The shop was an important part of my life with Sue. As a dietician she was always keen for us to eat healthily and in sourcing foods came across a healthfood shop in Southport. How the conversation arose I don’t know but it turned out that they were planning to go big by franchising their operations, centering around the brand and their repackaging machine. They wanted to try out the franchise in Preston which suited us geographically and meant they could deliver stuff easily. They had premises in mind and just needed someone to take it on.
I wasn’t enjoying my job and had no clear career in mind so running a shop together seemed a good thing to do. We needed money, so we put the house up against a loan and borrowed £5k from each of our parents. (Except that when push came to shove, her parents denied any promise of any money so we were £5k short). I would do day to day and she would do Saturdays and ‘consultancy’. We took on the lease and the Millwheel guys converted the shop. Except it was a lot more work than they imagined and it cost more – which we disputed with them. Bad feelings started. We opened. It all worked nicely around a very busy sandwich trade at lunch time, we had our own baker who worked hard to give us quality stuff and a nice lad supplied fresh veg. I took on staff including Heather who although very helpful, resourceful and hard working, was very domineering.
After about 6 months Sue started to loose interest and stopped coming on Saturdays so often. She was also pregnant. I found it hard to not work on a Saturday, and we were open 6 days a week. Phase II was to have a cafe, which we opened after about a year and the same week Anthony was due. Heather ran the cafe, but paid no regard to portion control and was very difficult to manage, and cost me a lot of money. The cafe conversion was never finished properly and we had trouble paying, to the extent that I didn’t pay Millwheel due to cash flow issues for a while. Their accountant was scrupulous and when Millwheel cash flow stalled ( because of me) he declared the company bankrupt. This left me with no supplier, but the opportunity to buy bankrupt stock. It was a bizarre situation. I found suppliers and carried on. Heather left and I had to take over cooking as well as bookkeeping, buying, cleaning etc.etc.
We got a bigger loan and better overdraft but were slowly going under. I had the business valued. It didn’t cover our debts. I asked to buy out the lease with a mortgage which would have saved money, but was blanked by the landlord. I put the business up for sale. as a break even price. There was some interest, and a couple of guys looked into it further. Turned out they were sponsored by Greggs who were looking for a health brand. They bought the lease out from under me and became my landlords. They offered me a very low price and threatened me with put and keep clauses in my lease which would cost a fortune. I took legal advice an sued the estate agents who advised me over the lease. I gave up and sold for £7.5k, owing £35k plus £7000 overdraft to Barclays Bank. I spent the last few days selling everything ( even knives and forks) and knock down prices for cash, so I could pay creditors and walked away on May 25th 1986, just short of 4 years since I opened with about £10k cash. I also owed VAT, and possibly tax but had hardly taken a decent income in ages.
I paid the baked and the grocer and had been dealing in cash for other supplies for a while, and other creditors, like Rentokill, and rates, I let take me to court, then asked for time to pay. I ended up with 3 county court judgments against me, but it saved the cash for more serious issues. I had baliff’s at the house, taking ‘walking possession’ of the things they could see through the letterbox (not legal). I never spoke to Barclays. At some point I had got a letter from them limiting their hold on the house to £1000, so they could only take that from me. I borrowed £1k from my dad to pay that so the house was safe, and we couldn’t be evicted.
The VAT inspector came. I knew I owed him but my accounts were an awful mess as I had lost motivation to keep up to them, so I had a mad panic to get something straight. It was very stressful. He came to the house. I showed him my books. He looked at the whole time the shop had been open and found VAT I could claim back, but also assessed other claims as invalid. I ended up owing £1750, but he took my books away to come up with a final bill. I never herd from him again, and about 6 months later, my books appeared in the post, not stamped or validated or signed off, just packed up and posted. I never paid my VAT bill.
I got a job in the NHS, paid my monthly county court judgments ( which was a chore but had to be done, because you had to go to the court with cash). Time went on. Things seem settled. We lived in a very ordinary 3 bed semi on an estate. We wanted a grand Victorian terrace house with a garden. We found one, sorted a mortgage and arranged to move. The day before removal day, the solicitor rang to say where’s the £35k? She said I’ve got all the money in place except the £35 k for the charge on the house from Barclays. I rushed home and even though everything was packed in boxes I found the letters which showed that Barclays didn’t have a charge on the house. The solicitor agreed, told Barclays, but they wanted and agreement to pay the £35k. They offered to settle for £5k. I agreed to pay within 6 weeks. We moved. I got in touch with the mortgage people and asked for £5k to do the kitchen. Showed the quotes from Magnet and Southern. Bought an IKEA kitchen for £600, and fitted it myself. I had £5k paid and paid Barclays off. No more debt. County court judgments took a bit longer but eventually I was clear. I write all this now quite easily, but at the time it was incredibly stressful. I mean incredibly. Really really bad. AND I kept a lot of it from Sue and most of my friends and family, but some guardian angel was looking out for me. I had been bankrupt. We could have lost everything.
And all the time on and off, Sue was having an affair, I was working on myself in a therapy group and life went on.