I left school at with 5 ‘O’ levels and a bit of a disaster in ‘A’ levels. During the World Cup of 1982, while I was watching Italy v Brazil, my Dad rang me from Wimborne Town centre. He had just spoken with the Branch Manager of Peter Dominic (wine merchants who no longer exist) and told me they needed a van driver. Reluctantly I crow barred myself away from an awesome game of football and went for an interview. Having secured the job I spent the next year winging my way around country lanes in Dorset delivering wine, very pleasant, especially in the summer.
The opportunity to become Deputy Manager at the Charminster Road branch in Bournemouth presented itself and I did that for 2 years. The Manager there ran a wine tasting club, I helped out with this and the pinnacle of that experience was a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1962, which even in 1985 cost aroung £265 a bottle! It was something I’ll never forget. After 2 years, I applied to become Manager of the branch in Carshalton Beeches. When i arrived it was taking around £2,000 a week, 2 years later that was £10,000 a week.
Due to those sales figures I was head hunted for Bottoms Up in Petts Wood, which was the new flagship branch. This store broke all company records – it paid back its initial shop refit within 6 months, was the first off licence/wine merchant in the UK to take in excess of £100,000 in a week in December. The store was also voted the Best off licence in the UK and for that I won a trip for 2 weeks on the Venice Simplon Orient Express.
I got my first computer in 1995 after becoming a Financial Adviser with Commercial Union and decided to read the MS-DOS 3.3 manual from cover to cover. I knew what computers were all about back then but when windows came I lost interest in them to that level. I was in Financial Services for 18 years and solved a lot of problems for people but in 2008 I had had enough.
So now I have been selling fish in what is a low stress, chilled out environment for 10 years. Unfortunately the hours involved are starting to annoy me, so its time to put the computer (not the one from 1995!) to good use. I have joined John Thornhill’s Partnership to Success so I can get back to some more sensible hours like when most of the rest of the UK is awake!
So now is the time to learn how the internet operates properly, to make it work for me as well as it providing entertainment and fun.