progress further, I need to feel that I would like to spend my life – or invest my future – in the other person as my permanent partner.

Marriage was introduced many years ago primarily to protect women, and to give them a status in life: this gradually led to emancipation and then (in the UK at least) to explicit “rules” to ensure fair division of property in the event that a marriage was ended or dissolved for any reason. I fully support these principles, even though it does provide the legal profession (one of my least favourite “bodies”) with an unending source of income.

Amongst my values, perhaps the most important of all to me is loyalty. I expect my life partner to be publicly loyal in all matters. Of course there will be private disagreements, which is healthy and part of any relationship, but I need to know that the person I have committed to “has my back”.

Because of my own strong beliefs and my need to be entrepeneurial – with both the risks and rewards that such a lifestyle inevitably bring – I expect my wife to be fully supportive in both good times and bad. In matters of business (or family income and lifestyle) if I am the one doing the work, and creating the income, I also expect constructive support.

My view is that I do not need or want the approval of the Church or Society when it comes to choosing to share my life with another person. I make the committment, and nobody else is involved in my decision. I hope that I choose wisely and that I know and understand the person well enough to make that personal commitment.

Of course, this goes “both ways”, and similarly I hope that my partner knows me and my values well enough to accept the challenge. And it goes without saying that if one is lucky enough to have children, then personal priorities have to change, because a family has been formed, and – in most cases – the wife will need to devote more of her time and attention to the family.

If I had the choice, I would not have been married at all. I would have preferred an open partnership – it is only social pressure “to do the right thing” and the need to “protect” the spouse that did persuade me to get married on three different occasions.

It is not in my nature or character to be disloyal or to cheat on my partner – this never happened except when the marriages had irretrievably broken down and divorce was being initiated. There is no doubt that men are progammed to be more sexually active and to procreate with as many partners as possible – just take a look at the animal kingdom from which we all evolved – and no matter how much “civilisation” tries to intrude, that basic programming will never change.

For me though, much as though I may have been tempted, and important as sexual relationships are to me, fidelity was one of the ways I always demonstrated loyalty to my chosen partner.

In all my marriages, I have been the one to instigate the “divorce” or, as I would call it, the “parting of the ways”.

And in each case, my wife has received the lion’s share of the “estate” and I have not provided any legal challenge in the divorce proceedings, because – in my view – it is the price I paid for not choosing wisely enough in the first place. My overall feeling subsequent to each divorce has been one of disappointment with the woman concerned..

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