The Exchanges

Q Before it went under, and, and then really went under, and were, like, were you broke?

A Well, I'd not been ever so clever. I basically still had a mortgage on my home. So I still have a loan on my home. I still have a loan for a small factory unit I owned, and I still have a loan on, on this property in the high street that I, where I have my lab. So I still had these loans to pay off. So I then was having to borrow money from moneylenders at usurious rates. And then I managed to sell this house for half of what I bought it for. I bought it for 200,000 pounds. I sold it for a 100,000. I paid off all the loan sharks. I was left with 43,000 pounds, and I had three kids and no business.

AI assessment note: “I was left with 43,000 pounds, and I had three kids and no business.”

Q Why, just out of curiosity, why did you bring Liz on? What was, what was she going to bring to the equation?

A Um, well, it wasn't to do with making product. What we did was we opened a little clinic for me to treat people's hair and scalp and to do henna colors on, and she would do her beauty therapy, yeah, and we'd share the, the room, you know, the third room, which was a reception store room. But the problem was that it was incredibly cold there, uh, and we didn't get much business. So we made money still by making product for other people, much more than we did from our little clinic. So we went a year or so to try and make money there, and we couldn't, and so I said to Liz, Liz, well, why don't you join me in the making of the stuff? You know all about skin, I know all about hair, and between us, we can come up with the products. And then when I had to prepare a product for her, I mean, she was a really hard taskmaster, so I had to work and work and work and study and read up in the, you know, the cosmetologies and other books until I got it right. I probably made better skin products than I did hair. You know, when I learned the hair stuff, it was just a technical skill I learned.

AI assessment note: “You know all about skin, I know all about hair”

Q What did, what did you have anxiety about the future at that point? Or did you think I'm going to recover? This is going to be fine.

A Did I have anxiety? I mean, I've, I, I've had anxiety most of my life. So, uh, I have plenty of anxiety, probably enough to, you know, fill a boat. Basically, I didn't want to do anything. I wanted to stay home, lick my wounds. I felt very ashamed. Shame was the prevalent thing. I certainly didn't think I'm going to get up and do something else. But my colleagues Especially Helen Ambrosin at that time. Helen Ambrosin phoned me up and said, the receivers had all gone, right? Everyone had gone. I had an empty, uh, shop and an empty, um, lab, and Helen Ambrosin phoned up and said, I'm going to start going in nine to five. How about you? I'm like, doing what? With, with what? And she said, well, I just think it would be good. We can go in. We can see what there is there. We can make a few products, maybe sell a few here and there. Um, let's get going again. And so all of the, the main team that I'd worked with, they couldn't find work either that they wanted. So bit by bit, they all came back.

AI assessment note: “I certainly didn't think I'm going to get up and do something else.”

Q That year, in 95, you open a store in Covent Garden in London, How were you able to do that with 40,000 pounds?

A Well, what we did was the first store was really the little store downstairs in Paul at 29 high street. And that's what we did first. So we did a sort of mocky up thing. And then basically we knew we'd done all of our money and we knew we had to get a backup, but quite a lot of people were approaching us, offering to back us. Uh, one of the guys, Andrew Geary and Peter Blacker, they were really nice. Peter Black had just said, well, I'll do a punt for a couple of hundred grand, and he put some money in for some shares, and we started the retail business, and with his money, we opened a small store in Covent Garden, and a larger one on the Kings Road.

AI assessment note: “with his money, we opened a small store in Covent Garden”

Q But then I guess, like, around the time you were 12 or so, you, like, you stopped living with your grandmother, like, you and your mom moved out?

A Um, what happened was, there was a lodger, and my mother married the lodger, and we moved out, and my grandmother died. And I didn't realize, probably until much later in my life, How much that had affected me, and I felt responsible, I think, for my grandmother's death for most of my life, because obviously I was important to her, and I wasn't there anymore, and I couldn't look after her, and she died. Um, and then my, my stepfather was very, very cold, I would say, and violent. You know, but that's a very typical upbringing in the fifties, because They'd come out of a war. Do you know what I mean? There was a, they'd lost their friends, some of them had seen their friends killed, or relatives, and so it was, you know, not surprising that those people that were bringing up my generation were not the best balanced people in the world.

AI assessment note: “my mother married the lodger, and we moved out, and my grandmother died.”

Q I think you were 16, and you, you left the house, or you were locked out of the house, um, and that was it. Like, you, you, you started living there. What, do you remember what happened?

A So do I remember what happened? No. But what I do remember is the very singular way you feel when nobody cares. It didn't matter what time I got in at night. It didn't matter whether I was there or not. Nothing mattered with regard to me. So when you're rebelling, obviously it's important that the other person has a, has some feeling regarding you. Yeah. But there was no discernible feeling. I don't, I can't remember what happened physically. I remember the door being locked. I remember it being the end of the, of everything connected with that house. And I just took it as the ultimate rejection and went. I didn't try and fight back or go back in and, you know, later on and have a conversation or anything. I just went. Um, and, and there was just this parting of the ways, and that was it, and I don't think I saw my mum again for, say, seven years or so on like that.

AI assessment note: “I can't remember what happened physically. I remember the door being locked.”

Q you're 12, and falling out with your mom, and then, and we should say, you did, um, you, you have reconciled, and you have a relationship with her today, but, I mean, that must have Driven you. All those things must have driven you in some way, right? I mean, how do you think about that? How do you think about your story, your, your, your past and your childhood?

A I read an article in the, in the Daily Telegraph, the British Daily Telegraph, and this particular journalist had spent her life interviewing business people, and this was her last business interview, and she talked of something that she called the entrepreneur's wound. And she said all of the really successful people that she had interviewed in business had these similarities where they had a death or a severe divorce or a sibling die, something like that in their childhood. They had an event. Now, whether that teaches you about mortality or And you know you've only got a certain period of time, and so you, you, you get driven through that, or whether you're trying to impress someone that perhaps is no longer here, or maybe just, you know, I don't know, did I want to impress my dad? Uh, he didn't, he was oblivious. Uh, so I, I don't know, but if you look at, you know, Steve Jobs, or you look at any of those, those guys, they've got a similar profile.

AI assessment note: “she talked of something that she called the entrepreneur's wound.”