No Secretary or Help
 
After Jacey cinemas, although I did my best, it was difficult to maintain the good quality lifestyle that we had become accustomed to.  The recession had caused many, well established small businesses, to go bankrupt and no matter what I did, I never earned enough on a regular basis, to be able to consider employing anyone. 

I had to deal with; answering the phone, write and post every letter, or parcel, make payments, send invoices, do the bookkeeping, VAT returns, and follow up any unpaid invoices. 

Having been used to having a secretary and being able to delegate, I had to suddenly manage everything on my own. 

All this admin. in addition to doing the work that I was paid to do. 

Too many times I had to put in long hours, but at least I was my own boss.  More importantly, because of so many different interests, we got to know some very interesting people (most were very successful in what they did) and we have been very lucky to count some of them as good friends.  


Andrew Goldsmith

Andrew Goldsmith was one of our London circles of friends, and his family business was the most famous eyewear manufacturer 'Oliver Goldsmith Eyewear', every top fashion magazine featured their models wearing his glasses.  They also made unique glasses for lots of well know personalities. 

I created an image for them that they used (they wanted an unusual eye catching photograph) and as a thank you, in addition to paying me, Andrew made me special unique sunglasses.  They were aluminium with holes in the sides and these related so well to our Jensen CV8 steering wheel.  I loved them and kept them for many years.  I was so upset later when our car was stolen, because after a few days we luckily got our car back, but my sunglasses were missing and never found, so they had gone for ever!  Oliver-Goldsmith-Eyewear+R


Dr Willard Wigan MBE

The difficulty soon became apparent, as his sculptures were so minute (a strong magnifying glass was needed to see them!) one of them was inside the eye of a small needle!  Using a micro lens meant getting very close, but then it blocked the lighting.  I found a way by using a small mirror to reflect more light from the side of the lens.  I was amazed to learn that he carved everything by hand without even using a magnifier. 

Unfortunately, he was unknown then and could not afford to pay me, but I liked him and so did my best and only charged him a minimum amount.  About a week later, he came to see me and gave me a wooden toothpick, having met Trudy he had carved about 1cm of it as a nude sculpture of Trudy. 

Trudy had not posed for him in the nude, but it was a very fine carving and the proportions looked right too.  This he explained was a gift to thank me and we have it on display at our home.   Since those days he had lots of exhibitions, won awards and is now well known.  wikipedia.org/Willard_Wigan


Malcolm Lewin

One day I received a call from Malcolm asking if he could come and talk to me about photography, we knew of each other, as he was a teacher at West House School where our son Jason had been. 
 

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