Please Let It Stop (5 page)

A few months after we started living together, Tony was transferred to Antwerp for six months to work for De Beers there. I stayed on in the house in Rochester but went to see him once a month for the weekend. It was more like an expedition than a visit. I used to go up to London, take the train to Folkestone, the ferry to Ostend, change at Ghent and go on to Antwerp. The journeys took their toll, especially because it was usually during the night. He came home for the weekend only once in all that time. Tony was quite a possessive man and had made it clear he didn’t want me going out while he was away. I had no intention of doing so since I was still in the first flush of love. Also I didn’t really have any friends in the area whom I could call and meet up with. My childhood had seen to that.

Tony finally returned from Antwerp and we began to make wedding plans. I was absolutely convinced this was the real thing. I was marrying a man who not only loved me
but who shared my ambition and desire to succeed. We set the date for 20 August 1980. Nothing less than a fairy-tale wedding would do and both of my parents were right behind me, with Mum helping arrange things and Dad paying for it all. I had a fairly classic, traditional dress from Pronuptia. Given that I had no real sense of fashion or what suited me, I have to say that I didn’t do too badly. It could have been much worse! My sister Vanessa, now thirteen, was one of my bridesmaids; the others were my cousin Stephanie and my friend Stevie, a school friend who worked at Royal Doulton with me. We held a reception for about two hundred people at the Grasshopper restaurant in Westerham and drove off in a white Rolls-Royce – it was straight out of the pages of a magazine. It was such a beautiful day and nothing could wipe the smile off my face – until our honeymoon.

One of Tony’s least appealing characteristics was that while he liked making money, he hated spending it. He’d done really well for himself in Antwerp but he certainly wasn’t going to spend it on some luxurious hotel. He’d bought a second-hand cabin cruiser and had visions of us cruising the national waterways, which, frankly, horrified me. The cabin cruiser needed too much work so instead he decided we were going to France. My father stepped in and flew us to Perpignan in his twin-engine aircraft where we had a rendezvous with a friend of Tony’s and his girlfriend with whom we would be sharing a tent. Yes, a tent. Aside
from the general lack of romantic ambience, I argued with the girl the whole time; and I ended up getting sunstroke. It was a relief to go home and get back to work where things were about to get interesting.

Dad originally became involved with Ann Summers shops when he supplied them with books and magazines. Ann Summers was launched by a man-about-town called Kim Caborn-Waterfield, who had dated Diana Dors and, rumour has it, Princess Margaret. He once wrote a sex manual under an assumed name. And he came up with the idea of Ann Summers after seeing the success of a chain of sex shops in Germany. He employed a beautiful young woman called Annice Goodwin, who, unsurprisingly, happened to be his lover and who had changed her surname to Summers at his suggestion. Annice managed the first Ann Summers shop at Marble Arch in London’s West End. Opening in September 1970, it attracted a huge media circus; this was soon followed by public outrage which got quite out of hand. In the Midlands mothers and clergy rallied against the possibility of a sex shop opening, while in Bristol there was an evangelical protest march. As the well-spoken figurehead for Ann Summers, Annice handled it all with style and soon became quite well known in the media.

Waterfield chose to keep a low profile and let her run the show. Although the shop was taking in around £4,000 a week, Waterfield led the lifestyle of someone much richer, with the
result that he spent more than he made. He only managed to open one more shop, in Bristol, before things went wrong and Ann Summers went into voluntary liquidation.

Dad and Uncle Ralph were owed money by Waterfield and in November 1970 they decided to go see him at the Marble Arch shop to find out what the problem was. The amount they were owed was £450 but, despite the shop turning over good money, Waterfield did not have it. He was a very clever talker and he blamed his difficulties on the recent postal strike since much of his business came through mail order. Predictably, Dad and Ralph didn’t see their money but they saw an opportunity: when the shops went into liquidation they bought them and the Ann Summers name for just £10,000. It was a very good deal, largely due to the scepticism and hesitation of other potential buyers who thought the business was a bit dodgy and didn’t want to get their hands dirty. Dad and Ralph had taken a risk that others were not prepared to take. These days I recognise the same instinct in myself and I’ve often thought the Gold motto should be, ‘We do business where others fear to tread.’

Annice was kept on for a time but soon fell out with my father, insisting that she knew how to run things and implementing all sorts of changes that just didn’t work. She introduced luxury Janet Reger-style lingerie, failing to
understand that the sex business at this time was still male-dominated and customers were more interested in the black and red baby-doll numbers. Eventually things became untenable and Annice left. She was last heard of as the widow of an American millionaire with homes in Italy, America and London.

Upon returning to work from my disastrous honeymoon, I found I’d been moved to Ann Summers mail order, where I worked alongside a delightful woman called Marlene Green. I liked the atmosphere there – it had a genuine buzz about it and was much friendlier than other departments. Initially my job had nothing to do with the products. I looked after the personal ads at the back of the magazines, which was mildly amusing. We asked those who posted with us to sign disclaimers so that we could weed out professional working girls. One day Chris Rogers and Ann Galea, who were party organisers from the Pippa Dee party plan company, came in to buy some of our products to sell at their parties. They wanted to sell Ann Summers lingerie alongside their own range of normal casual clothes, which were the kind you’d find in the high street. We agreed to supply them on a wholesale basis. I was impressed by their enthusiasm and was especially interested in the concept of party plan, so I asked if I could come to one of their parties. It was 1981 and it was to prove more than just an evening’s entertainment.

There we were, a group of women gathered together in a small flat in Thamesmead, drinking wine and chatting. Once the Ann Summers items came out things really livened up. Sexy lingerie was passed around along with stories of sex lives and relationships. There were loads of laughs and the most amazing atmosphere created by women who were enjoying letting their hair down. I was introduced as the daughter of the man who owned Ann Summers, which led to the women not just asking loads of questions but also giving their suggestions. Fundamentally, they wanted to buy sexy underwear but they didn’t feel comfortable going into sex shops to do it. They felt – quite rightly – that the whole business of sexual pleasure at that time was not female friendly, a view that was eventually to underpin my business strategy.

Party plan, originally thought up in the 1950s by Tupperware in the States, could be used to sell all sorts of things. There were few overheads and you had direct access to cash customers. Right there I made my mind up: I was going to hold my own parties. I went back to Tony buzzing with excitement and he had to listen to me talking non-stop about it. I don’t think I had any idea of what it could become; I just knew party plan was potentially a very exciting move for Ann Summers. However, I realised that I had to do my homework so I decided I wouldn’t tell anybody – other than Tony – until I’d done my research.

We didn’t sell lingerie but started with ordinary, casual clothes which we bought in the East End’s markets. Tony and I would haggle with the wholesalers in an attempt to get them to give us only a few of each item, instead of the usual hundred. We bought jumpers, skirts, dresses and jackets – in all I think we invested about £100. I started with parties at our house and then I persuaded others to let me hold parties at their homes. Given that I was still quite shy, it was a big deal for me to stand up in front of people and sell to them. But once I was up there in full flow, I loved it, and the more I did it, the more I became enthused about what I was doing. Tony and I now had a weekly routine which involved buying the clothes in London on Sunday and selling them through the week. I got a really good feel for the concept and then moved on to selling sexy underwear and a few toys. It was hugely popular and transformed the atmosphere at the parties.

However, I had more pressing things to attend to. Marlene was complaining about how snowed under she was with the extra administration from the Pippa Dee ladies. It was time to make my move and pitch my big idea to my father.

CHAPTER THREE

I have always felt that my father is a very eloquent spokesman on the subject of the sex industry, which is useful considering the number of times the media have given the business a hammering over the years. He once told a newspaper:

You won’t find any hard porn in our shops. There are no back rooms. Everything is on view at the front of the shop. We draw the line at pornography. The difficulty is that the line keeps moving and a publication which is acceptable today might not be acceptable tomorrow. We have always presented sex in a healthy and positive light, and we feel that both men and women should be given the freedom of choice to buy products that enhance their sex lives.

The truth was that the sex business was then biased in favour of men. There just weren’t the opportunities for women to buy products to ‘enhance’ their lives. At the time
the concept of sexual pleasure was something that seemed to exclude any idea of women as consumers. The message seemed to be, ‘Ladies, you can be part of it but you can’t take the lead.’

I was under no illusion that I had a job ahead of me in getting my dad to listen to my party plan idea. Our father–daughter relationship was an awkward one and he also kept his distance at work. One night I stayed late in the hope that he would be alone in the office he shared with another board member, David Tizzard. I waited and waited but David clearly wasn’t going anywhere so I just went in and told them my idea – badly. I rambled on far too much, but somewhere along the line I managed to get the general thought across. I told them about the parties I’d already held, the potential demand from women and how it would expand our retail business. Halfway through my monologue, Dad stood up and looked at me thoughtfully for several seconds. Many years later he told me that it was a very special moment for him as he felt proud and realised then that I had the makings of a businesswoman. Eventually he suggested that I go away and think about it, and make a presentation to the board.

I had a week to pull it all together. I had no idea where to start so I just made notes until I thought I’d nailed what I had to say. Then I typed it up and practised reading it out several times in front of Tony who said it sounded good. Over the years I have discovered that I am quite a lateral
thinker and problem solver; even my friends have pointed out I will not offer only one solution to their problem but usually two or three.

The day of the presentation dawned and my nerves were already working overtime. They were all sitting in the boardroom as I nervously stepped inside: Dad, Uncle Ralph, John Gibbins, David Tizzard, Ray Unadkat and Ron Coleman. My father told them I had an idea and I shakily took the floor with my two humble pieces of paper. I told them about the women I’d met. I described how we could take the product from our shop range and use the catalogues from the mail order side so that additional investment would be minimal. I explained how women would be recruited as party organisers and they would in turn recruit from among their guests, which would begin to expand the operation. There would be incentives all the way down the line.

Ron Coleman looked at me and then said, ‘I don’t care what you say, women aren’t interested in sex.’ I was stunned, particularly when nobody disagreed with him – not even Dad. Now, when you’re faced with a statement like that you either allow yourself to be put off by it or you just ignore it and hold your line. I was the seller and I had to convince the board that I had something worth buying. Getting angry would not have helped my cause. My father was particularly tough on me. I know he did it because he didn’t want to show any bias towards me. He was also anxious to make sure
I knew what I was doing. Dad now tells me that as he watched me he became very emotional inside and began to realise that even though he didn’t have the son he thought he needed to succeed him, he now had me instead.

The board questioned me for about an hour and I realised how it must feel to be cross-examined in a courtroom. My emotions were more those of frustration than anything else. I believed strongly in the party plan concept and I just wanted others to see it. But right at that moment they weren’t giving me too much to feel positive about.

Eventually, and much to my relief, I was dismissed from the board meeting. I returned to my office and the waiting began. The decision was slow in coming. It was only a couple of days but it may as well have been months. Finally I was informed that I had the board’s approval to establish the party plan concept in line with my proposal, which meant using the existing facilities. They also agreed that I could place an advertisement in the
Evening Standard
once a week for one month to recruit women as party organisers. Depending on the response, the board would then review the position. I was over the moon. There was a huge task ahead but I’d taken the first step.

The
Evening Standard
had all sorts of restrictions on what it would accept in terms of wording. Even though I wanted female party organisers only I wasn’t allowed to say that and I couldn’t use the word ‘erotic’ so the lingerie became ‘exotic’ instead. The final wording went something like this: