Fact or Fiction? - 37

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The story Here was all...

Complete and absolute

TRUTH! Every bit of it (and more) happened as I recounted it.

I started a small (tiny) business from nothing, it diversified and expanded. I set out to make the business large enough to make a living from, but small enough to manage by myself. I worked that business for almost 20 years and I did indeed deal with Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Chelsea, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur, Millwall, Nottingham Forest, Notts County, Sheffield Utd, Sheffield Wednesday, Manchester City, Celtic, Rangers, Derby County and The Rocky Horror Picture Show and St Johnstone.

We actually made a point of trying to visit all the clubs too.

Of course, that was in the days before I started writing.

I never met anyone from any of the clubs that were pompous or proud. They were ordinary people, doing an ordinary job for extraordinary employers, nothing more. Everyone I dealt with seemed to be excited that I had come up with a new design for a different type of merchandise.

And the part of the story involving Manchester United? Yep! That was true too!

Thanks for taking part. I do like surprising people :)

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Of course, things didn’t always go well when we both worked for ourselves. If one or more customer was late with their payment, we could be in serious trouble because finances were exceptionally tight. We’ve been in the position where bailiffs have come knocking and we had to promise to pay something to the creditors or they’d have come in and taken property.

I remember one winter’s evening, I was trying to get an order packaged and boxed for delivery – little plastic boxes all over the living room, ribbon, stickers and garters all arranged so I could sit in the warm house and work. I had a regular production-line going.

Put a garter into a box, making sure the bow on the front was central to the box for aesthetic purposes, pile them up until I had a small stack, then move on to the next process, putting the box lids on. Then the ribbons were all cut to length, and piled to the side.

Wrapping the ribbon around the box, fastening it with a sticker that told of the company and the contents of the box was next.

Then flip the box over, place the club sticker on one side and the sticker that said ‘Garter’ on the other side. I could do them in my sleep – I could probably still do them, even now!

Sometimes, I did fall asleep in the shed – we both did. There were also many times that we’d work all night to get an order out, go up to the house to get the kids ready for school, take the order to the delivery company (it’s cheaper than having them fetch it) and then collapse, exhausted into bed. Only to get up a few short hours later to go through it all again.

This particular evening, Trev had to go to the shop to fetch something to eat. The kids were at their grandma’s and so they were ok for food, the animals had food, so that was ok – the important living creatures were sorted first, we understood a little better and could manage.

We had a grand sum of £16.32 in our collective accounts - (both personal banks and both business banks) – Trev’s mum had already sent a ‘Red Cross, emergency rations parcel’ up for us so we had to fend for ourselves.

Trev asked what I’d like to eat. I took a swift look around the kitchen (Old Mother Hubbard and her bare cupboard had nothing on us at that time). We had half a loaf of bread, a little butter and a pack of ham.

“I’ll be ok with sandwiches,” says I.

Trev nodded and he went out to the shops.

He came back. I was still slogging away at the order (hundreds of garters take ages to package) and he made me a few sandwiches. I placed the plate to the side and continued my work, taking a bite every so often.

He worked away in the kitchen. I didn’t think of it at the time.

Then Trev came into the living room with a plate of food for himself.

I glanced at the plate.

Then I took another look – a better look because I actually could not believe what I was seeing.

He had a plate of steak and chips (fries) and it looked and smelled delicious!

I looked at the plate of sandwiches and then back to his steak.

Back to the sandwiches…

“What the hell?” I asked him. “I thought we had less than twenty pounds in the bank? How can we afford for you to have steak?” My voice had risen beyond ‘reasonable’ by then.

I was tired, hungry and frankly, disappointed that he’d be so utterly selfish when we were so desperately trying to make the ends meet.

He looked at me as though I was asking him to cut off his own arm and feed it to me.

“Well, when you said you’d be ok with sandwiches, I could afford steak,” he said as though that actually explained everything and I was being ludicrous.

“Are you kidding? You think that’s ok? I said I’d settle for sandwiches and so that leaves all the extra money for you to have STEAK?”

“Did you want some?” he asked.

I actually do think he saw nothing wrong in that scenario.

When I tell this story to friends, especially those that know me well, they’re usually amazed that he’s still here, not buried under the patio…