By Christmas 1977 my sister Joanne still had a job, but it was winding down and she knew it. She was already working evenings and weekends at what she considered to be her ‘real’ job, and she desperately wanted to be self-employed, but she needed just that bit of extra money to make it happen.
I’d been in the United States for three years by then, but I was at home that Christmas and over the course of a couple of days (and nights!) Joanne and I talked ourselves into trying to make some Christmas money the hard way.
We were too late for craft fairs and any other kind of fair that might have done the trick, but as one of my many, many, part-time jobs before I left England I’d been a door to door salesperson - encyclopaedias, double-glazing, and burglar alarms. In fact I was the person you never want to see on your doorstep.
The only real advantages to that particular job were that I didn’t have to watch the same movie so often that I could recite the dialogue (and if you want to listen to my rendering of the ‘The Blue Max’, do give me a call) or take off all my clothes and stand in a freezing room in front of a one-bar electric fire so that people could draw a naked me touching my toes, but I thought the experience would pay off sometime – and it did. After all, if you can sell double-glazing, burglar alarms and encyclopaedias you should be able to sell things that somebody actually wants. So we bought a load of the stuff that people do tend to want - and often forget all about until it’s too late - and set out on Christmas Eve to work the streets and tower blocks of Birmingham.
We began at seven o’clock that evening and worked until after two on Christmas morning. It was a whole-family effort. Joanne and I walked for miles in the cold, saw the inside of an awful lot of lifts, got a glimpse of an awful lot of parties, and sold an awful lot of stuff, and Dad sat in his old green Austin 7 guarding the stock and reading Isaac Asimov by torchlight. I think he thought we were potty at the time – and it’s to his credit that whatever we wanted to do, he would go along with it – but as it turned out, we weren’t so potty after all.
It’s amazing how many people are still up and prepared to buy tights, knickers, see-through baby-doll panamas, wrapping paper, rolls of Sellotape, boxes of chocolate and packaged nuts in the middle of the night.
A few months later, Joanne was made redundant, rented office space in the centre of Birmingham and became very successfully self-employed. It took a lot of courage -the economy was very bad then, too, and in fact while Joanne was looking for office space she was doing the rounds of the agencies as well - but she did it, and never regretted it.
I’d been in the United States for three years by then, but I was at home that Christmas and over the course of a couple of days (and nights!) Joanne and I talked ourselves into trying to make some Christmas money the hard way.
We were too late for craft fairs and any other kind of fair that might have done the trick, but as one of my many, many, part-time jobs before I left England I’d been a door to door salesperson - encyclopaedias, double-glazing, and burglar alarms. In fact I was the person you never want to see on your doorstep.
The only real advantages to that particular job were that I didn’t have to watch the same movie so often that I could recite the dialogue (and if you want to listen to my rendering of the ‘The Blue Max’, do give me a call) or take off all my clothes and stand in a freezing room in front of a one-bar electric fire so that people could draw a naked me touching my toes, but I thought the experience would pay off sometime – and it did. After all, if you can sell double-glazing, burglar alarms and encyclopaedias you should be able to sell things that somebody actually wants. So we bought a load of the stuff that people do tend to want - and often forget all about until it’s too late - and set out on Christmas Eve to work the streets and tower blocks of Birmingham.
We began at seven o’clock that evening and worked until after two on Christmas morning. It was a whole-family effort. Joanne and I walked for miles in the cold, saw the inside of an awful lot of lifts, got a glimpse of an awful lot of parties, and sold an awful lot of stuff, and Dad sat in his old green Austin 7 guarding the stock and reading Isaac Asimov by torchlight. I think he thought we were potty at the time – and it’s to his credit that whatever we wanted to do, he would go along with it – but as it turned out, we weren’t so potty after all.
It’s amazing how many people are still up and prepared to buy tights, knickers, see-through baby-doll panamas, wrapping paper, rolls of Sellotape, boxes of chocolate and packaged nuts in the middle of the night.
A few months later, Joanne was made redundant, rented office space in the centre of Birmingham and became very successfully self-employed. It took a lot of courage -the economy was very bad then, too, and in fact while Joanne was looking for office space she was doing the rounds of the agencies as well - but she did it, and never regretted it.
Never give up on your dream. Try to make it a reality instead.
