Weekday Blog - Friday August 31, 2012

Our new flat was bigger than the previous one, but it was desperately short of wardrobe space. We had kept a significant number of the hanging cartons the removal people had provided us with, and these were all full of clothes. But there were still more clothes piled on the bed in the second bedroom.

What passed for a wardrobe in our bedroom was a curtained-off rail about six feet long, and two shelves. The previous occupants had probably used what we had designated as the guest room as their master bedroom, because it had built-in wardrobes on each side of the bed, with storage over. These were small and already full to bursting.

A bedroom-furniture supplier suggested a floor-to-ceiling frame the width of the room with sliding doors concealing hanging rails and shelving as the best way to maximise space. He also suggested a pelmet and bedside cabinets in a finish to match the sliding panelled doors of the wardrobe. We liked the idea. When I told him we would be doing our bedroom next, he said that if we agreed to have both rooms done at the same time, he would give us a keen price. I agreed.

I had to clear the two rooms before anyone could make a start and initially Liz offered to help, but when she helped me drag a heavy mattress into the hall the exertion made her feel faint and she had to go and lie down.

Before the new wardrobes were fitted, we needed to replace the ceilings. The

acoustic tiles were surprisingly heavy. In situ they looked like polystyrene, but they were actually made from densely compressed fibreboard. The tiles and the coving from one room filled the contractor’s small truck.

I bought down lighters with a brass finish, and brass dimmer switches and brass plug-socket facias. To me, brass fixtures and fittings gave a room a classy look.

Next, we ordered carpet. I said we would eventually be carpeting the entire flat and would be prepared to buy all our carpet from the supplier if he gave us a good price, and he did. He also threw in fitting, underlay and brass strips for the door-openings.

The wardrobes arrived in flat-pack form. The fitter worked quickly and efficiently. He had our bedroom done the same day, and the guest room the next day. The wardrobe in our bedroom swallowed Liz’s stuff, and the wardrobe in the guest room swallowed mine.

I papered the walls and painted the woodwork and the look on Liz’s face when she saw the end result made it all worthwhile.

I was sitting on the balcony with Liz one day – I was in my decorating clothes, halfway through decorating the lounge - and we were chatting about nothing in particular when she suddenly started talking gibberish. My heart sank. It was how she had talked when she came round from her last surgery.

“I’ll be back in a second,” I said. I went into the flat and phoned the doctor. “Sue,” I said, “I think we have a problem. Liz has suddenly started talking gibberish. It’s how she was talking when she came round from her surgery in Southampton.”

“When did this start?”

“Just now. We were sitting on the balcony chatting, and it just happened.”

“She hasn’t had a seizure recently, has she? No, of course she hasn’t. Knowing you, you would have said something.

“Yes, I would. And no, she hasn’t.”

“One second. Let me see when she had her last MRI.”

“I can tell you that without you looking,” I said. “She had it ten weeks ago.”

“Here it is. Yes, you’re right. Ten weeks ago. We’d better give her another one. Is she able to walk?”

“I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“Because you need to get her to Poole Hospital.”

“You mean now?”

“Yes, now. Call me back if you need me to send an ambulance. I’ll call the hospital and tell them you’re on your way. Go straight to the Oncology department. They’ll be expecting you. ”

I quickly phoned Kristen and told her what was going on. “I suggest you don’t call Caroline and Greg at this stage. Let me find out what’s going on first.”

“Alright, Dad. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Well, I’m not, but …I’ll call you when I’ve been to the hospital.”

“Okay. Give Mum my love.”

I went out on to the balcony. “Liz, you need to get your shoes and your coat on.”

She said something, which probably meant why.

“Because your words are coming out all wrong, sweetheart, and Sue wants me to take you to the hospital. She wants you to have an MRI.”

Liz sighed and shook her head. She knew what was coming next.

We both did.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

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Weekday Blog - Thursday August 30, 2012

We had bought two eight-foot long silk sofas in Florida and they were the last items to be loaded on the removal van in Canford Cliffs. This meant they were the first out at our new abode. When the removal men had struggled up three flights of stairs and staggered into the flat sweating and muttering under their breath, they took one look at threadbare carpet running through the flat and the paper peeling from the walls, and their pity for us came through on their faces. 

I took the decision to change my car while there was plenty of money around.  Rovers, especially the big ones, had the inherent problem that their value collapsed like a panda falling out of a tree, and I wanted a car that both held it’s value and lasted well. I found a dealer with a four year-old diesel Mercedes with 50,000 miles on the clock and did a part-exchange deal with him, settling the difference by cheque. And, yes, I did manage to sign the cheque. Most of the taxis you see at international airports are Mercedes, and with good reason. They are built to last, they don’t break down, they hold their value and the diesels are economical to run. Now I didn't have to worry about mortgage payments, or payments on a car.

When we had unpacked the boxes and put everything away, I began to take stock of what needed doing to bring the flat up to snuff. The imitation fireplace in the lounge was already in a skip ready to be carted away.

I didn’t mind spending money on the flat, in fact I couldn’t think of a better way of using our money. I would far rather invest it in the property we were living in than put it in the bank, where interest rates were derisory, or invest it in the stock market. I’d been there, done that, and didn’t plan to go there again thank you very much. I knew that whatever I did to the flat would be rewarded many times over as it gained in value. I had renovated several of the properties in the area and had always made money on them

Bournemouth was no longer just a home for retired people of means. It now had a thriving university and a plethora of colleges teaching English to foreign students, and the town was full of bright young people. And bright young people like to play, especially at night. As a result, nightlife of quality, style and varied taste had sprouted, bringing people from as far afield as London.

Unfortunately, this had a downside for us. The main road from Bournemouth to Poole ran by our bedroom window and in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday morning, when the bars and clubs had finally spewed out their occupants, Liz and I were regularly woken from our slumber by groups of young people staggering by after a night of binge drinking, talking, arguing and yelling with no consideration for people who might be sleeping. And cars and motorbikes would stop at the island, rev up their engines and hurtle off in the direction of Poole. Motorcyclists were the worst. They would pull wheelies to impress the girl riding pillion, and we could still hear the roars of their engines when they were halfway to Poole.

Extract from my books WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

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Weekday Blog - Wednesday August 29, 2012

We found a flat at the top of The Avenue in Branksome Park. It was about three miles as the crow flies from where we were currently living. The Avenue ran from Branksome Beach to the Frizzell Roundabout, on which the London Victoria Insurance had an office. It was just over a mile long, with towering old pine trees flanking its sides. At the beach end were million pound homes with sea views. At the top end were blocks of flats. The Avenue was regarded as an upmarket and desirable place to live, and one end of it was, but the end we were looking at was nothing like as desirable as the area we were leaving.

The block in which the flat was located was next to the roundabout. It was screened from the roundabout by bushes and trees, but it was close enough that I knew there would be a problem with traffic noise.

The flat was on the top floor of a three-storey block and the block had no lift. It was on the market because the present owners, a couple in their eighties could no longer manage the three flights of stairs. They were moving to a block with a lift.

Decoratively, the place was a mess: the paper was peeling from the walls in two of the bedrooms. But it had three good bedrooms, a hall big enough to be used as another room, a bathroom and a separate toilet. Our present flat had two bathrooms, but we could manage with one. There were, after all, only two of us. 

As to reception rooms, there were two good-sized rooms connected by a pair of glazed double doors. One of them, the lounge, had floor-to-ceiling windows leading to a south-facing balcony overlooking a lawn of perhaps half an acre. In the middle of the lawn was a Sequoia tree, small by northern Californian standards -where the big ones grow, but dwarfing the other trees in the area. When we inspected the property, three squirrels chased each other round the tree. Mature rhododendrons and azalea bushes screened the garden from The Avenue on that side of the property, but traffic noise still came through.

The room adjacent to the lounge was a kitchen/ dining room. It was a light and airy room with – like the lounge - floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the garden. The kitchen was okay. It had everything we would need, including a dishwasher. They were not top-of-the-range appliances like the ones in the flat we were leaving, but they were in good working order and Liz was fine with them.

It would mean me decorating the property from one end to the other, but what the hell? I had nothing else to do with my time, and the price was right. We took it.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL ! A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

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Weekday Blog - Tuesday August 28, 2012

The money Greg paid me for the dozen or so cars I sold augmented our loan from the bank to the extent that we were okay for money for about eighteen months, but towards the middle of 1998 we were running short again.

Liz’s radiation treatment seemed to have worked: certainly she was showing no signs of having another seizure, so I broached the subject of us selling the flat and moving into something we could afford to pay cash for. It would mean no more sitting in bed watching the windsurfers, and we would miss the daily contact with some of our neighbours in the block, some of whom had become good friends, but needs must. I wouldn’t miss the chairman of the block’s management committee. He was a royal pain in the rear. A retired high-flying businessman, his hobby was making furniture, nice pieces I have to admit. Each flat had a garage under the building and he had converted his garage into a workshop and he would insist on sawing and drilling and hammering when Liz was trying to take a nap, despite being asked time and time again to please cease and desist. 

Liz had no problem with the idea of moving. She had said for years she would never get attached to bricks and mortar - which was just as well considering the number of times I had dragged her off to live in some faraway place, and the idea of us running into cash flow problems again was an anathema to her. So I contacted the estate agent through whom we had bought the flat and had him come over and give us a valuation.

I had a pretty good idea what the flat was worth because I had been checking what similar properties in the area had been fetching, and the valuation the agent gave us was close to what I expected. We told him to put it on the market.

Assuming we got what we were asking, the flat would have grown in value by almost six times what we had borrowed from the bank, meaning we could pay off the mortgage and the loan and still have substantially more than we paid for the flat in the first place.

With the flat on the market, we started viewing flats we could pay cash for. Inevitably this meant moving to an area where prices were significantly lower than the area we were leaving because we were determined we would not over-stretch ourselves. I would not start getting my pension for another four years and there were no other sources of income on the horizon, so we had to make do with what we had.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on  www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

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Weekday Blog - Monday August 27, 2012

Selling used cars to the no prisoner-taking British car-buying public did nothing for my self-esteem; especially when I found myself driving a car on trade plates because it had only just arrived off a boat and had not yet been registered, or I had to go to a back-street shop in Bournemouth to get number plates made. During the year I spent in the used car business, I often found myself thinking that only two years ago I had been jetting around the world staying in five star hotels and putting six-figure deals together. How the mighty have fallen. Still …

What my foray into the business did for me was get me breathalysed for the one and only time in my life.

It happened thus: I was driving a Subaru Impreza down the A34 towards Winchester at one o-clock one morning, having picked the car up from Greg in Manchester earlier, when a police car pulled onto the dual-carriageway from the exit immediately before the Sutton Scotney service station and tucked in behind me. I was doing no more than the speed limit at the time, but I slowed down hoping they would pass me. I was tired and I didn’t want them sitting on my tail. They didn’t get the message. Maybe they had nothing better to do with their time than follow an old fart of sixty in a grey import. I slowed still further, keeping my eye on my rear-view mirror.  But rather than passing me, their blue lights went on.

Shute, I thought, or words to that effect. I pulled onto the ramp leading to the service station and stopped.

An officer got out of the police car, put on his cap, and approached me. He was very polite. “Good evening, sir. The reason we stopped is you’re weaving across the carriageway.”

I wasn’t entirely surprised because I had been watching them in my mirror rather than looking where I was going. “I’m sorry, Officer,” I said. “I’m probably tired. I’ve been up since six o’clock this morning.”

“Would you step out of the vehicle, sir?”

I stepped out of the vehicle.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to breathalyse you, sir."

“Alright,” I said, “but you’re wasting your time because I haven’t a had a drink in three years.” Which was true. I refrained from cracking my usual joke – and  you can’t imagine how thirsty I’m getting, because he didn’t as if he had much of a sense of humour. 

He handed me a breathalyser bag. I blew into it.

He peered at the instrument. Good thing it had a light on it, because it was pitch dark out there in the middle of the Hampshire countryside. “That’s very negative,” he said.

A smart-alec reply was on the tip of my tongue, but I thought better of it.

“Where are you driving to, sir?”

“Poole. In Dorset.”

“Yes, sir. We know where Poole is. That’s about an hour’s drive from here.  Perhaps you should take a rest at the service station before you continue your journey.”

“I will, officer.”

My foray into the used-car business lasted a year. It was not what I would call an unqualified success. It couldn’t be, because my heart was never in it. But at least I could sign my name again without my heart threatening to stop. The year had at least done that for me.

 Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

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Weekday Blog - Friday August 24, 2012

A few days after the debacle at the bank, our son Greg dropped in to see me. Dropped in was not strictly accurate, because it’s a five-hour drive from Manchester and he had driven down specially to see me. I suspect Liz had called him and told him what had happened.

I was practising my signature when he arrived. I was doing a lot of that at the time. Only someone who knows how it feels to be facing a future in which signing your name is a momentous event, and is something which might be attempted but not necessarily achieved, could understand what I was going through.

Greg was importing used Japanese cars into the UK. Japan produces a huge number of cars and they drive on the left as we do. And their cars, apart from being the most sophisticated and technically advanced in the world, are also among the most fuel-efficient. Greg had stumbled across the fact that there was a market – albeit a small niche market – for used cars purchased at the car auctions in Japan. He had discovered that it was possible to buy a car at the auctions, ship it back to the UK, and sell it at a profit of £5,000 to £6,000. He had been flying to Nagoya, where the auctions were held, buying as many cars as he had the money for, shipping them back, selling them, then flying back to buy more. 

He had driven down to suggest I might like to get into the business with him. Not that he had premises: he kept ten or twelve cars in front of his house, and sold them from there. Heaven knows what his neighbours thought, because he lived in a very up-market part of Cheshire. He said he would give me £1,000 for every car I sold for him.

I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to get involved. It wasn’t the money I was turning my nose up at – I had much too much respect for money to ever turn my nose up at it, it was the fact that I didn’t see myself as a used-car salesman.  But Liz, who was sitting in on the conversation, seemed very much in favour of it because it would give me something to do instead of, as she put it: “Moping round the flat looking after me.”

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom

Weekday Blog - Thursday August 23, 2012

The young lady with the clipboard asked if I wanted a glass of water - I learned later she had thought I was having a heart attack. I said thank you, no, I’m fine. Which I most certainly wasn’t. I was dying in there, like a comedian on stage for the first time. I tried again. The slash I produced this time was only marginally shorter than the first one. I said I was sorry, but I couldn’t do this.

It was a Friday afternoon and she suggested we meet again at ten on the Monday morning.

As we walked down the ramp, Liz asked me what was wrong. I said I didn’t want to talk about it. When we got close to the car, something snapped and I smashed the key ring and the remote that disabled the car alarm and unlocked the doors, on the concrete floor. The remote shattered, and the two little batteries rolled under the car. The key, which was attached to what was left of the remote, skidded under the car with them.

Since we couldn’t get into the car to move it we had to spend the next few minutes on our hands and knees grovelling under the car as we tried to recover everything. We did manage to recover it all, and, by dint of some marvel of engineering on my part, I managed to cobble everything together sufficiently well to allow us to get into the car and drive home.

I spent the weekend practising my signature and worrying whether I would be able to produce legible signatures on the Monday morning. Liz said there were six documents to sign. I did sign the papers on the Monday morning, although what I produced bore no relation to my actual signature. It didn’t matter, because the lady with the clipboard took pity on me and very kindly witnessed my scrawl.

This incident left such an impression on me that for a year I was unable to sign my name on anything legal: cheques, credit card vouchers, etc. Even signing a letter caused my heart to flutter. I existed on cash from Automatic Teller Machines, which only required me to key in my PIN number.


Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom

Weekday Blog - Wednesday August 22, 2012

When you watch someone you love suffering, it’s hard, and it was taking its toll on me. One day Liz and I were sitting in the lounge at home talking about nothing in particular when for no apparent reason I burst into tears. One minute I was fine, the next I was weeping buckets. Liz asked me what was wrong and I said I had no idea. The tears stopped and I dried my eyes, but about an hour later it happened again. And it happened again later in the day.

I am not, and never have been, a crier: I don’t cry at funerals, and I don’t cry at sad movies, and Liz knew this. She suggested I consult my GP. He diagnosed depression and put me on a course of beta-blockers. They gave me hallucinations and two days later I stopped taking them. Fortunately the weeping never reoccurred.

When you are living on your capital, it goes out faster than bathwater, and by 1998, with interest rates rising and our monthly mortgage payments going up in leaps and bounds, I was getting worried about money. The capital I had accumulated working with Ron had all but gone. I knew the flat had risen in value substantially, and that if we sold it we would have enough equity to pay off our debts and have a goodly sum left over, but I didn’t want to go this route because I didn’t want to put Liz through the stress of another move. I had to get funds from somewhere, and it could only be from the bank.

After what Barclays had done to me, I had transferred my allegiance to NatWest and there was no reason to think they wouldn’t help because our circumstances were altogether different now. I made an appointment to see a loan officer. I was looking for a loan of £20,000, secured as a second charge on the flat. That should keep us going for a year or so.

When I explained to the loan officer why I needed the loan, I received a sympathetic response and the loan was approved. I was told there would be papers to sign, and that Liz would need to sign as well, and an appointment was made for us at the bank’s commercial division in another part of Bournemouth.

When we went to sign the papers, I drove down the ramp to the underground garage and parked in one of the spaces provided. We walked back up the ramp and into the building. The security guard told us to take the lift to the first floor. The lift opened into a comfortably furnished reception area in which several business-suited people were sitting waiting to be seen. I told the receptionist who we were and we found ourselves somewhere to sit.

A young lady with a clipboard approached us and said we would have to sign independently of each other, because the bank had a policy of not allowing co-signers to sign in each other’s presence in case one was trying tried to coerce the other. In our case, this was ridiculous, but we had to go along with it.

I had been feeling so stressed that I was taking painkillers for the pains in the back of my neck, and my head was not in a good place. I would rather have left the building and come back some time when I was feeling better, but we were committed. Ever the gentleman, I suggested Liz go first. She was escorted into a room no larger than a basic garden shed and, through its window, I saw her sit at a small table and the lady with the clipboard close the door and sit down beside her.

Being the size I am, I had always had a problem with claustrophobia in small rooms and I knew I was going to have a problem when it was my turn. I felt a panic attack coming on. By the time Liz came out and smilingly told me it was my turn, my stomach was churning, my heart was pounding in my ears and a bead of sweat had formed on my top lip. My lips were dry. I ran my tongue over them to moisten them. I took a deep breath and got to my feet.

When I sat down in that tiny room, and the door had been closed, I’m not sure I even saw the dotted line the lady with the clipboard was pointing to. But I aimed the tip of the ballpoint pen at it and sent up a quick prayer. When the pen made contact with the paper, my hand shook violently, resulting in me producing a slash of black ink about three inches long.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom 

Weekday Blog - Tuesday August 21, 2012

Liz tired easily after her surgery and took a lengthy nap in the afternoons. Her speech improved to the point she could make herself understood, but talking was an effort and we had long periods of silence.

Kristen had given birth to her first child: a boy with a head of jet-black hair named Jack, and she often brought him round. He was the only one of our – then - five grandchildren that we saw regularly - because two of the others lived in Manchester and two lived in France, and he rapidly became the apple of his grandmother’s eye.

Liz’s seizure meant that once again she couldn’t drive, and because I couldn’t see her ever driving again, I sold her car.

Liz was referred to the Oncology department at Poole Hospital and I drove her there and sat in with her during her appointments with the head of the department. I remember looking at the other patients in the reception area as we waited to be seen, and noticing how calm they all were. Undoubtedly many of them were dying, but you wouldn’t have known it from their demeanour. I came to the conclusion that when someone learns they have cancer, they find a hidden strength which allows them to cope. Liz was like this. She never panicked: she just stayed calm and got on with it.

The first time we met the head of the Oncology department he told Liz he wanted her have an MRI. The MRI revealed there were more tumours, and he put her on a course of radiation. This involved making a mould of Liz’s head, then making a plastic mask which was placed over her head and screwed down so she couldn’t move her head as they directed the radiation to precisely where they wanted it. She had thirty-three such procedures over the space of the next few weeks.

Her hair fell out in handfuls, but she took it stoically. She even made jokes in the shop as we decided which wig to buy her.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom

Weekday Blog - Monday August 20, 2012

I was in Montreal at the time. I was staying at the Ritz Carlton and I had some time between meetings. It was about 6:00 p.m. UK time when I phoned Liz to see how she was. She didn’t answer. I let it ring because I knew she rarely went out in the evening. Finally she picked up. She sounded sleepy, and I apologised, thinking I had woken her from a nap.

In a slow and slurred voice, she said: “I think I’ve just had one of those things.”

I knew what she meant. She had had a seizure. “Darling,” I said. “Put the phone down and go and lie down. I’ll call Kristen. Do it now, sweetheart. I’ll wait till you hang up.”

She didn’t hang up.

“Hang up, sweetheart,” I urged. “Then I can call Kristen.”

“Yes,” she said. Still she didn’t hang up.

“Liz, put the phone down, Put it down, sweetheart. Then I can call Kristen.”

After what seemed an age, she put the phone down.

I took the next plane home.

There were two tumours this time. MRI scans revealed that they had grown at the extremities of the tumour they had removed in Orlando. They were removed at Southampton General Hospital three weeks later. As before, the family was there for her.

I managed to get us a meeting with the head of the surgical team while Liz was in the recovery room. He was a Nigerian in his early to mid-fifties: a consultant, which meant we were to call him Mister. He was a nice man; kindly and approachable, and he answered every question we threw at him. When I told him that the American surgeons had said that Liz shouldn’t have any more problems, he said: “I’m afraid your wife is one of the unfortunate ten percent who have the kind of tumour, that – while benign – can grow again in different places within the skull. This kind of cancer …”

His use of the C-word brought a collective gasp from the family. None of us had ever thought of the most important person in our lives as having cancer.

“Are you saying my mother has cancer?” my son Greg asked.

“Not cancer as we tend to think of the word,” the Nigerian replied. “And certainly not the type that will spread through her body, but it is a form of cancer. Her tumours have so far been lying on the meninges, but I have to warn you that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that further tumours will grow, and that they might ultimately invade the brain itself.”

From the moment Liz opened her mouth to speak I knew things would never be the same again, because her speech was gobbledegook. She could get words out, but they were the wrong words and they were in the wrong order. She made no sense whatsoever.

Ron understood when I said I was going to have to pack it all in and stay home and look after Liz, and he told me he would make sure I got all the money due to me. He wished Liz and I luck.

I let my secretary go and gave notice on my office. Then I settled down with Liz to await whatever life threw at us next.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcomn

Weekday Blog - Friday August 17, 2012

When I drove Ron back to the airport he asked how much I was making on the deal and when I told him he said he would give me $10 a ton from his side. I knew he was doing this to help my financial situation, and his gesture almost brought tears to my eyes. But I was well and truly gobsmacked when he phoned me four weeks after the paper had arrived at his Philadelphia converting operation to tell me he was giving me another $10 a ton because, to use his vernacular: “We’re making a shitload of money on the deal.” This made my overall commission $150,000. Converted to sterling, this amounted to a whopping £95,000! It was the biggest single-shipment deal I had ever done. I couldn’t drag my eyes off my next bank statement.

The first thing I did was insist Liz hand in her notice. She didn’t argue.

The guys at the mill were so happy to have got rid of the paper that they offered me their off-grade on a sole and exclusive basis until further notice, and within six months I had talked Ron into letting me start up a European division for him. He gave me a salary Liz and I could live on comfortably, and twenty five percent of whatever profit I generated. My brief was to buy and sell off-grade paper using his money, and he made no restrictions as to where I could operate, as long as I didn’t step on his toes by offering to one of his own customers. This meant I had a virtually worldwide brief. He picked up the expenses for an office and a secretary for me, and gave me carte blanche as to which car I drove. I chose a Rover Sterling Coupe and gave the other car to Liz. She could drive again now because it had been over a year since she had had a seizure.

We moved out of our rented flat and put down a sizeable deposit on a flat in a prestigious block in Canford Cliffs. We could sit up in bed and watch the wind-surfers on Poole Harbour. I could easily afford the mortgage payments. And I had our furniture shipped over from Orlando. It was nice to see it again. 

For the next eighteen months I travelled the world. I bought off-grade paper in Scandinavia and the Far East and shipped it to America; I bought paper in South America and shipped it to North America and I bought paper in the US and Canada and shipped it to Europe. I bought and sold wherever I could smell a deal. The world was my oyster. Ron made money, and I made money.

Then Liz had another seizure.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

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Weekday Blog - Thursday August 16, 2012

I left it until 3:00 p.m. on the Monday afternoon - 09:00 a.m. Chicago time - to phone Ron. I gave him a report on my week in Scotland. He didn’t seem concerned about my lack of progress, merely suggesting I try the mills in England, which of course is what I planned to do. But when I asked him if he knew anyone who might be interested in off grade LWC, he reacted immediately.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because I know where there is some.”

“Where?”

“At one of the mill’s I visited in Scotland.”

“How much is there?”

“Four thousand five hundred tons.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I’m not kidding.”

“Jesus Christ! That grade’s like gold dust. I want to see it. I’ll fly over tonight. What’s the nearest airport?”

“Glasgow.”

“Meet me there. And bring your golf clubs. I’m not missing an opportunity to play golf if I’m coming to Scotland.”

I flew up to Glasgow on the shuttle from Heathrow the next morning and rented a car. I met Ron off his flight from Chicago and we drove straight to Prestwick Golf Club where I had booked a tee time for us. After our round, we had a sandwich in the bar and headed for the mill.

The paper was in three different warehouses and the mill had a car drive us to see it. Ron spent an age clambering over rolls thick with three years of dust checking the specifications on the labels before dusting himself off and declaring: “Okay, let’s get back to the mill and talk price.”

Our visit resulted in Ron opening a letter of credit for $2,000,000, and two hundred and twenty forty-foot trucks crossing the Scottish border at Gretna Green and trundling down the M6 motorway to Liverpool docks with 4,500 tons of paper to be loaded on a freighter bound for Philadelphia.

The guys at the mill were over the moon to be getting rid of paper they never thought they would see the back of, and Ron was cock-a-hoop because of the money he would make on the deal. To say I was delighted would be a masterly understatement; euphoric would be nearer the mark, because my commission from the mill on the deal would be $60,000. 

It would change everything.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER,OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepuplishersmissedcom

Weekday Blog - Wednesday August 15, 2012

Unfortunately, none of the mills was interested in Ron’s material, either because they couldn’t handle the rolls, or because they were already committed to other sources of raw material. But I didn’t let it get me down. I hadn’t expected it to be easy. I just drove on to my next appointment.

My last appointment was with a mill I had never visited before. It produced several hundred tons a day of Lightweight Coated Magazine Paper; LWC as it was known in the industry. I knew before I made the appointment that they wouldn’t be interested in Ron’s material, because this was an integrated mill meaning their raw material was full-sized trees, but I made the appointment because I had always taken the view that a meeting is never a waste of time; you always learn something. The mill was situated on the Ayrshire coast a half-hour drive from Glasgow. It was surrounded by championship golf courses.

The guy I made the appointment with was someone I had done business with in the dim and distant past, when he worked with another mill, and he confirmed within five minutes of me walking into his office that Ron’s material was not of interest. But we had coffee and I learned more about what was going on in the industry. It was as we wound up our meeting that I asked him if they had any off- grade paper available.

Why I asked this question has remained a mystery to me, because I had never sold a ton of off-grade paper in my life, but he told me they had 4,500 tons of off-grade they were desperate to get rid off because it was clogging up their warehouses.

I hadn’t a clue where I would find a home for off-grade LWC, let alone 4,500 tons of the stuff, but I told him I would see what I could do. Eight hours later I was back in Bournemouth, exhausted from all the driving, and without a ton of business to show for my week away.

Liz, as always, was very supportive: telling me not to worry, that something would come up.


Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com.

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom

Weekday Blog - Tuesday August 14, 2012

You can’t open a sweet shop without having jars of sweets on the shelves and by the same token I couldn’t start a business with no product to offer. It would have to be wastepaper, because finding a pulp supplier who didn’t already have an agent in the UK had always been like finding a handful of diamonds in the street; every pulp producer and his brother wanted a position in the UK market. But when I started to contact the people I had done business with before I retired, I got nowhere because they were still working with my old company. My past was catching up with me.

I struck lucky when I called people I knew in Chicago. For some reason they were no longer working with my old company and when I explained the reason for my call to Ron, the owner of the company, he said he had a new grade of waste he thought the UK mills could use, and since he was no longer being represented in the UK, he would be happy for me to see what I could do with it.

Certain grades of paper and board - rejected by the mills that produce them because they are off-spec - can be used as a direct substitute for wood pulp by paper mills, and this was just such a material. It was a one-side coated bleached board and I was delighted when I saw the quality: it was as good as it gets. I now had exactly what I needed to get myself into the marketplace again. There was a snag in that the material was on reels, because most of the UK mills bought their raw material in bales, but I wasn’t going to let that put me off.

I decided to begin my campaign in Scotland where I knew the mills particularly well, and I phoned the mills and booked myself a week of appointments.

It was an eight-hour drive to Scotland and I drove up on the Sunday afternoon so I could rest up overnight and be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a Monday morning start. I had one credit card that was not yet maxed-out and this allowed me to get cash, and pay for food, petrol and accommodation. I stayed at hotels I had stayed at in the past. It was like turning the clock back.

I phoned Liz every evening to make sure she was okay.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com.

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom

Weekday Blog - Monday August 13, 2012

One day Liz walked in after being out all afternoon and startled me by saying she had got herself a job.

I didn’t think she was up to it. “What kind of a job?”

“Receptionist/manager of a photographic studio in Debenhams in The Square,” she said.

“But sweetheart, are you sure you’re up to it?”

“Max,” she said, “I’m tired of watching you killing yourself trying to bring in money. It’s my turn to put bread on the table. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

The job entailed her wearing a suit and meeting and greeting people, and no one was better qualified than she was. She could work a roomful of people better than almost any one I knew. And she had negotiated herself a fixed salary. What she would earn wouldn’t do much more than pay for our food and a few incidentals, but I was enormously proud of her.

“If you’re sure,” I said.

“I’m sure.”

On her first day on the job she left at nine in the morning and came home at six in the evening. She was exhausted. She had been on her feet all day. She lay on the sofa while I made dinner and I had to wake her to eat it. She went to bed immediately afterwards.

After a week of this, I told her I was going back into business. I couldn't think of any other way of bringing in money.

“Alright,” she said. “But I’m not leaving my job until you do.”

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom

Weekday Blog - Friday August 10, 2012

Liz and I had always loved Bournemouth. We had come here on holiday with her parents when we were in our late teens, and I had brought the family here to live in 1984. I had run my international business from an office here. But it was an expensive area and we no longer had the kind of money we would need to put a deposit on a property to live in. We were going to have to rent. And knowing how expensive the Bournemouth area was, it was probably going to have to be a flat.

So, not wanting to overstay our welcome at our daughter Kristen’s, we drove into Bournemouth at an early opportunity and started visiting estate agents. We found one that did nothing but rentals and they handed us an up-to-date list of what they had on their books. When we looked at the monthly rental figures, we realised we could actually get something quite nice and this perked us up considerably. 

From the list we identified three flats of interest and viewed all three. We settled on a flat on the corner of East Cliff and Bath Hill. It was in a great location. It was walk of a matter of minutes to the beach, Bournemouth’s famous gardens, and Westover Road - the town’s premier shopping street. It was especially convenient for Liz because it meant she could walk everywhere: shops, hairdresser, etc.

It was a three-bed two-bath furnished flat with a balcony. It was on the first floor of the building. The flats on the front of the building had sea views, especially those on the upper floors, but ours was at the back of the building overlooking the car park.  The sofa sagged; the bed in the master bedroom sagged; the kitchen was of another era; there were draughts around several of the windows and the landlord was a cranky old bastard, but the rent was affordable. So we took it. It was a far cry from the luxury we had been enjoying across the Atlantic, but we were home. And we had a place of our own to live in. 

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. How I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: Maximillian19

FB: facebook.com/Booksthepublishersmissedcom

Blog of August 9, 2012

Now, back home in Bournemouth, with the rent on the flat and the payments on the car to find, and the high cost of living and nothing coming in, I needed money. And fast.

I had been sending query letters on The Perfect Partner to literary agents in London, and I started to apply for posts advertised in the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times. I went for jobs I thought I would enjoy doing, and tried to explain in my applications how a career in pulp and paper industry qualified me for a job selling tractors to countries in Africa. I wasn’t qualified for any of the jobs advertised, but I knew I had to keep turning over stones. Many of the advertisers didn’t bother to reply, and when they did it was a rejection. What with rejections from them, and rejections from literary agents, my life was one big rejection.

I had banked with Barclays for over twenty years and while I had an arrangement to get cash from a branch in Bournemouth, my account was still held in Welwyn Garden City, where we had lived previously. Over the years they had provided me with mortgages, loans for cars, etc and I had always kept my end of the bargain. I figured this should count for something and I called them and made an appointment. I was looking for my overdraft facility to be increased.

It was a drive of about two and a half hours to Welwyn Garden City. It was mostly motorway and the big Rover ate up the miles in fine style.

Whether or not my taking the manuscript I was working on with me was a good idea - and in hindsight  I probably made a complete ass of myself for doing it, I sat working on it as I waited to be seen. The smartly dressed young lady who came out to see me glanced at the pile of papers on the coffee table in the reception area, but made no mention of it. When she asked me in the privacy of their meeting room, to list my assets, I included the book I had written and the one I was currently writing. There was precious little else I could list, except my three year-old Rover car – on which they were providing the finance, and some used furniture in store in Orlando.

She knew as well as I did that my novels were not worth the paper they were written on until a publisher stumped up some cash, but she was kind enough not to say it. I also told her I had been applying for jobs in the Daily Telegraph and The Times. I could see I wasn’t convincing her, but on the strength of my long-standing relationship with the bank she agreed to extend my overdraft facility by the two and a half thousand pounds I was looking for. I thanked her and drove home.

Two days later I walked into an electrical components shop in Bournemouth to get myself a part for my computer. I handed over my Barclaycard. The machine declined it. The manager was serving me at the time and I ask him to swipe it again. Again the machine declined it. The manager walked off with the card saying he needed to make a phone call. After standing there like an idiot for fifteen minutes, I barged into his office and demanded to know if he was planning to keep me standing there all day. He informed me that the bank had instructed him to keep my card. He said he was sorry. I told him he wasn’t half as bloody sorry as I was and went home and phoned the bank. I let the young lady I had met two days ago have it with both barrels.

She said she was sorry.

“Yes, of course you are,” I said, laying the sarcasm down three inches thick. “I hope I can do the same for you some day. Have a nice day.” I banged the phone down.

This is an extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of how I lived with the ten-year terminal illness of my wife. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com

Twitter: maximillian19

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Blog of August 7, 2012

We couldn’t do much without transport, so at the first opportunity I bought a car. I had to be careful with money, but at the same time I didn’t necessarily want the world to know we had come back from our sojourn to the States without money. So I looked for something with a bit of prestige about it. A three year-old Rover 3,500 in excellent condition and with less than 30,000 miles on it seemed to fit the bill, and I took title to it with a relatively small deposit. Thankfully I still had my triple-A credit rating. It was a nice car. It was in metallic silver with grey cloth trim, and it was actually very nice to drive. It was not exactly up to the Lexus LS400 I was driving in Florida, or the 730i SE BMW I was driving before we went to Florida, but I wasn’t complaining. Liz would not be able to drive it. I learned when I tried to get her name on the insurance policy that you couldn’t get insured to drive in England within twelve months of having a seizure. It didn’t matter. I enjoyed driving.

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. My story. The story of a ten-year journey that at times looked like it would never end. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com.

 

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Blog of August 6, 2012

It was almost ten o’clock when I got to Jan and Jack’s, and I was stressed, exhausted and starving.

Jan opened the door.

“She has a brain tumour,” I blurted. “I’m scared, Jan.” Tears were welling up in my eyes.

“Come on in,” she said. “We’ll get some scotch down you, then I’ll make you a meal.”

Extract from my book WILL YOU TELL HER, OR SHALL I? A true story. Available on www.booksthepublishersmissed.com.

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