Neil and I went to Nottingham on Wednesday. We were checking
out food processors as I am really enjoying cooking and baking
again, and Neil is really enjoying trying out all the stuff
I'm making. "Surely not?" I hear you cry!
Hundreds of years ago, Neil was a student in Nottingham -
in fact he lived there for about 9 years before I rescued him
from his grotty flat (why do men live like that?) and brought
him home to sunny Chesterfield.
As we drove up the Mansfield Road on our way home, we noticed
that so many shop fronts were boarded up. Neil began to tell
me all about the myriad of small, privately-owned shops that
had once made the area such a pleasure to shop in - and now
they've all gone.
It seems a sad indictment of our current world. Shops going
out of business means people lose their jobs. Then they
spend their nights worrying about how they're going to pay
the mortgage, feed the family, buy new shoes for their growing
kids, etc. And the predictions are that this is going to get
worse.
I was going to write that I can't imagine what this must feel
like but it's clear that my memory is rather selective these
days.
Of course I know what that's like
I've been there. I've been
an employee, working in jobs I've hated with a vengeance, wishing
my life away longing for the weekend, frightened to death that
in the next round of redundancies it would be me!
To get out of this 'prison' where other people controlled
what time I went to work, how much I could earn, where I could
go on holiday, what kind of house I could live in, etc. I went
freelance.
But even this meant I was still dependent on there being a
job for me.
So I decided I needed a back-up plan, just in case the job
market all went pear shaped.
And it did - and on several occasions during my freelancing
years.
Yes, I've wondered where the mortgage money was going
to come from - in fact, in the past I even had to borrow
from friends to make the payments. Horrid, awful,
gross, vile, and I never wanted that to happen again.
Having Plan B, having an alternative way to make money on
the backburner saved my life - in more ways than one.
It got me out of working for other people (which I'm not very
good at anyway), and gave me total independence.
I am so glad and grateful that I invested my money and my
time to learn colour analysis, ladies' style, and all the
other stuff back in the early 1980s.
My skills and marketing knowledge meant that I could always
turn to colour and style to save the day when there were no
jobs.
And finally, when I realised the potential of what I knew
and could do for people (and love doing, by the way), I left
the J.O.B.* for good.
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My first mentor, Phil, always describes a job
as Just Over Broke! Ain't that the truth?
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I've run my own
business full time since 2000 and for the last 12 years I've
not been at the mercy of anyone else's business decisions
as to whether I can pay my bills or not.
But I am so grateful that I know exactly how to make my next
pound, and the next one, and the next one.
Gosh, that was all very deep wasn't it?
If I wasn't out for
tea and buns this afternoon at a beautiful Derbyshire pub,
I would be asking Neil to pour me an extremely large gin and
tonic this very moment!
I'm truly sorry that
these shops are disappearing from our communities; in fact,
for how much longer will we have any form of community where
we live?
Neil and I make a point of using
our local bread and cake shop, the Post Office and corner grocery
shop, and a visit to our local butcher is a complete adventure
that takes at least half an hour as you have to listen to Richard's
stories and banter that I would pay more for every
time! His meat is utterly
brilliant, by the way.
So, as they say, use it or lose it
If we don't all use our local shops, they'll disappear forever.
A bit like these fabulous specials actually...
