Some of you might be thinking that I was
suffering from an absence of luck.
However many of you will know by now that luck never featured in my
life, at all. The double top
secret cabal who were secretly guiding my life from one experience to another,
so that they could prepare me to be the greatest king of Ireland, ever, planned
everything. I’m sure if we got a hold of
Tim Hirschman today, he might give us some insight into the pressure they must
have brought to bear on him, to make him tell me that there was no job for me, they probably even tortured him. I mean, I had given up my career in the air
force, admittedly I had been put into the trade of air traffic control, which I
hated, but never the less, a secure job doing something you didn’t like, was
ten times better than no job at all. Especially when I now had a wife and three
children to support.
The air force would want their house back too,
so there was a little bit of pressure put on me to find somewhere to live. Our original plan was for Irene and the children
to live with her mother for a few weeks while I settled myself into the new job
in Ireland, then rent temporary accommodation till we could have our dream
house constructed. I suppose if living a
perfect life was easy, everybody would be doing it. There was Abbey Life but I promise you, they
were worse than air traffic control. It’s
bad enough to meet an educated person whose sole motivation in life is greed,
but for people with limited intelligence and ability it’s quite an
uncomfortable thing to have to watch. I
did have an idea concerning the armed forces and the life insurance industry,
but that’s what it was, an idea, you can’t feed the children on ideas.
Abbey Life had launched a whole new series of
products which came under the name ‘Master’, so for life cover the plan was
Cover Master. A mortgage came under Mortgage
Master, a savings plan was Wealth Master, there was Health Master and so on, I’m
sure you understand the concept. So I
named my idea Forces Master, I wasn’t going to try to come up with anything
special for the forces as in cheaper rates for some products, what I was going
to do was change the approach of how the company and the client connected. What I was about to attempt actually fell in alongside
most of the thinking in the insurance industry, as in; it had a mathematical
base to it. So it was founded on statics
and I knew, well; I hoped that this would encourage Abbey Life to support me.
I approached Jack, who unfortunately was morphing
into Joe Pearson, without the marching, before my very eyes. He smiled and nodded at the appropriate
points as I explained my idea to him and then told me it was very good but I
should shut up and go and sell someone a pension plan. I was still getting paid by the air force, and
I had accumulated a decent sum that Abbey Life were holding for me. plus there
was a gratuity coming to me from the air force so I wasn’t exactly penniless
and under pressure to start selling anything to anybody as the rest of the sales force seemed
to be doing. I was at one of those points
where something has to happen, you yourself don’t realise it but everything seems
to be going around in a circle, you need something to focus on, something to
give you a new direction. I needed my
very own big bang so that my own little universe could start to form and grow.
That’s when the telephone rang. It was my new friend Graham; he was inviting
me to lunch. Now for most people an invite
to lunch would be a twenty minute journey into town, meet up for an hour and
then twenty minutes back. This was Graham,
the ex SAS Major, lunch was to be in a bistro in the heart of Soho in London. If a normal person had asked me to lunch in
London I would expect somewhere like Claridges, The Ritz or The Dorchester, a
bit of style, the chance to rub shoulders with the posh people and
celebrities. But a small bistro in the
centre of Soho, swamped with the hoi polloi, awash with a sea of sex shops,
drenched with drug pushers, pushy pimps, pregnant with prostitutes, peppered
with drug addicts and the pavements littered with drunks, did seem to be a more
exciting invite.
In fact I knew that a day away would be a good
thing for me. It would take my mind off everything
and allow me to relax and might perhaps provide that pivotal point that I didn’t
really know I so needed at that point. I
took the train to London, arriving nice and early which would allow me to indulge
in one of my favourite pastimes, which was wandering about, watching people and
looking at the architecture. It was a
nice day and I thoroughly enjoyed wandering along, with my eyes and ears open
wide. I loved the hustle and bustle that
was going on all around me. I found Soho
and made my way to the small bistro where I was to meet Graham. Surprise, surprise, even thought I was ten or
fifteen minutes early Graham was already at the bar, waiting for me.
It was a wine bar so I was presented with a
huge glass of red wine and invited to sit with Graham at a small table. We were surrounded with people who seemed to
be engrossed in their own little world.
I remember that all the tables had paper tablecloths and I thought what
a great idea, rather than having to wash them, you just throw them away and
replace them. I couldn’t believe that at
a table next to us sat two serious looking fellows, media looking types, all
yellow spotty braces, red spectacles, shirts that mimicked pyjama tops, who were
having some sort of discussion that involved a lot of hand waving. But one of them was scribbling away on the table
cloth with a black fountain pen. It
certainly was a world I was not accustomed to.
Graham was his usual self and was explaining to me that he was doing
exceptionally well in London. The branch
of Abbey Life he was with was the top producing branch in the company and their
offices were right in the heart of Soho, in fact they were a five minute walk
away from the bistro we were in.
Typical of Graham I thought, he has a five minute
walk to the lunch meeting and I have a two hour train journey. I didn’t really care, I was enjoying my day
out and after all it was his invite, he was paying for lunch and I had an appetite
like a horse, not to mention the thirst I had on me. By the time we were splitting the dregs of
the second bottle of wine and waiting for the waiter to bring us a fresh bottle
another fellow joined us. I can’t remember
his name but he was Graham’s branch manager who happened to be passing and saw
Graham. He joined us for a glass of red
and we all chatted away. He asked how I
liked Ipswich and I, perhaps because the wine had loosened my tongue, told him exactly
what I thought of Ipswich. And then for
some reason I explained my plan for the Forces Master project.
It was all good fun and Graham’s branch manager
left us to it. We downed a few grappa’s
and then I accepted Graham’s offer to go back to their offices for some coffee
and a tour. Now I’m sure you think that
all offices were the same but this office had a sauna and gym. I met a few more people and drank my coffee
before making my way back to the station and the train back to Ipswich. The next day as I went in to the office I sat
and wondered about my experience in the London the day before. Graham seemed to be happy and successful, but
then he was a bullshitter of the highest order, and one of those strange things
happens. You know when you are thinking
about someone and they contact you, well; next thing you know is that I am on
the telephone to Graham, he called me.
Lovely to see you, thanks for the lunch, a great day was had by
all. It was the usual formalities until
Graham said; the branch manager wants you to join our branch. He likes you, but loves your forces idea and
is willing to back you all the way. I
put the receiver back down and my mind was in overdrive. It was an exciting offer, it wasn’t Dublin, wrong
fecking direction, perhaps a slight detour on my way back home, but at least it
seemed to be umpteen times better than Ipswich and the men who knew everything
about nothing, twice.
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