Day 19 - This is Me (Part 4)

It’s the end of ’98. We’re living in Wallington, Surrey. Life is pretty settled but also pretty boring. I have just returned from SA having attended a mates (sadly that relationship is no more) wedding as his best man. My wife tells me she’s pregnant for the first time (we later are told by the gynae that the date of conception fell while I was away in SA – it would explain the theory that this sprog is from a different planet and knowing my wife, it would give credence to the theory of immaculate conception!), an exciting time in our life! My sister has also arrived and is living with us for a time. The job is going quite well but like I said, boring and ready for a new challenge. It was about at this stage that I realized the importance of corporate politics in your pension and, unfortunately, that corporate politics was not my strength. I watched from the side lines as passionate, knowledgeable and seasoned operators were worked out of the business by those with a personal agenda. I watched as decisions were made by these soulless people for immediate gain but with no longevity. A trade off between short term profit and long term sustainability. Ego over humility. The next grade up in the company car scale at the expense of the tens of thousands of more junior employees. The company as I knew it then no longer exists. It’s only been 11 years.

1999 dawns a new year. The call that I wanted comes through and I am offered a position with a branded chain of pubs working for C.M. I had worked for her before and knew her to be absolutely focused and committed. Goose Pubs was our company’s version of our great rival Wetherspoons. Although our chain was probably the smallest brand in our company, we drove it with such dedication that before long the honchos at the top were sitting up and taking notice. Returns were beyond impressive which meant that doors (in terms of investment, choice of sites etc) started to open for us. Work hours were extreme, politics again sucked!

While all this was going on we sold our apartment in Bournemouth and wanted to buy a house. It needed to be around west London as my wife worked just west of central London, it needed to be near a train station, it needed to be in the ‘country’ and it needed to have reasonably close access to the motorway network. So, we took a road map, on the page that showed London to Slough and stabbed a finger at an area, “right, let’s go and have a look there!” And we found Higher Denham which is a few miles from Uxbridge. It filled all of the above criteria. So we drove the three streets of Higher Denham, Lower Road, Middle Road and…wait for it…Upper Road and in Middle Road we found what we were looking for. A stand alone house, with a garden. With a For Sale sign outside. So we knocked at the door. And an 80 something ex South African woman opened it! And, this is the creepy, the world is a small place, bit…she still had family living in South Africa, in Amanzimtoti actually….living next door to my parents!! I wonder what the betting odds would have been?

We bought the house. It was rotten. So for three weeks we worked like dogs and renovated this house, by ourselves, from top to bottom, and then needing a break I went back to work!

Our daughter was born late in 1999. Snow fell that winter and work was going well. I had recently been promoted and was traveling up and down the country more than ever before. Our travels to other countries had just about stopped. The Land Rover stood idle in the garage. It seemed that life was passing us by, and then in about February of 2000 I stumbled across an ad for a Land Rover rally to Bosnia. Their war had only ended the year before so here was opportunity to both drive the hell out of Europe and to witness the aftermath of the biggest conflict in Europe since the Second World War. I paid the entrance fee. Game was on. My parents came over and the old man and I packed our stuff and headed for Canterbury where we met up with the rest of the rally participants. Day One: 1000km’s to Innesbruck. In a Defender. Not going very fast. At all!

This trip over 10 days took us through France, Germany, some activities in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia to Bosnia via a British Tank Regiment base (where we were allowed to crawl all over the Challenger II tank before braaiing with them) Having been at war some 10 years + before this it was a poignant reminder of the pointlessness of it all. Everywhere wore the scars of this bitter battle and remember this was a war divided on religious grounds so the slaughter of both sides had been wholesale and brutal. The almost deserted city of Sarajevo, torn apart by shell after shell welcomed our military led convoy of Land Rovers. The British Ambassador’s back yard was our campsite for a couple of nights, guarded on one side by a mine field and on the other by our fervent hope that the war was actually over. Now, when you sleep next to a minefield you really don’t want to disturb the fragile piece….but isn’t alcohol a marvelous thing? Bottle after empty bottle sailed across the fence. Not one bang the whole night. Boring! But we did hear music and went exploring the streets of Sarajevo on foot…but that’s another story!

The following day we, the Land Rover people were the guests of honour at a festival in Sarajevo. Here we were presented with medals (I still don’t know why) by Prince Andrew and one more night in the city before the old man and I left the group and headed for Calais, about 2500 km away.

It’s now the end of June 2000. We have returned to England, my parents have left, my mentor and boss C.M has unrepentantly resigned from the company and I’ve just about had enough and will soon be making a life changing decision….

Until tomorrow…