Well; things were happening, I couldn’t have
told you what was happening as Graham was in charge. Being a typical officer he kept everything he
intended to do to himself and didn’t have to explain himself to anyone as he
was always right. I was quite happy to follow
along in his wake, but under no circumstances was he telling me what to
do. The parking area at his house was a
single narrow lane along the side of the house so when we needed a car we used
the one at the head of the queue. So I
found myself and my hangover sitting in the passenger seat, of my own car,
being driven into central London. I
knew we were off to meet the people at Canon Life, but that was all I
knew. Graham drove as he spoke, I don’t
mean he was speaking to me as we drove along, he couldn’t speak to me as he was
too busy shouting at all the other drivers on the road, as I played the age old
game of how far can I slink down in this seat?
I never knew my little car could go so fast, especially
in central London. Thankfully we arrived
at our destination and went in to meet our new sponsors. There were two fellows in the office and I
was slightly taken aback that they were both much younger than I was. I felt quite uncomfortable actually as they
really were spivs, horrible people whose only interest in life was the
accumulation of wealth. One of them took
me over to the main window and pointed at a Porsche motor car across the
street. “I’ve just paid cash for that,”
he bragged. “Play your cards right and
you could have one in a week or two.”
The last thing a good ol boy like me would do would be drive a fecking
Porsche, they may have had a decent turn of speed but how much poteen could you
get in the boot?
Graham was doing all the talking and occasionally
he would mention me and say that I had this whizzo idea for the armed
forces. By lunch time we were heading
back to Wallingford and Graham was on top form.
Seems that everything had been given the go ahead, Canon Life were
opening an office in Wallingford, there would only be three of us in the office
and we would be supported by two secretaries.
Graham proudly gave me a pack of our new business cards; they read
Duffield, Howard and associates. As you
know I had been called many things in my life but never an associate and who
was this Howard fellow? “Ah, says
Graham, you’ll meet him this evening, Phillip Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s
son.” Graham spoke the name with reverence,
it didn’t really mean anything to me, it was just the son of some aristocrat. I have to admit I had seen his house for it
was where they filmed Brideshead Revisited.
Phillip pitched up that evening and the three
of us went over to a small restaurant for a meal and an explanation from Graham
as to what we would be up to. There were
three main directions we would follow. There
was a huge council housing estate on the outskirts of Oxford and many of the
people were desperately trying to exercise their right to buy. Graham would lead that push; we had a couple
of friends on board who would rush the paperwork through on a nod and a
wink. There was a solicitor, a bank
manager and a surveyor. The whole thing was
driven by greed and no questions were asked, it was a guaranteed stream of
money that would flow for as long as we wanted.
Our second direction was down to Phillip Howard, an odious little man
who really did deserve to be taken outside and shot, or at least severely
beaten on a daily basis, although I understand many aristocrats enjoy that sort of thing.
On meeting me he explained that he had attended
boarding school in Ireland where they would astonish the local traders as they
would pay for goods and services by cheque, from their own little bank at the
school. I could quite clearly see why
many Irish people wanted to take these fools outside and shoot them. He really was the sort of person who wasted fresh
air by breathing. Phillip’s job fitted
him perfectly; he was to be a Judas, a snitch, a horrible little sneaky shit
who fitted perfectly his mantle of English aristocrat. Philip knew many of the Lords and Ladies in
London, but he knew them very well and knew who had large amounts of cash
floating about. Phillip would introduce
Graham, who really could sell snow to Eskimo’s, and then I would be sent in to
sign them up. I was the one with the investment
license.
The third and final string to our bow was the
forces project, but the products Canon Life had did not fall under the same umbrella
as those from Abbey life had done. It
would take some thinking about, but at least I knew I would probably come up
with another killer idea, I just didn’t know when. We really were quite busy in and around that
council estate on the outskirts of Oxford.
Thatcher had done her job well and you could almost see the sea of greed
sweep through the estate. I found it
quite funny that here I was giving people financial advice and arranging
mortgages for them while most of the business community in Ipswich were taking
legal action against me. It was like emptying
a bath full of water with a bucket, but the bucket has a huge hole in it.
My best earnings were from arranging investments. Phillip would be out and about meeting and
talking to his friends he would then come to the office and tell us who had
what. I remember Graham asking me to
pick Phillip up from the train station one morning, which I reluctantly did. Phillip talked all the way back from the
station to the office telling me that he had been to Annabel’s the previous
evening where he had been drinking bottles of champagne that cost six hundred
pounds each. I most certainly was impressed
for I now knew that the fellow was a confirmed dick head. He insisted on calling it the most elegant
private members club in the world so I simply had to refer to it as a dicso. The
only thing I knew about Annabel’s is that Prince Andrew had once been refused
entrance for not wearing a tie, well done say I, you would never see me going to a disco without a tie. I
think Phillip eventually managed to understand that I didn’t like him or even rate him as
a human being. If only the English had
taken a leaf out of the French’s book and chopped all their fecking heads off,
the world would be such a better place.
The three of us would be sitting in the office and
Phillip would tell us the details about some titled person. Graham would sit
and take notes I would be getting the A to Z map out. Phillip would telephone the person and chat, about
how fabulous they were and at the appropriate place in the conversation would
explain that the fellow they had mentioned the previous evening, Graham, had
just walked in, why not have a word.
Graham would now take over and start talking investments, guaranteeing that
no matter what sum they invested it would double within the week. The closing statement would normally be
something along the lines of, “I’ll send my man over with the paperwork.” I was ‘the man’ and actually did play the
part of the subservient Irishman, touching his forelock to his wonderful
English masters.
What the aristo’s didn’t know is that I had
been trained by Jack in Ipswich and I knew that the most important thing in these
people’s lives was not just what they thought of themselves but what they hoped
other people thought or said about them.
So I would sit down and work my way through the forms and then ask them
to confirm how much they would like to invest.
It didn’t matter what they said, for it was never enough, and as we were
earning a percentage of whatever they invested, I knew my job was to get as
much from them as I possibly could. I
might have been moving towards becoming a proper salesman with absolutely no morals
whatsoever but these people were not nice people. Someone might say two hundred and fifty thousand. I would then act shocked, “Is that all?” I would
say. They would ask why I queried the
amount and I would say “Graham told me you were rich!” I would embarrass the money out of them, play
with their pride, and although I was really going against my beliefs I enjoyed toying
with the aristocracy which did make me wonder how on earth they ever got their
positions in the first place.
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