who are we?

Frank - part one - early days

My story is considerably different to Lisa's. Born in 1944, I was raised in Hounslow, near to London Heathrow airport. It was a conventional upbringing. Dad had a one-man business as an electrical contractor. Mum was a home-maker. I have one brother, Alan, fifteen year older than me who went into journalism and photography.

Because I have lived such a varied life, and could write a book on any one aspect, I will make this recount more of a synopsis, expanding on the more significant subjects that influenced my career and ongoing life.
On leaving school with a fistful of 'O' and 'A' levels I didn't have any particular ambitions for a career, except I wanted to drive. After a number jobs working in shops and garages I moved into van driving and then on to lorries, gaining my HGV 1 licence on exemption. Being out on the road, more or less your own boss, satisfied me. I enjoyed a good social life, especially going to dance clubs, (discotheques as such did not exist in those days), and I had no shortage of girlfriends, mainly because I was more interested in dancing than drinking, so by halfway during the night, had already sorted out who I fancied taking home.

Or gettin' down lovers lane wiv.

That too.

The old "if you ain't 'ere after wot I is 'ere after, you'll be 'ere after I is gone" routine.

Not quite, but somewhat apt.
I had a love for music, and would arrive early at venues to help the groups in with their equipment, thus getting me in free. A good ploy. I met many of the now well known bands of the sixties this way.



One club I went to with regularity was the Kingston Jazz Cellar, which was a bit of a misnomer as they never played jazz and it was upstairs. However, between band sets a barman would play records. One night, because I was a bit more than just a customer, the boss asked me to play the interval music, as he was short of staff. This became a regular thing, and sometimes if the band were a bit naff, the audience would have preferred me to continue.

One night a girl came up and asked if I did parties. Obvious I said no, not having any equipment, but it set me thinking, and being as in those early days, there was no commercial disco equipment available to purchase, I set about cobbling a system together. It was very 'Heath Robinson-ish', but worked, and having already built up a fair collection of records, I became a disc jockey, way before the term had the same recognition as it does today.
My Dad died in 1965. My brother had long since married and moved away, so the following year Mum decided to sell the house, being as there was only the two of us living in a quite a big place, and she moved to a maisonette in Dunstable, close to where Alan was living.

I then had to make the choice. Either to get a flat on my own, but having had Mum taking care of me for 22 years, the prospect of fending for myself did not appeal. The alternative was to propose to the girl I happened to be dating at the time, a busty blue-eyed blonde called Anne. I chose the latter. Wrong choice, and the first major mistake in my life. There have been more, which I will come to.

I bought a house in The Greenway in Hounslow, before we actually got married. I would have liked to have bought the family home, but could not afford the price. On today's market, it would easily make a £million.

I was long-distance artic-lorry driving at this time. Life wasn't bad, nice home, decent income and a baby on the way. Then, by chance, I met two Scotsmen who had just opened a shipping and airfreight office, a UK subsidiary of an American company, Circle Forwarders Inc, in Detroit. They primarily acted as freight agents for the Chrysler Corporation, and as their business grew, needed constant road freight services, so I packed in working for someone else, and started my own transport business.

This rapidly progressed to the point of having two vans, an estate car, and a ten-tonner on contract hire to them, plus three other trucks contract hired to other firms. Life was getting good. Hard work at times, but rewarding. I was making plenty of money, and had a good lifestyle. The downside was the wife became an idle slattern. It came to a head when I returned from a run to Glasgow. Away 36 hours, I got home, tired and hungry and on asking if there was something eat, the reply was, "Yeah, it's over the effing fish shop." Enough is enough, as they say.

We separated. Things started going a bit pear-shaped, so Circle Forwarders bought me out, and I went to work for them as Import Manager. Anne would not divorce me, so, to get out from under, I had to admit to adultery with an unnamed person, and take the blame. All false of course, but that was how it had to be done in those days.

The next thing was the American boss contravened US import regulations and the company was closed down. The UK end folded also, and I was out of a job. I had sell the house to pay off the 'ex' anyway, and moved in with a mate, Phil Browne. It was 1971. I bought a new Cortina estate and started mini-cabbing.
Life was getting back together again, and whilst on control one day I took a call from a woman needing a cab to collect her son from play school. The next time she called, we started chatting. Over the next couple of weeks she called quite regularly, not always for a cab. It turned out her son was almost the same age as my boy, Daren, so when I suggested I take my lad to play with hers, she agreed, and that was the start of marriage number two. Her name was also Ann, without the 'e'.

I moved into her house in Stanwell, just south of Heathrow. She still had a husband living in Hong Kong, but ultimately they divorced, and we married. This relationship lasted eight years, during which time I started the phase by taking an export Duty Officer's position with a airfreight consolidator named Air Express International, based in Staines, but when they discovered I had considerable experience on the transport side, I became Transport and Warehouse Manager, Southern Region, elevating to UK a while later.

It was during this time I started writing for various freighting magazines. I became a Member of the British Institute of Management, and as my journalistic name became more well known, was invited to become a Fellow of the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management.

On the home front we had got into breeding and showing Lhasa Apso dogs and Persian cats.

One day at work a call was put through to me from someone who wanted to send a dog abroad. AEI themselves did not handle livestock, so, because the telephonist knew of my involvement with animals, I took the call. I helped the woman as best I could, but it set me thinking of the possibilities. The upshot was I formed a company - Animal Air Express, an unofficial subsidiary of AEI. They already had a number of sub-agents who used their consolidation services, so the precedent was already in place.
Ann was ten year older than me, and a very capable woman, With her considerable help, the new venture quickly took off. We started manufacturing travelling kennels, having taken on a facility for the purpose in Sunbury. I designed a container that was easy to make on a production line basis, initially for our own use, but soon we were supplying airlines, shipping agents and animal breeders and exporters.

Later, Travelmaster Animal Boxes became the second largest supplier in the U.K., and staff were needed to keep up with the demand. We also became a MAFF (Min. of Ag. & Fish.) licensed quarantine carrier with two vans adapted for the purpose, plus a lorry for delivery of boxes, and transportation of larger animals. Two full-time drivers were employed.

My position with AEI was managerial decision making, so the other activities did not conflict.
We were doing very well. At home we employed Margaret as a full-time housekeeper, plus a kennel maid, Pauline. I will get to her in due course. Sometimes we had to board pets before sending them somewhere, and of course, were still breeding and showing our own cats and dogs, which required a lot of grooming.

Then came a turning point. A directive came from AEI's US head office that any member of management could not have personal business interests of a similar nature. You had to be a 100% company man. Typical Yanks. It affected not only me, but a couple of other staff members. So, with a large degree of regret on both sides, we parted company.

However, it meant I had more time to develop our own enterprises. We rented a former butcher's shop in Ashford and opened it as a pet food shop, taking on more staff. Wholesaling pet food came next, then a weekly food delivery round. Another driver required. Limited company registration was a necessity, so the parent name was formed - VIP Livestock Services Ltd. To cope with all the paperwork, an accountant was engaged, who was also the Company Secretary.

Having more than adequate (and good) staff, we coped quite easily. I was still doing DJing, and Ann would accompany me on gigs. I was also doing a weekly Friday night local radio rock show.

Ann became pregnant, the baby was born, a gorgeous child we named Robert. Ann met an unmarried Egyptian girl, Jasmine, in the hospital who was needing a home with her new offspring, so offered accommodation with us in exchange for looking after Robert. It was a perfect arrangement.

When Robert was ten weeks old, Ann and I went to Mothercare on a Saturday to buy a cot. On returning home, Jasmine was distraught. Our darling boy had suffered a cot death. I cannot describe the feelings when that happens. Even now, many years later, recalling it and writing these words, there are tears in my eyes. Ann went to pieces, and when it came to the day of the funeral, she could not even attend.
Anyway, life had to carry on. Jasmine found another place to live and we got back to business.
My Mother, by then in her seventies was having difficulties coping on her own, so I said she should come and live with us, which she did. Her physical health was still OK, but she was developing senility. We had our housekeeper, and Pauline had previously been a nurse, so Mum was well looked after.

We then took a second shop in Staines. It reached a point of employing 27 full-times staff, and I was approaching millionaire status.
Now, if you remember the film Saturday Night Fever that was released in late '77, this created the birth of disco as we understand the word now. Equipment companies started manufacturing double-deck turntable units and brought out interesting lighting effects. Guys, (and some girls) bought kit, and overnight became DJs.

I, on the other hand was well established. The weekly free papers proliferated with adverts - Music and Lights for All Occasions. Newcomers to the business pitched their price about £45 a night. I could not compete as I was by then charging more than double this, so resorted to only advertising in Yellow Pages. A most successful medium for me.

In 1979 the Disc Jockey Federation was formed, bringing all the Associations throughout the UK under one governing body. Naturally I was on the committee of that also. Each Association contributed a subscription in accordance with their membership number, and the TVDJA was the biggest. Around 1981 the Federation was suffering so much 'north/south divide' bickering at committee level, I decided TVDJA was getting no value for money and would do better on its own.

Anecdote. A report on this decision in Disco International magazine headlined with Frank pulls Thames Valley out of DJF. Is this the ship leaving the sinking rat? I have always liked that line.
We opened up membership to allow anybody in Europe to join, and forward we marched.
Back to the business and home life. In the late seventies a recession started to bite. When this happens, people stop spending money on luxuries. Pets come into this category and whilst people will continue buying food, they stop buying the high profit things like new collars and leads or dog bowls. Also, if a family were moving abroad, they would find somebody to take their pet, instead of paying the high cost of taking Fido or Tiddles with them.

This repercussed throughout my businesses, and seeing the writing on the wall, I hived off the individual elements to the staff who wanted them. Drivers bought their vehicles and started on their own. The guy who ran the kennel making bought that. The Apso dogs went to another breeder. Unfortunately I had suffered a wave of feline enteritis which wiped out many of my beloved Persians. The livestock freight customers were referred to another agent. Horns were pulled in and belts tightened. Life was on a serious down-turn, but worse was yet to be revealed.

Ann did not like the drop in lifestyle and unbeknown to me, had colluded with the accountant to milk the bank account. I was so wrapped up with trying to sort business affairs, and so involved with building TVDJA I was blinkered to what was going on under my nose.

By the time we got down to just the Ashford shop the true picture of things became evident. It was time to sort my life out once again. I moved into the flat that went with the shop and installed my mother, running the shop along with my long-term friend, Phil Browne. Things got back together again.
Ann and I divorced, but because she had ruined me financially and I owed thousands in tax and VAT, I was recommended to declare bankruptcy. The shop was closed, but I was able to stay in the flat, as it was not actually part of the shop itself. Just an separate arrangement with landlord of the whole block.
Anecdote. I received a call from Ann one day to say that Bradley had engineered the whole thing, taken all the money and done a bunk. Was there any chance we could get back together again? The gall of the woman, fat chance of that happening, although I admit I did see her from time to time, if you get my drift.
I gets it.
A while later I met up with Pauline, and that evening went round to her house with a Chinese takeaway. We had always had an underlying attraction for each other, and now I was free of Ann, and Pauline's fella had also disappeared off the scene, well, more inevitability. A quickie licence was applied for, and we got married the following Wednesday.

I moved out of the flat, and into her place, along with Mum, who was by now getting difficult to cope with, but Pauline took on the responsibility without a hint of complaint. That was the sort of person she was.

I loved her deeply. She accepted the unconventional life I led, never questioning whatever time I came home, and always there with a welcoming smile. She had a tough time coping with my mother, and, raising her two young kids.

Mum's condition worsened. She had no idea who we were, and to add to that, became double incontinent. We could not get any help from social services as senility is not (or wasn't) regarded as a clinical disease, and because of her incontinence, psychiatric hospitals or nursing homes didn't want to know either. The best we managed was hospital laundry service and a district nurse twice a week to bath her, but being as every day started with cleaning her up and changing her nappy, that was not much help.

I would make the comment at this point, it is distressing beyond words can describe to watch someone degenerate into this condition, particularly someone you have loved and revered all your life. Even more so being a mother and son.
Anecdote. To give us a brief respite, the psychiatric ward of the local hospital agreed to take her in for a couple of weeks. We went to visit, although she had no idea of who we were. But through her foggy perspective of reality she said to me, "What am I doing here?" Somehow she knew she did not belong amongst seriously mentally disturbed people.
Soon after we took her back home she, mercifully, died.
Pauline was not a strong woman physically. She was quite asthmatic. The strain of taking care of Mum, as well as her two kids manifested itself into her becoming very seriously ill, and she went into hospital for a heart and lung transplant.

I received a call from the hospital that she had taken a turn for the worse so I hurried straight there. She was suffering drug rejection and it was obvious she didn't have much longer to live. I sat with her. I could see she was in much pain but was unable to do anything except try to keep her spirits up. She then said "Hold me My Love." I did, and she whispered "I will always love you," and there, in my loving arms, died.

I can't write any more of this, I can barely see the keyboard through my tears. I will continue tomorrow.