by Sugar, Alan
The first obstacle I had to overcome was telling my father I was leaving my Civil Service job. His mentality was that you didn’t leave your job. You worked for a company and you got grandfathered in’ – for ever. He wasn’t happy that I was flipping jobs so quickly, but I brought him round by explaining that I’d now attained experience in statistics which, if I got this new job, would eventually allow me to become a qualified cost accountant.
I did get the job and the pay was a bit more, about £10 or £11 a week. I was planted in a small office with ten much older men, all of whom were either qualified or trying to qualify as cost accountants. These guys ended up doing me the biggest favour of my life, as I’ll explain shortly.
The function of this department was to produce a weekly report on the output of the factory in Wales for the directors. My job was to get the daily output figures from the blast furnace and put this information into a format which would become part of the directors’ report. Each day, a chap called Alun, who had a strong Welsh accent, used to phone me from the factory and read me the output figures.
The lads in the department warmed to me because I was forever messing around and telling a few jokes here and there. One of the things I did was put on a Welsh accent whenever I spoke to Alun at the plant. One day he called up and said, ‘Hello, is that you, Alan?’
I replied in a Welsh accent, ‘Yes, it is me, Alun – this is also Alan.’
‘Where has that Welsh accent come from?’ he asked.
I explained to him that when in Rome, you do as the Romans. I said it was to show my devotion to the firm, and that having dealt with so many Welsh people within the company, a bit of the accent had rubbed off on me. Anyway, I told him not to let it bother him and to carry on giving me the daily figures.
He was obviously a bit thick. ‘Righto, Alan,’ he said. Are you ready?’
Yes.’
‘Pig iron, 17.4 tons.’
‘Righto, Alun. Pig iron, 17.4 tons.’
‘Sinter, 2.6 tons.’
‘Righto, 2.6 tons, sinter. Thank you, Alun,’ I said. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow.’
‘Hang on, don’t you want to hear about the slag?’
I waited a moment, raised my voice and said, ‘Alun, I’m fed up listening to you moan about your wife.’
As the words came out of my mouth, I knew I was in trouble.
He went bloody mad. ‘How dare you talk about my wife like that? I’ll have you know I’ve been married to Glynis for eight years. She’s a wonderful lady. You have no right to call her that. Admittedly, we have no children at the moment . . .’ and he carried on ranting and raving. ‘I’m going to complain about you, speaking in a Welsh accent and insulting my wife . . .’
‘It’s a joke, it’s a joke . . .’
‘You London spivs, you’re all the bloody same. You don’t know what life is like down here in Wales . . .’
‘Okay, son, okay, don’t worry, speak to you tomorrow, see you.’
My little joke flew around the office. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for word to get back to the powers that be and I was bang in trouble. I was told that the chief accountant had received a complaint and I was to report to his office the next morning.
I prepared a little speech overnight explaining that it was just a joke and that we East End boys, well, we make jokes like this. It wasn’t meant in any nasty way; it’s just what we chirpy chappies do.
I knocked on the boss’s door at nine o’clock and he told me to come in. It was a bit like standing in front of your dad and knowing he’s going to tell you off for doing something naughty, but realising that he’s struggling not to laugh. Such was the demeanour of Mr Jones, the chief accountant, and I suppose I must have picked up on this. The nervous feeling in my stomach subsided and I felt a bit more relaxed.
He said to me, ‘Mr Sugar, I’ve had a complaint from the plant.’
Blow me down, I did it again. In the corner of his room was a large rubber plant. I pointed to it and said, ‘Haven’t you been watering it, sir?’
He was not amused and launched into a tirade. ‘To get on in this firm, you have to stop being a joker. This is a serious business. You’ve upset one of the people down in the plant. You’ve got to understand that these people are different from Londoners. They take things very seriously down there and you’ve insulted the gentleman and his wife.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ I answered. ‘What would you like me to do? All I can do is apologise. I’ll write him a note; I’ll do anything you want me to do.’
‘Well, if you write him a note, we’ll call the matter closed. But I don’t want to hear any more complaints about you.’
The other guys in the office were eager to know what had happened. When I told them about the plant joke, they all put their heads in their hands. ‘You didn’t! You didn’t say that, did you? You’re a bloody nutter!’
Some of these fellows were in their thirties, already married with children, and there was a senior manager, Glen, who was in his forties. They all took a liking to me and when we chatted during the moments of boredom, they would often tell me that I was wasting my life in this job, doing what they’re doing.
In a nice sort of way, they said, ‘Look at us – we’ve got houses and mortgages and children, so we need the job. But you’re young – you’re at the time of your life when you have no responsibilities. You should be getting out there and doing other things. If we had our time over again, we’d be in sales.’
I think the management had concluded that I wasn’t really cut out for the job, but as they liked me, rather than fire me, they kind of diplomatically suggested I look elsewhere. They said I was clearly a born salesman and should find myself a job in sales because this job was not for me. They were right. I could tell that my temperament was not the same as theirs. I was never going to be a bookworm, dealing in boring figures. In hindsight, it was a nice way of getting rid of me.
I noticed an advert in the Evening Standard for a travelling salesman. The firm was called Robuck Electrical, manufacturers of tape recorders and record-players. What with my interest in electronics as a kid, I thought this looked quite promising.
I went for an interview in Holloway Road and met a tall chap by the name of S. J. Robinson. He was the sales manager and, with his military moustache and tough demeanour, he was not the type you’d want to mess with. He explained to me that the owner, Sam Korobuck, wanted him to build a new sales team and that there were positions available for all parts of the country, including London.
I was seventeen years old, so one of the attractions of this job was that it came with a minivan. Well, beggars can’t be choosers. I would need the van because I’d be carting around sample tape recorders and record-players.
I flew through the interview. Robinson was very impressed with me, although he was concerned that I was only seventeen and lacked experience. I think he sussed that I had the instinct for selling. He wrote to me the next day, offering me the job and telling me to turn up in three weeks’ time, when I would meet all the other recruits.
Problem: I’ve got to tell my father that I’m leaving Richard Thomas & Baldwins.
Bigger problem: I’ve got to explain that I’m leaving the job that was going to help me become a professional to become a salesman.
I could predict the flak I’d get. ‘All those years of studying, all those years of going to school, all that investment in wanting to become something like a scientist, then a statistician, then an accountant, and now you’re going to be a bloody salesman? You could have been a salesman two years ago and worked in a shop.’
I was spot on in my assessment of what he would say. However, I pointed out to him that the two jobs I’d had were deadly boring. Also, I reminded him that Mr Harris, my headmaster, had continually told him at school meetings that commerce was in my blood.
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘you should know that I get up to loads of shenanigans with all my schemes. I’ve already got two other jobs: one on
a Saturday, one on a Sunday. And I’m making loads of money. Plus, I’m paying my way at home. So that’s it.’ And that was it.
*
I have to say, my persuasive powers applied exclusively to marketing and selling – I never had the gift of the gab when it came to the girls. This was in stark contrast to my friend Geoff Salt, for whom sweet-talking the girls was his finest attribute.
Steve Pomeroy was the best-looking boy in our group. He was tall and looked like Michael Caine, and the girls would flock around him at the clubs. But he was also a bit like me – not very forward when it came to chatting up the birds. I remember one occasion when my lack of charm lost him an opportunity with some rich bird from north-west London. We were in the Coronet club, near St John’s Wood station, when two rather posh young ladies came up to him. I was by his side and they were chit-chatting about where they’d been on their summer holidays. They mentioned that they’d just come back from Cannes. Little did they know that Steve and I had just come back from Margate.
‘Do you know Cannes?’ one of them said to me.
I took an immediate dislike to this snooty cow and said, ‘No, love, the only cans I know have baked beans in,’ at which point they turned and walked away in disgust.
Steve gave me a bollocking. ‘What are you doing, you schmock?!’
‘Never mind, Steve, you don’t need those people. They’re not for you, son, they’re not for you.’
A few weeks later, Geoff used his charm to persuade an old schoolfriend called Maureen to invite us all to her birthday party at her house in Highgate. The usual suspects were there, and that evening Steve met a beautiful young lady called Sandra. After many twists and turns over several years, she became his wife, but that’s another story.
Sandra worked in a hairdresser’s in Liverpool Street with a bunch of other girls, one of whom was a young lady called Ann Simons. Sandra told Ann that her boyfriend Steve had a mate called Alan who was . . . ‘Yeah, quite a nice bloke. He’s all right.’ And she talked about the possibility of us going out as a foursome.
Unbeknown to me, Sandra arranged for Ann to have a pre-inspection of me at the Whisky A Go Go club in Wardour Street one night when I was there with Steve. We must have mingled – certainly Sandra wouldn’t have ignored Steve, so there must have been some small talk amongst the four of us – but I have no real memory of it.
A couple of days later, Steve told me I was going out in a foursome with this girl Ann whom I’d bumped into at the Whisky the week before. Though I didn’t know it, I’d been inspected and approved. I had no idea what to expect, but we met up at St Anne’s Club off Shaftsbury Avenue and, as you do as a young man, I kind of gave her the once-over and decided pretty quickly she was really nice. We didn’t have too much to say to each other that night – I don’t know who was more shy, her or me. Funnily enough, the foursome wasn’t with Steve and Sandra, but with Malcolm and Maureen, who had become boyfriend and girlfriend since meeting at her birthday party in High-gate. This was the first time I officially met my wife. Amazingly, the destiny of three couples was determined at that birthday party. Had it not been for the party, Malcolm wouldn’t have met Maureen, Steve wouldn’t have met Sandra, and Sandra wouldn’t have put me forward for inspection by Ann. We still jokingly call it ‘that fatal day’ and blame Geoff Salt for this travesty.
Forty-odd years on, we still meet up as a group. And each and every time some funny stories from the past come out. On one occasion not so long ago, Maureen, like a bolt out of the blue, exclaimed, ‘Here, Alan, do you know that Rod Stewart fellow?’
‘No, not really. I might have bumped into him a few times at football, but I’ve never spoken to him. Why?’
‘Well, you tell him, he owes me sixpence.’
‘What are you banging on about, Maureen?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘Rod Stewart used to hang out at my house forty-odd years ago with my brother Steve,’ she said. ‘He was always in and out. My mum used to make him tea sometimes.’
‘Okay, but what’s that got to do with anything?’ said I.
She continued: ‘One night I was at the Marquee Club in Wardour Street and he asked me for sixpence so he could get a bus home.’
‘Right, so?’
‘Well, he still owes it to me!’
‘Shut up, will you? You sound like an old groupie who claims to know someone famous. So what you’re asking is that if I ever bump into Rod Stewart, I should tell him that a certain young lady named Maureen Gavril lent him sixpence forty years ago for his bus fare, and that she wants it back with interest? Okay, I’ll make it a priority . . . If I ever did meet him and said that to him, he’d think I was nuts.’
‘It’s true. I’m not making it up. I swear it’s the truth.’
Malcolm was shrugging his shoulders with a wry smile, as if to say, ‘You’re right, she’s nuts.’
At this point, Tony Kaye jumped into life with his handheld equivalent of an IBM System 400 and calculated that, with interest compounded at say 10 per cent per annum for the past forty years, the grand sum owing would be £18.50.
‘No chance, love,’ I said. ‘Even if it is true, he is Scottish after all.’
*
After our date at St Anne’s Club, Ann and I started going out regularly. Because of who I am today, people often ask her what she saw in me. All I’ve ever heard her reply is, ‘He was different.’ Maybe it’s her polite way of saying that I wasn’t a schmoozer, meaning that other boys would come and pick her up from home with a box of chocolates and a bunch of flowers, whereas I would say, ‘I’ll see you at St Anne’s Club,’ or ‘I’ll meet you at Bethnal Green tube station – you can get a Central Line train there from Gants Hill.’
To be perfectly honest, I don’t know what she did see in me. As a journalist once put it, ‘Sugar seems to have had a charisma bypass.’ A bit harsh perhaps – maybe a charm bypass.
I am what I am. Unfortunately, the niceties weren’t instilled in me by my mother and father. They were very direct and didn’t engage in small talk. I was never taught any social graces, not even simple things like saying, ‘Hello, how are you?’ to people or showing interest in their lives or situations. We never used to exchange birthday cards or Christmas cards or anything like that at home. Consequently, the idea of sending someone flowers, chocolates or a card was alien to me. This was to come back and bite me on the nose later in my relationship with Ann, particularly when it came to her family.
I guess if you’re not trained as a kid to do the decent things in life, you simply don’t think to do them. However, I can assure you that whatever I lack in that direction, my wife makes up for a hundred times over.
I guess this lack of charm has followed me throughout the course of my business life. Whenever I enter a meeting and a bunch of fellows are sitting there talking about yesterday’s cricket, or about Chelsea beating Arsenal, or the weather, or some other topic, I think, ‘What a waste of bloody time.’
I’m straight in – bang! ‘Hello, right we’re here to talk about this, that and the other . . .’
I’ve shocked a few people in my time with my blunt entrances and lack of small talk. I have no patience at all. I know it’s wrong, but I feel like it’s cheating to be talking a load of rubbish, particularly when you’re going into a meeting where everybody knows what has to be resolved and what you’re there for.
*
I was now going for my third job in less than two years since leaving school. I duly turned up for my first sales training session, part of a week-long course at the Holloway head office of Robuck Electrical. S. J. Robinson started by telling everybody about the products and what was so special about their tape recorders – basically that they had three motors, which provided a much faster rewind speed. There were other technical benefits, but the fast rewind was the big USP (unique selling point).
We then moved on to a series of fake presentations, to learn how to present and sell the product to a retailer. We were asked to pitch to o
ur colleagues, all of whom were much older than me. There I was, a seventeen-year-old who had to make his first trade presentation, albeit fake, to Robinson – with all the others looking on too. It reminded me of being back in that party when I was fifteen and having to make up a joke about Surf.
I was very nervous. Suddenly the chirpy chappy had drained out of me. I was useless, absolutely useless. Robinson had a stony look on his face, as if to say, ‘What the hell have I done here?’
‘That’s no good,’ he said. ‘Sugar, you’d better go away and think about that again. You haven’t told me about this feature and that feature. You’re stumbling on your words, you’re looking down at the floor, you’re not looking me in the eye. What’s the matter with you? You’re not the same man who came here for the interview three weeks ago.’
‘Sorry about that, Mr Robinson,’ I said. ‘Give me a few moments, let someone else have a go, and I’ll definitely do better.’
Another four guys did their pitches. Watching them, I picked up a few tips. Later in the day, I pitched again, and this time, I put a smile on his face.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Very good, young man. If you do it like that, you’re going to do well.’
The next Monday was D-Day, so on Friday I picked up my sample tape recorder and record-player and put them in the van. That weekend, it was no longer a case of getting the bus to Bethnal Green to pick up Ann. I proudly rolled up to meet her in my new minivan, with ‘Robuck printed on the side. After exchanging a few niceties, Ann said to me, ‘Why are you talking funny?’
‘What do you mean?’
She said, ‘You’re talking with an accent. You sound like a northerner.’
I’d spent the whole of the previous week with guys from Birmingham and up north, and it made my accent change. This strange phenomenon stuck with me later in life. When in the Far East, I developed a new way of speaking based on the way my Asian suppliers talked to me. I branded it ‘Export English – a very slow way of pronouncing every word clearly and leaving gaps between them, and it was much appreciated. The Japanese would say, ‘Sugar-san speaks the best English.’ If they but knew! I’m sure that would make the elitist journalists chuckle a bit.