What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography (17 page)

Johnnie would remind me from time to time how important it was that I worked hard. Not that I needed reminding; I knew what responsibilities I was taking on.

'How's this business of yours going?' he asked one day.

'Well,' I explained, 'to be honest with you, it's hard work, but I've set myself a target to make sixty quid by Wednesday.'

'What?'

'Sixty quid by Wednesday - that's my target.'

'What do you mean?'

'Sixty quid by Wednesday,' I repeated. 'That's what I've got to earn.'

'Oh, you mean that's what you've got to
take
?
'

'No, that's what I've got to
earn.
But I normally make much more than that - maybe eighty by the end of the week. Unless my van breaks down, then I'm stuck.'

Now, Johnnie was not one of those people who deals with things in a polite way. 'What are you talking about - sixty pounds, eighty pounds a week? Who are you bloody kidding? There is a difference between
taking
sixty pounds and
making
sixty pounds, you know.'

'Excuse me? What do you mean?'

'Are you telling me that you're
making
sixty or eighty pounds a week in this business?'

'Yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you. I know the difference between what I take and what I make.'

'Nah. Rita, what's he talking about? You don't know what you're talking about. I don't believe you.'

'Well, it's true.' I shrugged my shoulders and thought, 'Why am I arguing? Who have I got to convince? Why do I have to justify myself?'

Johnnie looked at Rita and said, 'I'm knocking myself out working with your brother in that bloody factory and we can't make a profit there.' This was the first time I'd heard about the state of Johnnie's business - a furniture factory.

Beerite Furniture in Hackney Road was, I believe, inherited from Izzy, who was a cabinet maker. When Johnnie married into the family, he joined
Izzy's firm, together with Rita's brothers, Jack and Harry. All three of them worked in the factory for a while, but Jack went off to become a licensed taxi driver, leaving just Johnnie and Harry running the business.

From what I understand, Johnnie used to do all the buying and selling (buying in the sense of purchasing the materials they needed) while Harry used to run the factory and get the stuff made. They would load a massive lorry at the end of the week and Johnnie would deliver the stuff to the customers. It was a typical cabinet-making business in the East End, but what was coming through loud and clear to me was that this business was in the pits. They were both unable to draw a big salary. They had about ten employees and were trapped in an endless cycle of trying to achieve orders and compete.

Johnnie would continually complain about Harry's lack of ambition and how he had to do everything himself, although I'm sure, given the opportunity, Harry would have given another side of the story. So when I told Johnnie I was making PS60-80 a week, he thought it was some fantasy of mine.

Slowly, the truth of the matter dawned on him. No way was he jealous - he most certainly wasn't - but to his generation it was unprecedented that a nineteen-year-old kid would be taking home PS60-80 a week while he, as he put it, was knocking himself out in a factory, five days a week, out on the lorry, business going down the pan, and only being able to draw a minimal salary. Picture that scenario and you can understand his frustration.

Johnnie pressed me further. 'Show me how you do this then. What are you talking about - sixty, eighty pounds a week - are you nuts?'

So one day, I brought him my books. I had no idea about bookkeeping, but I had this big red ledger-type thing in which I entered the day's takings, how much the items had cost me, how much I'd sold them for and, subtracting one from the other, the running profit. Totally the wrong method of accounting, but it was the way I kept control of things. I knew I had to be disciplined about this because I was told that one day I was going to have to give all my bills to an accountant and pay some tax.

'Show me the book,' said Johnnie incredulously. 'Let me see what you're on about.' I talked him through it. Not that it was any of his business, but bear in mind that I was his future son-in-law, not yet fully approved and passed for quality control. The cold shoulder was warming up slightly, so I guess I was kind of schmoozing a bit, to get into his good books.

He started examining the ledger sceptically. Within about ten minutes of studying the book, his expression had changed to one of utter disbelief. He looked up and said, 'Here, Rita, look at this - he
is
making the money!'

He turned to me. 'Are you really doing this?'

'Yeah,' I said.

'What do you sell then?'

'Well, car aerials, transistor radios - that type of stuff.'

'This is ridiculous. If you can do it, I can do it,' said Johnnie.

Rita picked up on this. 'Well, Johnnie, you've been moaning about the business for months, if not years. You say it's bankrupt - well, shut it down.'

'I think I will. I think I will shut it down. I'll go out and sell,' he said. 'If he can do it, then so can I.'

Johnnie put his company into liquidation, took some of his savings and went out in his Ford Zephyr to some of my suppliers and bought some car aerials and transistor radios to sell. He must have been about forty-five at the time, so it was a massive step he was taking. After all, he was now going into a completely different world to try to make a living. He set himself up under the title of J & M Wholesale - the M stood for Mark, Ann's brother's name. Mark wasn't old enough to drive at the time, so he would travel around with Johnnie. Sometimes he'd take samples with him on foot, and remarkably pulled off a few sales himself.

Later, I heard from Ann that after I'd taken Johnnie out in my van and shown him the ropes, he'd told Rita I had more energy in my little finger than Harry had in his whole body! Harry was a lovely, kind and polite man, with the same nature as Rita.

Word about this must have spread throughout the Simons family because on subsequent occasions, when I was round their house in Redbridge for a gathering of the clans, I could see, slowly and surely, an increasing level of respect shown towards me. This, I was to find out later, was down to Johnnie and Rita singing my praises to the family.

I mention this point because I think that was the first time I'd ever experienced earning respect. I guess it boils down to this simple fact: it's not what you say, it's what you do. Time is your greatest friend if you really want to show who you are.

Mind you, I'd have to say that Izzy always loved me, right from the day he clapped eyes on me.

*

While running around London in my minivan, I decided to pop in and see my old boss Sam Korobuck to say I was now working for myself and, as a long shot, to see if there was any stuff I could buy from him. I discovered that his business was going down the pan and Robinson had gone. Sam was one of
these people who are devoted to the
science
of their business - a 'teckkie' rather than a marketing man. The only thing he had for me to buy was equipment which had come back from retailers. As we walked round his warehouse and I spotted piles of record-players and tape recorders, my thoughts turned to Malcolm. Repairing tape recorders was beyond his scope - they were complex mechanical items - but record-players were certainly within his capabilities. Sam was desperate for money and the business was really suffering. I offered him a ridiculous price for the record-players because not only did they need repairing, but also the exterior cabinets needed cleaning up and the whole lot needed repacking. To my surprise, he accepted my offer.

The only problem was that I didn't have the money or the space to store them. Mum wanted all my 'junk (the TVs) out of the second bedroom. And I was definitely banned from having strangers coming to the flat. So I found a small storeroom in one of the big houses in Rushmore Road, Clapton. This house accommodated a few cottage industries. In the basement there was a sub-contractor to a garment factory employing ten machinists and on the ground floor there were a couple of blokes making blinds. The back room was vacant, so I decided to take it and move all my junk in, including the record-players - after I'd worked out where to get the money from.

I went back to see Sam and told him that I'd take the whole lot, but I was a bit short of cash. However, if he'd give me a week, I'd be able to give him all the money. I convinced him there was no point in me going backwards and forwards taking a few at a time and he should trust me to take the whole lot at once. I think I gave him about PS300 there and then as a deposit, but I needed to find well over PS1,000 in total.

With my minivan and Malcolm's firm's van, we did about four trips back and forth between Holloway Road and Rushmore Road. We whipped all the stuff away before Sam changed his mind!

The major fault with these record-players was that the valves in the amplifiers had died. All we had to do was replace them. The other problem was that some of the record-players were quite dirty. So, with a scrubbing brush and some Ajax, Malcolm not only applied his electronic skills, but also cleaned up the plastic 'leatherette' cabinets. Within a week or so, I'd sold the lot and paid Sam in full.

It was a real eye-opener because the margin I'd made was amazing, something like 125 per cent. I even gave some of the machines to Johnnie to sell. He shifted them easily and was soon pestering me to give him a few more. I pointed out that the price I'd charged him was exactly what I'd paid, plus
spare parts, so I wasn't making any money on these ones. This meant that the more I gave him, the more money I lost.

The Robuck record-player venture stuck in my mind, and the thought of making a 125 per cent margin drove me on to try to find a product that nobody else had. Of course, it sounds a bit naive -
everyone
wants a product that nobody else has. Usually, I was buying things for PS5 and selling them for PS6 - margins were slim and you had to sell a lot of stuff to make real money.

I was on a treadmill, buying and selling stuff for low margins. I was able to make a bit more money by selling further afield in places like Birmingham, Cambridge, Portsmouth and Norwich. Unlike the hard-nosed London dealers, these retailers were willing to pay my prices. But it was a very hard slog and the minivan was conking out every week. When it was in the repair shop, my alternative was to try to do business over the phone, but then I'd have to parcel my orders up at Rushmore Road and wait for British Road Services to turn up and take the parcels away - all time consuming.

Johnnie advised me, 'If you have an old banger, it's going to break down all the time. You need a
new
car - it's as simple as that.'

Regrettably, I didn't take his advice. I bought a second-hand Vauxhall Viva from some dodgy bloke who insisted it had been driven by a little old lady once a week on her way to church. He said I might even find a Bible on the back seat. He took my minivan in part-exchange. I should have known there was something wrong when he offered me sixty quid for it - I'd only paid fifty in the first place.

My cash flow was a problem at that point, so I asked my mum and dad whether they'd lend me a few quid for a couple of months to buy this car. I told them this one would be more reliable and had a big boot. They agreed, and one Sunday morning we went to their Benevolent Society office in the East End. They withdrew PS250 and gave it to me as a loan to buy the car.

Young, thoughtless and in a hurry, I grabbed the dosh and was just about to shoot off and pick up the Vauxhall when my mum turned to me and said, 'Aren't you going to say thank you?'

'Oh yeah, sorry - thank you.'

Typical of young people.

The Vauxhall Viva turned out to be a total disaster. The boot capacity was much smaller than the minivan's and the car was breaking down all the time - worse than the minivan - and I was racking up more and more bills trying to fix it. But this was my first real car - I guess my choice was swayed by wanting to impress my mates.

Finally, I went to Wood & Lambert in Stamford Hill and looked at a brand-new automatic Ford Cortina Estate. This would kill two birds with one stone. As an estate, it would double up as a van and as a car, it would be a beautiful set of wheels.

I couldn't afford the PS1,050 price tag, so I decided to pay for it on hire-purchase. The salesman pointed out that I was under twenty-one and therefore ineligible to sign an HP agreement. On Friday night, during dinner, I explained what had happened and asked my father whether he would come with me tomorrow and sign the agreement on my behalf. 'I'm
not
signing a thousand-pound bill,' was his reaction.

I can now understand his feelings. He was sixty years old at the time and must have been thinking back to the days when a thousand pounds was like a million pounds now. Back then, I couldn't understand his problem - I was
sure
I'd be able to make the payments. I explained how the Vauxhall Viva fiasco had taught me that I needed a vehicle that wouldn't conk out - a new one with a guarantee - so I could be out on the road five days a week. Despite this, my dad wouldn't budge.

Then, remarkably, Shirley's Harold said, 'Don't worry, Alan, I'll come down and sign for you.'

There was a stunned silence. My dad turned to him and said,
'You'll
sign?'