Please Let It Stop

by Gold, Jacqueline

  I expect my man to look after me rather than the other way around. I don’t want to be put on a pedestal. I want to be loved for who I am as a person, cherished and looked after unconditionally. I want my man to be my equal but most importantly to be a real man. A man wouldn’t run when things went wrong. He would face the issues and deal with them. I have never felt so abandoned and discarded in my life … I don’t want to replace anyone’s mother. I am a woman who wants to feel sexy and confident with the right man, to support him in times of need, but not to make every decision … It’s hard for me to advise you because firstly I am not sure how I feel and also because I just don’t want to play that role any more – it’s draining and unsexy!

  While we were apart I was making a strong effort to get on with my life. I’d been away with Sandie and Vanessa for a girlie weekend in Marbella. I’d also spent a few days in Bordeaux with Carole at Sid Owen’s house. I had originally met Sid through Carole after I split up from Ben. We got on really well. Since then it seems that every time I break up with someone I go and stay at Sid’s house and he has become a good friend. What I like about him is what you see is what you get. What you saw on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here in 2005 is exactly how he is in real life, minus the jungle gear. He is a great host, and an excellent cook who produces wonderful breakfasts and a great Sunday roast. He’s very well adjusted and not at all pretentious, as some actors are. He has a lovely home in Bordeaux and also owns a restaurant. When we’re there it’s very relaxed. We watch TV, go shopping and sit in cafés drinking delicious hot chocolates and munching croissants. On this occasion I’d decided to take him an Ann Summers goody bag containing, among other things, a pair of handcuffs covered in leopard print fake fur. He was beaten to them by security at Gatwick airport, who promptly confiscated them.

  There were other moments of happiness as well. My friend Carole asked me to be godmother to her son, Ben. I was overjoyed and in August 2004 attended his christening. There I met Joanna, whom I would describe as a cross between Glynis Barber and Meg Ryan, and we became immediate friends. She was both womanly and girlie, with her own highly developed sense of style, often favouring vintage clothes. When I met her she was fifty-one years of age, yet had the most amazing, sexy figure that younger women envied. She also had a brilliant, quirky sense of humour. Joanna would invite us all to dinner and nothing would be prepared. Instead we would be bundled into the kitchen, given loads of champagne and told to cook ‘as creatively as possible’. Of course, we would be totally drunk by the time we ate but Joanna pointed out that everything tasted better that way. I called her ‘my lucky star’. We had many sunny afternoons in my garden, drinking rosé and eating cake that she’d baked and brought with her. I also appreciated the fact that Joanna had a different perspective from my other friends. When she met Dan, she immediately understood why I had fallen for him. When things between Dan and me went downhill she even offered to talk to him.

  At about the same time as I met Joanna, Dan started really begging me to come back. He said he couldn’t live without me and he wanted to make a go of it. We would have more IVF and if that didn’t work he was willing to investigate other options, even adoption. It had suddenly occurred to him that not having children was not the end of the world, a view I’d always held and still do. I was not convinced of his sudden positive outlook. I wondered whether these were real feelings or simply a consequence of his inability to cope without me. He’d once admitted in an email that the age gap had bothered him – I still had no idea if he’d ever resolved that. Could I cope with the insecurity of being with him again? Would the pain of missing me while we were apart soon pass, only to be replaced once again by the issues that drove him away the last time? I think that, deep down, I knew it probably wouldn’t work, and that it had stopped working a while ago – but there was a hopeful part of me that wanted to believe in him.

  As we all know, with relationships it’s not over until it’s over, which means that even when there is just the merest sliver of hope it’s tempting to cling to it. I’d actually been doing all right without him. The therapy was going well and I was feeling much stronger. I had a great circle of friends, a full social calendar and a job I was passionate about. My brain said ‘no’ but my heart said ‘yes’. Well, I listened to my heart and Dan came back, full of promises and the mention of marriage. It sounded too good to be true, and it was. But we’d never fixed the things that had undermined our relationship from the start – Dan’s negativity, his need for me to take care of things and of him, our differing views on the part children would play in our lives – so we really didn’t have a secure basis for going forward. It’s a common mistake that lots of people make. Getting back together takes far more effort than getting together at the start, and maybe we didn’t have it in us any more. But we had time, something my friend Joanna didn’t.

  The things that shine brightest often burn out the quickest, and that’s what happened to Joanna. In 2005 she was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. This was a woman who, just before I’d met her, had survived early breast cancer. She’d come through a lot. She’d run a very successful IT company and owned a beautiful house in Sussex. Her boyfriend had not only cheated on her, but had also embezzled £100,000. After that she became depressed, but she had tried to be positive about things. You would expect nothing less of Joanna. She was an example to all of us.

  Joanna was a fighter but her cancer was far too advanced for her to get through it so the emphasis was on extending her quality of life. She handled it all with humour, grace, deep spirituality and her customary sexiness! I remember she had a crush on her oncologist, Bob, and one day when I went to see her in hospital there she was sitting up in bed, hair up like Pebbles from The Flintstones, wearing a short nightie and surgical stockings – she could even make those particular garments look sexy!

  Sadly, or perhaps mercifully, the end was relatively quick. When she was diagnosed in June 2005 I decided to arrange a photo shoot with my close girlfriends. I’d been wanting to do it for a while but when the severity of Joanna’s illness was known I decided to do it as quickly as possible. All the girls were there – Val, Sandie, Carole, my sister Vanessa and Joanna. I had Chris Harding take the photographs and brought in my own make-up artist, Virginia, whom I knew very well. Joanna was very poorly but nevertheless came to the shoot, and we made her feel special. She was sick from the chemotherapy she’d undergone that morning, but once Virginia had transformed her she turned it on for the camera like she always could.

  In November 2005, five months after her diagnosis, Joanna went home to New Zealand to die with her family around her. We sent one of the pictures taken on that day and they put it in her coffin. She meant a lot to us and I think of her often. Once we went to this charity auction where I had my eye on a signed book by Salvador Dali and Joanna helped me bid. There was also a hideous painting of a Buddha that she insisted I had to have, and she made me go for it. Now it’s in my study at home and reminds me of a beautiful friend who is no longer with me.

  It was a period of contrasts. A woman who lived emphatically for the moment, and squeezed everything out of it, had suddenly left us while, not far away, Dan was still trying to work out what mattered in life.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Oxford University requests

  I’d been in therapy for over a year now and in that time had worked through all of the problems associated with my past. I had finished the medication I had been prescribed and my therapy sessions were coming to an end. I was no longer anxious or despairing and felt much more like the old Jacqueline again. With that new-found strength, though, came the fear that my world might capsize again if things went wrong. I asked my doctor if I could ever get this low again. She said that it was highly unlikely. She told me that I was an extraordinarily strong woman who had survived things that would break most people. It had been waiting to happen for well over thirty years – and now it was over.

  While Dan was still waiti
ng for life to happen to him, I was launching myself into it, both socially and professionally. In the past five years or so I’ve had quite a lot of interest from the media – not just with articles being written about me or our business, but I’ve also appeared on a number of television programmes, including Back to the Floor on BBC2, where various bosses return to the status of employee for a week, the premise being that they will learn more about their businesses. It was a huge learning curve for me and, as a result, I have introduced a Back to the Floor ethos into Ann Summers. Our busiest times of the year are Christmas and Valentine’s Day. Every year I ensure that each one of our directors works in an Ann Summers store so that they can really experience what the customer experiences and appreciate the problems that staff might encounter at our most hectic times. As I write this book I am currently involved in filming for two new programmes, Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway for ITV and The Verdict for BBC2, both of which I’m very excited about. I recognise that my involvement in the media can be good for my business; it is also a new challenge for me.

  In addition to television work I write articles on business issues for various publications and speak at conferences and events. I have spoken in front of a diverse range of audiences, everything from a webcast for a small group of people to a speech in front of seven hundred and fifty. In March 2005 I was invited to speak in Shanghai. There was to be an awards night for businesswomen and they wanted an inspirational woman to speak so the organisers kindly asked me. The occasion was very glamorous – I was even loaned some very expensive jewellery to wear. The British girl who was producing the event in Shanghai was stressing me and a fair few others out. The day before I was due to be on stage, she demanded to see the text of my speech. Normally, I would never give details of my speech to anyone in advance, but since we were in a foreign country I thought I may as well show it to her, if only to pacify her. Glancing through it, she spotted a particular story that happened to have the word ‘orgasm’ in it. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you can’t put that story in. It’s too risqué. You’d better take it out.’ ‘Fine,’ I said. When I got up to give my speech I just ignored her, went with my instinct and related the story. Thinking about it now, I’m not sure how the audience understood all the nuances, but they seemed to, and the story, along with the rest of the speech, went down very well.

  Speaking gives me a great sense of satisfaction. It has been a great addition to my career and enabled me to network with people I might not otherwise have been able to. At about the same time I was invited to be on the panel of judges for Retailer of the Year Awards. The awards are sponsored by Retail Week, one of the publications for which I write a column.

  For me each of these activities is an extension of my business and while they might mean putting in extra time, it’s something I really enjoy. At the same time they are a recognition of what I’ve achieved, something that has been many years in coming. I’m talking about the right sort of recognition, since running Ann Summers has over the years resulted in a great deal of spurious, sensational and frankly nonsensical attention. Back in 1993 a member of my staff nominated me for a ‘Women Mean Business’ award being run by Options magazine. I remember very clearly the first interview, sitting there in front of this panel of judges who seemed to be smirking at me throughout and not really taking me seriously. Looking back, I think it was quite inappropriate that I was being judged by the editor of a magazine, a PR person and some marketing director, none of whom had achieved what I’d achieved. It would have made more sense to be judged by other businesspeople. At that time people who wrote about me would often use phrases like the ‘sex industry queen’, which made me sound like I was running a whorehouse in Arizona instead of a multimillion-pound retail business. This sort of attitude was really common and mostly I ignored it. My business was successful, my customers were happy and I was doing very well, thank you. Occasionally, though, it really made me angry, such as when the Express referred to my father and Ralph as the ‘Sultans of Sleaze’.

  Still, there were people who understood what we’d achieved and what we were about. In February 1995 I was thrilled to be named one of the ‘40 under-40’ businesspeople chosen by Business Age magazine. This was a highly prestigious award that in previous years had gone to some real high-flyers, including Richard Branson. The award recognised people whom they thought would still be successful in ten years’ time. And now here I was ten years later with a business going stronger than ever! In fact, in 2005 I received an even greater accolade when I was included in Debrett’s People of Today for my ‘Contribution to British Society’. And who would have thought that in 2007 I would have received my first invitation to the palace to attend a reception hosted by the Queen in recognition for my achievements and contribution to business and industry.

  I think you have to recognise your own milestones. Things that matter to you and have given you the most satisfaction may not always be big and glitzy. One such milestone was the victory over the JobCentres, which meant a great deal as it showed that the law, the media and the public had understood our business. Perhaps nothing surprised or flattered me more than my invitation to speak at the Oxford Union in 2006. The Oxford Union is regarded as the world’s most prestigious debating society. The Union has been established for over a hundred and eighty years and aims to promote discussion on an amazingly broad range of topics, not just within Oxford University but all over the world. The people who have been invited to speak there are very diverse and represent all walks of society. What’s great about it is that even though Oxford is a symbol of the establishment, the Union regularly invites its fair share of non-conformists and highly outspoken people, as well as an impressive quota of presidents and prime ministers. I was going to be following in the footsteps of people such as Winston Churchill, the Dalai Lama, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon and Mother Teresa! The Union has played host to many people in show business, including Clint Eastwood, Jerry Springer, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Barry White, Warren Beatty and even the US porn star, Jenna Jameson. It is a forum for free speech and as a result people will often say things that aren’t heard elsewhere. In 1996 O. J. Simpson made his only public speech in Britain after the ‘not guilty’ verdict in his criminal trial. This is one place that had seen more controversy than the Gold Group would go through in a lifetime!

  When I received their invitation I was stunned. To be asked to speak at one of the world’s most influential universities in such a distinguished forum was extraordinary. I remember telling my sister and father first and then my friends. I was hugely excited but I didn’t actually appreciate the impact it would have on me until after I had made my presentation.

  Upon arrival I was first of all entertained by some of the students at dinner. They were excellent company. Walking into the debating chamber of the Union was both humbling and magical. With its dark wooden floors and benches, its deep red walls and the shafts of light coming through the stained glass windows, I was immediately reminded of Hogwarts and wondered if Harry Potter was about to mate-rialise. The audience was waiting and you could feel this strong sense of anticipation. They were almost all women, with a sprinkling of men, and they’d queued up in the rain since it was held on a first-come, first-served basis. The room could only hold three hundred people, which makes for a very intimate and slightly intimidating environment. There was no microphone but, as I discovered, the auditorium carries your voice. I spoke for about forty minutes. Then it was the audience’s turn. I am accustomed to answering challenging questions but these were in a different league altogether and came from perspectives that I had previously not encountered. The audience was intelligent, inquisitive and hungry for knowledge. Their questions included: ‘Are you a feminist or are you just another retailer exploiting women?’ ‘Are you really satisfying women’s needs or just pandering to men’s sexual desires?’ And one cheeky student asked, ‘Will you sponsor our hockey team?’ To be with them was a truly energising experience. It wasn’t easy – but I don’t want
things to be easy. It’s far more stimulating when people make me think and that’s what they did.

  It had gone well. Afterwards we held an Ann Summers party for some of the young women in the audience in a separate room, which I also attended. It was a fabulous night and I left about midnight to drive back to Kent. The party was a huge success, with sales of £1,400 including seven more party bookings and several orders for the infamous Rampant Rabbit.

  It was and is a huge compliment to be recognised at this level; however, perhaps the ultimate indicator of what I’ve achieved – and what the business has achieved – is the way in which Ann Summers has made a real difference to the lives of many women. We regularly receive letters from women whose lives have been positively changed by being part of our organisation. Much is written today about the responsibility of a business to do more than just make money, but that is a view I have always had and one that is reflected in our working environment, which we have endeavoured to make as female friendly as possible. Of course, the bottom line is important to me but equally so is the knowledge that Ann Summers has enabled many women to take charge of their lives and regain self-esteem. Some of them have had to haul themselves up a long way.

  Zena Gavey is an extraordinary success story. She is one of our star Unit Organisers and what makes her story special is that she is registered blind and works with the aid of her guide dog. Along with her team of party organisers, she consistently manages to achieve top results. This is a woman who had been knocked back by many other companies. As she told us in 2004: