1997- Mr George Michael and The Spice Girls- how do you do?

1997 and It was the Help a London Child Awards, we were in a top London Hotel on a table of 10 very unique individuals. I was now a supplier to Capital Radio plc and had been invited with one of my work colleagues to attend and enjoy the awards. It was the year that George Michael went up on stage made a tearful heartfelt speech after loosing his beloved mother. He gave away £1 million that year the Help a London Child- Amazing. The Spice Girls had only the just hit the pop world and were new to such events and were giggling about together as you would expect after finding fame so quickly and in such a short space of time, how innocent Victoria Beckham was back then. George was an lovely man, i enjoyed talking to him straight away and yes i went to Brand merchandise for both George Michael on DJ record bags and supplied baby puffa and bomber jackets the team who handled the spice girls merchandise… I even supplied the jacket that Meat Loaf wore in the film “The Spice Girls The Movie”. Everything was just fine……..???? !!!

Chris Tarants name was mentioned with a company called “The London Millennium Party”, that name will haunt me forever. The next minute I’m at The London Hippodrome running a promotion for the supply of £50,000 of merchandise for the biggest Millennium Party London should have seen.

As soon as i delivered the £50k in merchandise it was gone! I was the victim of a long firm (for those of you who do not know what a long firm is… Simply, it’s a business setup with the specific intention of going bust taking everyone for a ride on the process). Although i was insured by Griffin Factors (HSBC) they never paid e out and i went on a wild hunt to find my £50k I goods…… What followed was a dark and mysterious trail that apparently ended up in Tenerife under the guise of the notorious Plamer’s… my life was worth more than £50k…. How i found my goods and uncovered web of intrigue when the police did absolutely nothing just goes to show “If you want something bad enough you can get it”……. Just don’t ask for an elephant in your back garden because you might actually get one……..

1995- Landing $2 Million of Unsecured Stock Funding Credit from a Broken Chair

My palms were sweating, my heart pounding, my nerves holding as i look across and gaze into the eyes of my Korean contact Mr Kim. He was a Global Director for a Korean Conglomerate that manufactured and exported just about everything from cars, wheat, grain, Military Weaponry, Tanks, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and more importantly textiles. They wanted to break into the UK textiles and Mr Kim had big Dreams of impressing the Koreans back home and he need a pony to carry him to the land of glory.

My friends and family were calling and placing synthetic inflated orders on my then six incoming BT lines to our second floor leafy suburb office in order to make us look like we were a company that could handle the sale and distribution of nearly 200,000 promotional jackets that has to be sold within 6 months of the Indonesian containers landing at Felixstowe. We had just sold 15,000 jackets in the previous year.

There was no way that we could handle such a huge logistical task let alone find the resources to take the product to the UK market. I was kidding myself if i thought i could handle fifty 40 sq ft Hi cube containers.. Have you ever seen the size of the container ships. I was about to move into 24 hour working days, eating off pennies, being warehouse man, sales man, marketeer and gladiator! Oh dear what did i do? I signed on the dotted line and finalised a deal for $2 Million Dollars, the best of all it was totally unsecured. The guy was sitting on a stool that had three legs that also had dried pale blue and white paint dried over it………

I finally did it and i was on well on my way to becoming an Entrepreneur! I was not thinking about economic climate or myself, instead set about making history in the promotional clothing market…..