Heads on Pillows E-Book

Joan Campbell

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Serie: The Shieling
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 280

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

With so many people looking to leave the rat-race and start their own bed and breakfast in the country, "Heads on Pillows" give readers a personal glimpse into the unique world of B&Bs, where owners open up their own homes for guests to enjoy. This book offers witty anecdotes, personal experiences and helpful hints to anyone who aspires to enter the trade, from an award-winning B&B owner. From its modest beginnings as a single room B&B to the first five star Bed and Breakfast in the northern counties of Scotland, follow the story of the Sheiling and its owner. Part autobiography and part 'how to' guide "Heads on Pillows" is both informative and entertaining. This true account charts the growth and the development of the Scottish tourist trade, especially in the Highlands where the Sheiling is located, and offers through the experience of over 30 years an unparalleled insight into the Bed and Breakfast trade that is so enticing to so many. Foreword by Peter Lederer, Chairman of VisitScotland and managing director of the famous Gleneagles hotel.

Leseprobe

JOAN CAMPBELL began taking in ‘nighters’ as nothing more than a means of adding to the family income. After 40 years in the business, she and her husband Hugh retired in 2007 and sold The Sheiling to its current owners. In the same year Joan was awarded the coveted Scottish Silver Thistle for her outstanding contribution to tourism. After many years writing her monthly column, ‘Tourism Matters’ inThe Northern Times, Joan now concentrates on her work for the Federation of Small Businesses as Tourism Representative for Scotland and Chair of Caithness & Sutherland Branch. Since retiring and moving to their new home at Stoneybraes, Melvich, Joan has helped to build a BA Degree in Tourism and Hospitality Practices for the University of the Highlands & Islands and continues with her work on the Board of the Highlands & Islands Tourism Awards. In 2010 Joan was made a Member of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen for her work in developing skills and education in the tourism industry.

Heads on Pillows

Behind the scenes at a Highland B&B

JOAN CAMPBELL

LuathPress Limited

EDINBURGH

www.luath.co.uk

First published 2009

Reprinted 2012

eBook 2013

ISBN (print): 978-1-906307-71-4

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-909912-10-6

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

© Joan Campbell 2009

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 A Busy Little Bee

CHAPTER 2 Over My Dead Body

CHAPTER 3 Heads on Pillows

CHAPTER 4 Going into Season

CHAPTER 5 John Dear and the Rabbit

CHAPTER 6 The Year of the Sheep

CHAPTER 7 Bums in Beds

CHAPTER 8 A Room with a View

CHAPTER 9 Taken Out by the SAS

CHAPTER 10 Entertaining the Mothans

CHAPTER 11 New Tricks for the Old Dog

CHAPTER 12 Tooth and Nail

CHAPTER 13 Gilding the Lily

CHAPTER 14 One for the Pot

CHAPTER 15 High Jinks and Hard Work

Conclusion: What Will Tomorrow Bring!

Recipes to Ponder from the Kitchen of The Sheiling

Notes

Acknowledgements

THIS BOOK GIVES ME the opportunity to thank a long list of people, longer than I realised when I look back and think how much I owe to friends and family who helped keep the ship afloat, those who worked with me during the busy years, and those who came to the rescue when playing with horses or performing on stage lured me from the coal face: the late, very much missed, Barbara Jappy; Diane Mackay; Connie Mackay; Rina MacLeod; Cathy MacIntosh; Hazel Murray; Heather Simpson; Sandra Munro; Barbara Campbell; Debbie Murray and Katrina Geddes; but most of all for the man Himself, my own special Skimbleshanks, always behind me, ready to remind me, that never, not on his watch anyway, would anything ever be allowed to go wrong!

Joan Campbell

Foreword

THE TOURISM INDUSTRY is perhaps the most competitive industry in the world. In an age when potential visitors can visit the Arctic and Antarctica, not to mention everywhere in between, Scotland is competing with more than 200 comparable destinations across the globe. Many of these destinations offer a product which is very similar to what we have on offer here and they are competing for the same visitors we are. So what is there that Scotland can offer to stand out from the crowd? For me the answer is simple: our people.

Scotland is renowned the world over as a friendly country, where visitors can be assured of a warm welcome. Never before has the warmth of that welcome been as important as it is today. Globalisation makes differentiation increasingly difficult. However, the people are what makes a country, an industry, an individual business. It is the people who make that difference. And for the Scottish tourism industry, it is the people, individuals like Joan Campbell, who have made Scotland the success it is today – a must-visit, but more importantly, a must-return destination.

Joan has worked tirelessly during her many years in the industry, welcoming thousands of visitors from around the world to Scotland and ensuring that they have a truly memorable stay. Her commitment to quality, from the locally-sourced ingredients in her famous Scottish breakfast to her annual decorating sprees, has won her a string of awards including the ultimate tourism accolade – the Silver Thistle – and has kept visitors coming back year after year for more.

It’s the enthusiasm and dedication of people like Joan that will help us ensure that Scotland fulfils its aspirations and more. Today’s visitors are increasingly discerning and demand higher levels of quality all the time. But it’s not simply the quality of the product that’s important. In fact, that’s the easy part. It’s the quality of the service that can really make or break the visitor’s experience. The customer is always right. The customer is king. These might sound like truisms but the simple fact is that making our customers happy is what tourism is all about. I hope that everyone involved in tourism will follow Joan’s example and go that extra step to make their visitors’ experience so memorable that they not only come back again but spread the word.

On behalf of VisitScotland, I would like to thank Joan for her many years of dedication to Scotland’s most important industry. Her insight into what it’s like at the coal face will prove an entertaining read and, I’m sure, will provide a few surprises along the way. I also hope it might encourage others to enter the industry. After all, as you will soon learn, not only is tourism Scotland’s most important industry, it’s also our most fun and exciting one.

Peter Lederer CBE

Chairman, VisitScotland (2009)

Introduction

BED AND BREAKFAST is an occupation dependent for its very survival upon the ability to keep everyone not just happy, but in holiday mood. And if those expectations are not met, the customer is right there, on hand, to let you know exactly how they feel about it!

We all know how things can go disastrously wrong when friends and family elect to stay together to celebrate occasions heralded as high-days and holidays. That being the case, can you imagine the scope for disaster when a variety of strangers get together with your family under one average-sized roof, everyone expecting everything to be absolutely perfect? And remember, it’s up to you to see everyone keeps on smiling throughout their stay. Frightening, isn’t it?

Well, it can be. It can also have unimaginable rewards, and with truth being more fascinating than fiction, now feels the right time to let you into some of the secrets lying behind the perfect image of a top-rated B&B.

Forty years ago, doing bed and breakfast was simply the acceptable way for many a homebound wife and mother to earn a bit on the side, to add to the family income, or to make some pin money. I thought that too – until I saw the potential. In driving bed and breakfast forward as a serious concern, I have found myself in some rather hair-raising situations. One day I went from cleaning the loos in the morning to meeting the Prince of Wales in the afternoon, my main concern on that occasion being to ensure the loose cap on my front tooth remained firmly in place, rather than flying into his fruit drink.

In time, the evening dresses of past cruising holidays were dusted down and given an airing at many glamorous occasions, all associated with tourism. This culminated in the night an ancient old dress seemed OK to wear to the prestigious Silver Thistle Award ceremony, attended by close on a thousand of the great and the good from within the industry. After all, I was up for no awards and my intention was to have a whale of a time – in the background. The shock on my face when presented the accolade of the year, VisitScotland’s top Thistle Award for outstanding services to the tourism industry, is testament to the fact I was hoodwinked into believing I had only been invited in honour of my impending retirement from VisitScotland’s Quality and Services Overseeing Committee, which I had served on for years.

I tell you this so you know that no matter the difficulties you face in achieving the best for the visitors taken into your home, you can reach for any star you keep within your sights. Mine was to give my paying guests the highest standards of comfort and hospitality and to help colleagues along the way. The route was peppered with many heartbreaking moments and much hilarity, as well as opportunities to be in places and meet people I would never have imagined. Take, for instance, today.

Engrossed in puzzling over finances as we set our sights on selling our B&B, The Sheiling, and building a new home, just as new-build costs were hitting the ceiling and selling houses taking a serious nosedive, an envelope with an ER Buckingham Palace stamp plopped through the letter box. It read:

The Master of the Household has received

Her Majesty’s command to invite

Mrs Joan Campbell

to a Reception to be given at Buckingham Palace

by The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh

(PS Do make an appointment with your dentist before then.)

I ask you, whatever next! Not too bad for a wee B&B wifie!

1

A Busy Little Bee

‘ARE YOU BUSY?’

‘Yes, I am. Really busy.’ Trying to cover my impatience with a smile, foot poised for the off, I made the mistake of pausing that fraction of a second too long. The question came for probably the 10th time as I rushed around trying to pick up groceries and the many demands on a list left, as always, on the kitchen table.

With little hope of remembering instructions hastily scribbled on the forgotten scrap of paper, I fielded the inevitable interruptions of ‘Are you busy?’ Something about those who entered the world of commerce through the dubious arrangement of offering food and a bed for the night to perfect – a debatable choice of adjective there – strangers, in the confines of their own home, drew an insatiable curiosity. The fact the deal was done in exchange for hard cash – preferably – seemed to render the whole operation questionable. What was it, in those early days, that allowed this demanding work to be seen as a way of passing the time, meeting people to while away lonely hours?

‘Oh, I didn’t think there were that many people about just now,’ my new inquisitor ventured, planting herself firmly in my pathway, the implication being I had a hidden cache of paying guests she wanted to know about.

‘People?’ I airily countered. ‘Ah, you mean busy with my guests. No, no visitors about just now at all. Not a single one.’

‘Not even singles! That’s bad. But I thought you said you were busy.’ Her suspicious response was backed by a frown as she cocked her head to the side like an inquisitive sparrow, puzzling over my implied activity.

‘I am busy, that I can assure you, and I must be off.’

But Nelly was not to be shifted. She folded her arms across her ample bosom and I sighed, then rushed out an exasperated explanation as to how I could possibly be busy and no people about. People, of course, were not the likes of her or me. People were, in effect, tourists. A torrent of words did not impress upon her the urgency of my busyness, despite hands flying in all directions. ‘I have a mountain of paperwork to get through, the garden’s like a jungle, there’s the family to do for before they do for me, in fact all the mundane chores of the household, and those perverse animals…’

A mutual friend, no doubt attracted by the gesticulations, had the temerity to join us! I could see the ready question forming in her mind, so added for good measure, ‘and there’s a backlog of telephone calls to catch up with, and probably a hundred emails waiting by the time I get back. And my accountant is threatening me with a tax inspection if I don’t get my act together, and the Tourist Board will be only too delighted to chuck me out if I don’t get that advertising off tonight!’ The natural Highland tendency to gross exaggeration always came to my rescue in times of reeling off why I had no time to stand and stare, or talk of the weather or why ‘people’ were so scarce, or to indulge in the popular pastime of running down the Tourist Board for diverting business to the west coast – by some pretty devious means – instead of channelling all the ‘people’ towards the north-east, as they should – the eastern side of the north coast being where I shopped and was frequently accosted to check out my busyness, the west being where I lived, and gleaned my ‘people’.

‘Oh, that… paperwork… writing, I suppose!’ she humphed, not exactly saying rubbish, but one sensed the implication and my hackles rose further. But I was summarily dismissed. Of no further interest. ‘I thought you might be busy with people,’ and off they strolled, satisfied I was not benefiting from an unfair share of the bed and breakfast market. Her parting shot, wafting over her shoulder, was kindly in tone. ‘It’ll be busy later no doubt and you’ll be glad of having your rest just now.’ She couldn’t see the black look that followed their ambling departure, oozing a benevolence of time that was theirs to do with as they pleased. I sighed. Making enemies in this line of work was easy enough without offending those who meant me well – but not too well.

From April to October, fondly known to all as ‘the season’, an affable enquiry after one’s health was not the normal greeting, despite a reasonably healthy winter pallor giving way to a near-death’s-door whiter shade of pale as the season took its toll, but no matter. The only interest I generated was whether or not I was busy, and being busy actually meant: how many heads are on my pillows?, without the vulgarity of too obvious an interest in my cash flow and emphatically not an interest in how I idled away those dormant hours between serving breakfast and greeting the next stuffed wallet that ambled its way up to my door.

It was firmly believed, and often by the customer who partook of those very services which took an entire day to provide as much as by those who pondered this source of easy income with no obvious expenditure, that I whittled away the hours of my days twiddling my thumbs, or counting our cash hoard. I took it on the chin because the time to start worrying was when one of the ponderers happened to work for the Inland Revenue, though they were the only ones who credited me with working – my hours of employment not being tax deductible. To all others – neighbours, acquaintances, family and the few friends I had left – I certainly did not work, and therefore was never given the status of a working person.

‘Where’s Joan working now?’ would be politely asked of mother, sister, father, brother. It made no difference, the answer was unanimous, formulated by one and all in the belief I was now a lady of leisure.

‘Oh, Joan doesn’t work. She just does bed and breakfast.’

‘Must be nice for her.’ Meaning, it’s all right for some.

‘Yes. It passes the time for her.’ An indulgent answering smile tinged with embarrassment at Joan giving up what was a good career to idle away her hours with bed and breakfast. This would immediately be picked up on and soothed over with an understanding reply: ‘Why should she work if she doesn’t have to?’

Why? Why, indeed! I’ve often wondered the whys of it myself, but there was one thing for sure. Work she had to, and work it was, sometimes – most times – involving a 16 hour day; but not in the very beginning, not when those first genuine seekers of good food and comfort found their way to my humble door (or the door I became the proprietor of, as the Tax Man informed me. I didn’t feel like a proprietor when I first cautiously approached his den, and felt less like one as I skulked out with my tail between my legs. But he informed me I was a B&B proprietor; well, not exactly; he actually said ‘proprietrix’! I had never heard the word before and was ready to relieve the atmosphere with a good giggle, but that was not encouraged.)

Opening the door, my proprietorial door, that auspicious day, I was confronted by a bosom – a very large bosom – commanding so much attention I paid little heed to the stern voice emanating from somewhere above. ‘Have you got a roomfor tonight?’

Much of my youth had been spent in awe of matriarchal dominance by similarly-endowed women, each givencarte blancheby my mother to chastise, should the need arise, during those post-war years when the male of the species remained in the service of his country. The women who kept the home fires burning, some actually cutting the peat that fuelled the fires, were made of stern stuff, so even into my middle years the sight of such a well-endowed figure looming large had me back in childhood, scuffing my feet.

I had yet to master the quick lie that would get me out of the alarming prospect of sharing a roof with such mammiferous magnificence, this being the very first week of my venture into bed and breakfast. Such deception required practice, and the possibility of entanglement in plausible lies had to be weighed against the clear advantage it afforded. This was virtually my first enquiry at the door; in the 1960s, the only enquiry you were going to get was one which came at the door. Indeed, we did not aspire to a doorbell that first year, never mind a telephone, with a car being a laughable impossibility. But we, or I should be honest and say I, did have the requisite room.

2

Over My Dead Body

THIS TENTATIVE FORAY into unknown territory was contemplated with the words of my husband of seven years ringing in my ears, when he left his home for the work that would occupy him for decades while we brought up our brand new first-born in the brand new home, built by the not quite so ‘new man’ who warned, ‘It will be over my dead body you take in nighters!’

There is no doubt that, if you want to get somewhere in life, risk-taking is high on the agenda – not that ‘taking in nighters’, as it was colloquially known, would be likely to get you far at the then going rate of 5/– (all of 25p today, in those days a loaf of bread cost 1/6d, while petrol was 5/2d or 27p per gallon!) for bed and breakfast and 2/6d per person for the high tea that inevitably went with it. (Few, if any, gave a room without offering a meal. Into this, with an on-the-house abandon seldom known today, was thrown the most sumptuous of suppers consisting of copious amounts of tea and masses of home baking. Much of this generosity was to disappear, but for many years it was the accepted and very acceptable norm, even when the proprietor had good reason to suspect some of the hardier types refrained from buying the evening meal so they could sweep the boards at supper time, free of charge.)

In desperation I drew my eyes from the bosom dominating my doorstep and was met with a face every bit as severe as the voice. In panic I thought I would go ‘home’ for the night, just pack up and run for cover under the roof my siblings and I still called home, though all had flown the nest years ago. But first I would take down that scruffy black and white board, hastily erected by the roadside, advertising my available room.

A flashback to what had happened the very minute that sign went up reinforced my inclination to say ‘No!’ and pull out of the whole silly idea. The board was barely in place when two people arrived on the doorstep who could be described only as being of the gentry, toffs to their long pale fingertips, the gentleman’s tending to steeple, touching beneath his chin as he enquired politely about ‘…efternoon tea, my deah?’ No one had warned me of this possibility, though today we offer what could be termed afternoon tea upon arrival regardless of time of day or evening, but only to those who are committed to staying. This is in the hope of exceeding expectations, though in those early days no such terminology existed as ‘expectations’, leave alone ‘exceeding’ them. These were my first actual customers and, despite feeling rather overawed by their grandeur, their confident manner made it seem almost churlish to refuse.

I invited them in.

They did not ask for a room, instead persuading me in the most pleasing manner of their requirement of ‘efternoon tea, my deah’. Mesmerised, and having tins brim-full of home baking in anticipation of high teas and suppers, I settled them in what had been our living room but was now ‘the guest lounge’ and produced what they called a delightful tea, foolishly believing they would eventually ask to see their room and bring in their cases, and kickstart this vision I had of money in my purse.

As it transpired, they were staying at Bettyhill Hotel, in its heyday amongst the finest in the area, where I had spent the year before I married being instructed into the management side of the hospitality industry, though words like ‘hospitality’ and ‘industry’ never came into the equation, especially ‘industry’. What did I know of industry at 18 years of age! Time spent there had been given over to so much fun and laughter in the close-knit working relationship common to many hotel environments, that for me it was an oasis between secretarial posts, which were much more demanding. This left, in a recess of my mad mind, the impression that looking after the holiday-loving public was by far the most desirable occupation. There sure were a lot of hard truths to learn during a very necessary long arduous apprenticeship, starting off with this posh pair partaking of tea in my lounge. By comparison, secretarial work had been a doddle!

We chatted amicably, and they spent ‘such a pleasant efternoon, my deah,’ as the gentleman conveyed when he pressed all of sixpence (2½p) into my hand before waving a cheerful goodbye, insisting in his genteel voice that I would do very well with my bed and breakfast venture. I was young enough and silly enough to think it highly funny, exploitation never entering my head, although not in all of the ensuing 40 years was I ever again asked for ‘efternoon tea, my deah.’

Himself, the man I married, he of the threatening dead body, had been right. This was not for us. Had I not instinctively felt so when I worked as a secretary years after we married, before our son was born and convention decreed that mums stayed at home, giving up careers to rear the young? A colleague had suggested, ‘You could easily do bed and breakfast in your new house.’ It was I who threw up hands in horror and mouthed, ‘Over my dead body!’ Very few couples had the money to build and we were so fortunate that Himself, who was a joiner, had a good friend skilled in the art of bricklaying. They did a reciprocal deal to provide two bungalow homes with little money changing hands, for the simple reason none of us had any. The end result was we each had a home, one we would never have had should money instead of friendship have been the requisite means of barter.

Such progress was viewed with a jaundiced eye by those who believed we had to have a benefactor hidden in the woodwork. As with most youngsters, it was down to us and hard work and forget about the welfare system, which certainly existed then but was scorned by the genuinely needy and exploited by the clever, with most who should have benefited left out in the cold, their pride a poor substitute for their needs.

The excitement of moving into our own home was enhanced by a monumental discovery. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ I announced breathlessly, reeling from the news myself.

‘What have you done now,’ said Himself, who, after nearly six years of marriage, was inclined to take such proclamations as the prelude to yet another of my less palatable disasters.

‘Ah, I wasn’t alone in this one! You played your part too.’ I advanced, looking grim.

Blue eyes clocked back and crisp black hair was ruffled as he wondered which escapade had now caught up with him. When my face glowed in unsurpassed happiness, shades of filling in the football coupon or winning the works raffle took hold of him, so I put him out of his misery in case he was disappointed it wasn’t news of a bottle of whisky I was about to divulge.

Needless to say, pregnancy after the fun of five years’ trying took a bit of grasping and the exciting prospects of new baby and new house kept us planning for months, and here was this colleague of mine suggesting I share it with all manner of strangers. Not on your life!

But a year on, with the new house requiring many new things, and my active nature crying out for something more to do than look after our son, I succumbed to the prodding of those friends who did bed and breakfast, who knew that a connection sited in the prime position of first in the village, along the main route, could be a godsend… to them!

I, of course, was not then aware of the politics of B&B and never envisaged that I would be expected to pass on my overflow, past two of the long-established B&Bs in the village – with their good reputations and detached houses – and into the waiting beds of my friends, whose council home, lovely though it and its garden were, could be frowned upon by the newly-emerging more discerning – undoubtedly snobby, in comparison – visitor. The kindly hospitality and good food that awaited therein soon won them over, but first they had to get there, hence the strategy of positioning a friend on the main route. We did not progress to having colleagues for many a long year, only friends, and as a young new entrant I found nothing but friendship from all of those knowledgeable women. How friendly they were with each other was quite another matter!

Such innocence was certainly a drawback in the early years as I stumbled into the many pitfalls lying in wait for the unwary in this business. But it was also a distinct advantage, for had I known what lay ahead, I would have given it all up there and then, and the man Himself, who regarded such a venture as anathema, would never have known the joys that awaited him when he decided, after retirement from his work on an oil platform, to show me how to do the job properly. Nothing new there! By the time Himself set his seal upon the bed and breakfast industry I was well used to being told how to do just about everything by our colleagues from across the border, who saw Scotland as an opportunity to start out anew, selling homes for extortionate prices in the south to buy small hotels or guest houses and B&Bs in the north. Some did a brilliant job, others did not, but they all had this belief that they were the only ones on the planet who knew how to do the job properly.

How I envied them their confidence, whilst biting my tongue at their temerity, especially in later years when we came to realise that the English Tourist Board was not a patch on the Scottish Board, despite our tendency to berate it – though its greatest critics were usually not home-grown.

A special peculiarity, as we saw it, amongst the English proprietors was their propensity to breakfast with their guests. ‘Hospitality should begin in the kitchen,’ sighed Mr Guest after being bored out of his skull by the lifetime achievements of his host. ‘Yes, and there’s times when it should stay there,’ agreed his tight-lipped wife, gazing at the congealed breakfast she was too polite to attack in front of the non-eating hosts who sat surveying them with cups of coffee in their hands and a delight in themselves enough to give anyone indigestion. There had been a time, long before the ’60s, when mixed breakfasting of family and ‘lodgers’ was borne of necessity, not from a desire to monopolise and provide so-called early morning entertainment in the name of hospitality.

Such was the gift of achieving a good name under these conditions, it was of intense interest to all and sundry just how one managed this feat of stuffing a stranger in with the family and getting money out of them for what was obviously perceived as little effort. Little effort! Had I known just how much effort was required, I would have missed out on a career that was so underrated those who took it up viewed it as a summer stopgap to pick up pin money, and missed too, one of the best chances going to study the psychology of the human race.

After serving a 20-year apprenticeship, and daring to consider myself fit to push this precarious income stream as a worthy career, about 1988 I began to collar anyone who had influence and insist, ‘Look, this is not a lower-end-of-the-market product. You really can make money but you have to provide what the visitor wants!’ Said with such conviction, I eventually got the attention and funding required to turn around the opportunities that in time became one of the country’s greatest assets when at last tourism was recognised as the economic driver it is today.

Blinkered beginnings kept me in sufficient ignorance to stick to the job that now pays the piper, though I by no means get to choose all the tunes, not without due consultation with Himself – now much more of a ‘new man’ – who forbade such activities under his roof. It also sees me tearing about the length and breadth of Scotland, improving the tourism product, and in my efforts to keep so many balls in the air, family and friends now get the opportunity to study my antics with raised eyebrows and much muttering behind my back – mind you, human nature, in its helpful desire to inflict consternation upon the person, always sees to it you’re made well aware of what’s going on behind your back.

At one stage, with Himself away most of the time, a son to care for, as well as two spirited horses, a flock of lambing sheep, a psychologically-challenged house cat and a trio of feline strays, a house rabbit suffering from delusions of identity, all of ten guests, leave alone an increasing number of extracurricular activities on the tourism front and fitting in appearances at venues with a temperamental guitar as my sidekick, life became somewhat fraught. ‘You would think there was no tomorrow,’ my mother was prone to announce, shaking her head in bewilderment.

For me, the prospect of no tomorrow became a shocking reality midway through that career. Instead of throwing in the towel as many expected, my prognosis served to focus my mind on all I had yet to achieve in the time left. Today, having owned the first five-star accommodation in the northern counties, with a seat on a handful of boards that would, back then, have seemed ludicrous, I stick out my tongue to the devil that sometimes lurks on my shoulders, whispering, ‘How much time have you left?’

‘I measure time in quality, not quantity, so piss off… I appreciate you not,’ I reply, believing a biblical turn of phrase has a better effect upon the devil that now has Cancer as his capricious assistant. With my half-full cup, and this unshakeable belief that given a fair wind, that cup will never empty – indeed, with a bit of due diligence, may well runneth over – I dismiss my devil… until the next time.

However, due diligence was kind of hard for me to achieve in those early days, and fairness was not always uppermost when it came to heads on pillows, as I was to find out as I progressed from that initial step guided by my friends. Having an excellent eye for the main chance myself, I never blamed them for exploiting my innocence, all such activities later coming under the heading of Marketing Opportunities. But that would be a long time into the future and for the moment I was ready to throw in the towel without having made a penny.

3

Heads on Pillows