Thursday, October 23, 2008

Memories of hard times

They are talking at the moment of the difficulties of running a small business. I remember, only too well, the difficulties M & I faced at the start of our life together, when I not only married him, but took on a small business as well. Although I was on the perifery of that business, it invaded our home, as we lived on the premises while building our new home and affected my life in other ways.

I had always been a saver but I had no current account, as I'd lived at home before that, and didn't pay bills. When I married, I gave up all my capital to contribute to the purchase of our piece of land, so I had no money of my own, and though I worked as a temp for a few months, I ploughed my money back into our household.

M gave me a 'housekeeping allowance' to start with, but very soon the recession of that time hit us. He was summoned to the bank and told to reduce the overdraft. As a result, he said he would have to reduce the housekeeping allowance by 20%. I economised on food and on clothing - I still had plenty of the latter left over from my single life. Although we ate more meat then than we do now, I bought cheaper cuts. Convenience food barely existed and I rarely was tempted to use something where the covers on the packs were more interesting than the contents. We didn't go out much except on family visits and as I was very soon pregnant, things carried on this way for a long time. Things got worse for us, though, not because of anything I did, but because M took on large contracts that kept his employees occupied. In the building trade, the large contractors at the top held on to their payments for two, three or four months, while we had to pay the men weekly. Somehow we managed to survive from week to week. M would regularly telephone these large companies to plead for partial payment and each week required negotiation with the bank - were they going to let us draw the wages (paid in cash in those days) that week? They obviously did because we muddled on for something like five years. There wasn't very often a shortage of work - only cash - and because of that, the bridging loan taken out to provide the money to build our house on our piece of land - somehow got incorporated into the business's funds, leaving us with more problems later.

We got out of it in the end, because a company that frequently used us decided to take us over with all the staff, including M. Somehow, when M became employed, we managed to slowly rid ourselves of the overdraft and bank loans of the previous years. A lesson for bank managers and building societies now - no-one foreclosed. We never went bankrupt. We repaid every penny. Sometimes, small businesses need only time and some re-organisation to get back into a solvent situation.

Years later, when I became an avid radio listener, I heard the managing director of Dicky Dirts - a company that made shirts and who became very big in the UK. He had gone bankrupt and he said: Profit is not important. It is cash flow that matters. That was the most important lesson I ever learned about running a business, and it equipped me to ensure that M's next venture into running a business did not go the way of the first one.

Talking of small businesses, why is Amazon.co.UK penalizing small publishers? I've tried to look up my book and other books today and I keep getting told there's no match. All I can find are their recommended buys - the Booker winner, etc. Friends, if you want to buy Tainted Tree, then come to the Goldenford website - efficiency guaranteed.

However, good to see that Elizabeth Grace has posted a review on Amazon.com about A Bottle of Plonk (known in the US as Have Wine Will Travel.) Thank you so much, Beth. I didn't notice until now.

I thoroughly enjoyed traveling along with the wine as it made its way into and out of the homes and lives of Luben's interesting cast of characters. From the moment that Julie Stanton headed out the door, bottle in hand, until all was said and done, that simple bottle of plonk journeyed seamlessly from place to place while its temporary owners got on with the business of living.

A fun and easy read, yet the story never fails to entertain. I'd highly recommend curling up with this one on a lazy afternoon.

A Postscript - for anyone in the Guildford area, as part of the Book Festival, The Goldenford Girls will be giving a talk at Guildford Museum at 7.30 p.m. on Friday, 24th October - tomorrow - at 7.30 about setting up a publishing company, with readings from our books. Do come.

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