by Sugar, Alan
The whole area around the City of London, from Middlesex Street to City Road, had importers of ‘fancy goods’. Things like transistor radios and high-intensity lamps fell into this category. However, most of the importers were effectively selling the same stuff, just branded differently. Some importers, such as East West – again run by an Asian family, the Shahwanis – sold rather more up-market technical goods. Fronting for them was a gaunt-looking gentleman called Peter Jones, their sales manager.
Around this time, I became aware that all these importers had brand names. Gulu had Binatone (Bina being the name of his sister); others I bought from had names like Vantone and Fantavox. It was a prestige thing – it gave you a kind of credibility with the retailers. If nothing else, it was a statement that you must definitely be the importer.
Most of the time, traders like me wanted to make sure we weren’t buying off a middleman. You knew you were buying from a middleman if the diamond-shaped panel had been cut out of the shipping carton. Every importer had its name printed in that panel, so that the dockers could recognise the batches of cargo. If you saw ‘J PARKER’ printed in the diamond, then you knew the stuff had come from Gulu. So if you didn’t want the next guy to know where the goods had come from, you cut out the diamond.
I decided that I would use my own brand name on some products, even though I bought them from an importer. I came up with the name Amstrad’, from A M S Trading. My first Amstrad-branded product was 1,000 gas cigarette lighters, bought from an importer by the name of Ezra Elias, who was just round the corner from Gulu’s gaff. His brand was Vantone. And from East West I ordered 1,000 intercom sets, again branded Amstrad.
The goods took six weeks to arrive. When they came, I was so pleased I proudly showed them around. Most people didn’t give a toss and said, ‘Yeah, that’s the same as the Vantone or the East West product,’ or ‘Who cares – what’s the price?’ But the smaller punters, outside London, maybe were impressed.
*
Meanwhile, Johnnie hadn’t given up. He was still doing his best to try to get rid of me. One Sunday, I got a phone call from Ann. Alan,’ she said, ‘you’ve got to get round here quick.’
It turned out that Johnnie had arranged for a boy to come to their house to meet her. This boy was recommended by Auntie Hettie, a real sergeant major. He was a professional, could recite from the Torah from scratch, came from a lovely family and spoke with a rather posh accent – the absolute epitome of Johnnie’s target son-in-law. Johnnie had only gone and set this up without Ann’s knowledge! And she was supposed to sit there, all prim and proper, with this fellow.
Ann was quite smart. She immediately phoned her friend Susan Frunt and asked her to come round at the same time and she hauled me in too. It was a most ridiculous situation. The poor fellow turned up on this arranged date to find Susan Frunt, myself and Ann. Ann’s idea was maybe this geeky SuperJew would be right up Susan’s alley. And I would be there with Ann, so the message being sent to this fellow was ‘Hello? This is my boyfriend!’
It’s unbelievable to think of the lengths Johnnie went to. He must have been fuming. I cannot for the life of me understand, knowing Ann’s character over all the years we’ve been married, where she found the strength to overcome this pressure. Bearing in mind that she was not the type of person to do something out of sheer belligerence – just to upset or offend her parents – she really must have felt I was worth the hassle.
Johnnie must have got the hint eventually because a few months later, when Johnnie and Rita had disappeared into the kitchen, Izzy whispered to me, ‘Here, Alan, why don’t you introduce Ann to your parents? Why don’t you get engaged?’
‘What?’ I said.
‘Yeah, introduce Ann to your parents. And why don’t you get engaged? You know, do something about it? Are you going to get engaged?’
This was in my mind, but I guess I didn’t have the courage to bring it up.
Later, I told Ann what Izzy had said. She was a little embarrassed and just laughed, but I pushed her further on it and asked, ‘Where is all this coming from?’
She told me that Izzy had been in the room when Johnnie and Rita were having a conversation about me. They’d mentioned how unusual it was that I hadn’t yet introduced Ann to my parents and wondered whether this relationship was really serious.
Ann’s family was right. It suddenly dawned on me that in all the time I’d known Ann, she hadn’t met my mum and dad. I then realised that a lot of my friends also hadn’t met my mum and dad. In fact, most of them hadn’t even been to my flat. My honest belief is this: my flat was in a completely different league to the houses of Steve, Tony and, to a certain extent, Geoff. I guess I was embarrassed. How ridiculous.
It’s quite sad, when you think about it, to be ashamed of your family home, although I certainly wasn’t ashamed of my parents. Anyway, this was a wrong I had to put right immediately. All at once, I realised my selfishness; my complete lack of thought.
I hauled Ann up there as soon as I possibly could. Of course, she was well received by Mum and Dad, as well as by Daphne and Harold, who happened to be there that day. Daphne said to me afterwards, ‘Ooh, Alan, I didn’t realise she was such a tall girl, your girlfriend. Funny, I had visions of my baby brother having a little girlfriend.’ I never quite understood what she meant by that.
A few days later, all the boys came up to my flat. I must have been as thick as a plank because Steve had been dropping hints for the past couple of years. When I eventually said, ‘Come up,’ he couldn’t stop himself from saying, At last!’
Of course there was no problem when they came into the flat. They’re nice blokes, no airs and graces. They just sat themselves down and started chatting with my mum and dad. No trouble at all. What an idiot I’d been. And, on reflection, how selfish I must have seemed, going to their homes and accepting their hospitality for years without reciprocating. It wasn’t that I was stingy, but I was embarrassed. Quite unjustifiably so.
Ann and I went out to the West End one night and on the way home we started to chat about past events and how funny Izzy was with his interventions. And then, as you do, I went a bit quiet.
Finally, I popped the question. It wasn’t really a blunt ‘Will you marry me?’ It was more of a discussion between us along the lines of ‘I suppose we should get married then.’ Both of us were completely committed to each other and I guess getting married and spending the rest of our lives together was something we both felt was inevitable.
We were both quite shy at the time and there was a kind of embarrassment and difficulty between us in getting it out in the open. There was certainly no going down on one knee, with a rose, in a restaurant. In fact we were going over the Stratford flyover in the minivan at the time – can you imagine? Now you must really be asking what the hell she saw in me.
I don’t recall Ann’s response being one of great enthusiasm. I think she said, ‘Well, I suppose so.’ Maybe my character was already starting to rub off on her!
The next step was to discuss this with Ann’s parents. I would have to build up to that. One day during the following week, when Ann’s parents were in the kitchen, I said to Izzy, ‘We’re thinking of getting engaged.’
‘Well, tell him then,’ he said, nodding his head in Johnnie’s direction. There was mutual respect between Izzy and Johnnie, but you wouldn’t think so if you saw them together. Izzy was Rita’s father and she, being the kind person she was, insisted that he come and live with them and the two children. To give credit to Johnnie, he was a gentleman in accepting this situation – not many people would. It did lead to friction sometimes, though. If you can imagine a scene from The Royle Family – with Jim constantly resenting his mother-in-law – well, it was a bit like that. Nowhere near as brutal, of course, but there was definitely some banter going on. Sometimes they wouldn’t speak to each other for a while; other times they seemed okay. It was hard to keep up with them.
Looking back, Izzy loved Johnnie and thought he wa
s a great fellow, but I never noticed any warmth from Johnnie towards his father-in-law, though he would always sing Izzy’s praises as a master carpenter, and a master carpenter he was.
Anyway, Izzy said to me, ‘Tell him.’
Of course, I had to wait for the right moment. In came Johnnie, who sat himself down on the armchair to watch TV, and Rita joined him. Ann sat next to me on the sofa and good old Izzy looked at me, nodded, then got up and shuffled out of the room with his walking stick.
‘You all right, Dad?’ Rita said.
‘Yes, I’m fine, I’m fine.’
And that was the moment. Johnnie’s back was turned to me when I started to speak to him. Ann and I have thought about it and we want to get engaged.’
He certainly didn’t spin round and say, ‘Congratulations.’ He said, ‘Fine, okay. Well, have you thought about what you’re going to do, where you’re going to live, how you’re going to make a living?’
I said, ‘Yes, I’m working for myself and I’m doing all right. Ann’s working too, and everything will be fine.’
They reluctantly accepted the situation. And, to be fair to Rita, she sprang out of the chair and said to me, ‘Welcome to the family.’
Johnnie, to use one of his terms, must have been silently plutzing. One day I’m going to write an English-Yiddish dictionary. It’s difficult to explain just what plutzing means to a non-Jew, but I’ll have a stab at it. It’s a word that encapsulates how you feel when you have to grin and bear something you don’t really agree with and you don’t want to happen. It can be used in different ways – ‘He’s plutzing,’ ‘He plutzed,’ ‘He will plutz.’ But you can’t say, ‘He’s a plutzer’ – that doesn’t work.
My half-Jewish hairdresser, Robert Bell, sometimes uses Yiddish expressions completely out of context and makes us all laugh. It’s like watching a white man trying to rap.
Anyway, that was it. Officially engaged. Now I had to go home and tell my mum and dad. I got in about half past ten and they were already in bed, so I stood outside their door and whispered, Are you still awake?’
They said, ‘Yes. Why, what’s up?’
Through the door, I said, ‘Ann and I got engaged tonight.’
Silence.
Would the door be flung open any moment? Would there be jumping for joy? No.
‘Oh! Okay, good, very nice. Very, very nice,’ from my mum. And a barely audible grunt from my dad.
That’s the type of people they were, I’m afraid. To be fair, when you look at the horrible upbringings they had, particularly my mother, who had nasty, uncaring parents, it’s no surprise. Mum was a hard-nut, no question about it, but with a kind heart.
Ann also agrees that my mum was very tough, but quiet and observant with it, intelligently picking up things and really understanding what was going on, but keeping things bottled up inside her. In Ann’s opinion, my father came across as a more caring person.
Ann’s family set great store by saying and doing the right thing, and I had a lot to learn in this area. On several occasions during our courtship, I was invited to Ann’s house for a traditional Friday night dinner. After four or five such occasions when I’d turned up without bringing anything with me – not so much as a bunch of flowers or a box of chocolates – Johnnie got annoyed. Sadly, I had put Ann under a load of family pressure again.
Looking back, it makes me cringe to think of turning up without showing some gratitude, but it gives you an indication of how unaware I was of these social graces. Eventually, Ann plucked up the courage to tell me, ‘If you come round to our house for dinner, please bring something along for my mum because my dad’s getting a bit annoyed.’
I was embarrassed and I swung the other way to such an extent that Rita turned to me one day and said, ‘Please stop this – you don’t need to do this each and every time you come round.’
I also spread the news of our engagement to all my friends. If I remember rightly, Maureen and Malcolm had beaten us to it and were already engaged. Steve was being silent, while Sandra, to use the new word you’ve just learned, was plutzing. Geoff and Tony didn’t want to listen. They were not interested in this settling-down stuff.
Ann and I agreed on a savings strategy. She was doing very well as a hairdresser, and had been since the time I was at Richard Thomas & Baldwins. She still reminds me to this day that she was earning more than I was then. She was a great hairdresser and although her basic pay was peanuts, she was sought after by the clients and earned nearly all her money from tips. We decided to start saving for a house of our own, an unbelievable objective in that day and age. For example, when Daphne and Harold got married, they moved into a rented flat above a shop in Clapton. When Derek got married to Brenda, they did the same. Shirley was the only one who had her own house, her Harold being rather well-to-do. But most people tended to start off by renting a flat somewhere.
Johnnie would remind me from time to time how important it was that I worked hard. Not that I needed reminding; I knew what responsibilities I was taking on.
‘How’s this business of yours going?’ he asked one day.
‘Well,’ I explained, ‘to be honest with you, it’s hard work, but I’ve set myself a target to make sixty quid by Wednesday.’
‘What?’
‘Sixty quid by Wednesday – that’s my target.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Sixty quid by Wednesday,’ I repeated. ‘That’s what I’ve got to earn.’
‘Oh, you mean that’s what you’ve got to take?’
‘No, that’s what I’ve got to earn. But I normally make much more than that – maybe eighty by the end of the week. Unless my van breaks down, then I’m stuck.’
Now, Johnnie was not one of those people who deals with things in a polite way. ‘What are you talking about – sixty pounds, eighty pounds a week? Who are you bloody kidding? There is a difference between taking sixty pounds and making sixty pounds, you know.’
‘Excuse me? What do you mean?’
‘Are you telling me that you’re making sixty or eighty pounds a week in this business?’
‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m telling you. I know the difference between what I take and what I make.’
‘Nah. Rita, what’s he talking about? You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t believe you.’
‘Well, it’s true.’ I shrugged my shoulders and thought, ‘Why am I arguing? Who have I got to convince? Why do I have to justify myself?’
Johnnie looked at Rita and said, ‘I’m knocking myself out working with your brother in that bloody factory and we can’t make a profit there.’ This was the first time I’d heard about the state of Johnnie’s business – a furniture factory.
Beerite Furniture in Hackney Road was, I believe, inherited from Izzy, who was a cabinet maker. When Johnnie married into the family, he joined Izzy’s firm, together with Rita’s brothers, Jack and Harry. All three of them worked in the factory for a while, but Jack went off to become a licensed taxi driver, leaving just Johnnie and Harry running the business.
From what I understand, Johnnie used to do all the buying and selling (buying in the sense of purchasing the materials they needed) while Harry used to run the factory and get the stuff made. They would load a massive lorry at the end of the week and Johnnie would deliver the stuff to the customers. It was a typical cabinet-making business in the East End, but what was coming through loud and clear to me was that this business was in the pits. They were both unable to draw a big salary. They had about ten employees and were trapped in an endless cycle of trying to achieve orders and compete.
Johnnie would continually complain about Harry’s lack of ambition and how he had to do everything himself, although I’m sure, given the opportunity, Harry would have given another side of the story. So when I told Johnnie I was making £60–80 a week, he thought it was some fantasy of mine.
Slowly, the truth of the matter dawned on him. No way was he jealous – he most certainly wasn’t
– but to his generation it was unprecedented that a nineteen-year-old kid would be taking home £60–80 a week while he, as he put it, was knocking himself out in a factory, five days a week, out on the lorry, business going down the pan, and only being able to draw a minimal salary. Picture that scenario and you can understand his frustration.
Johnnie pressed me further. ‘Show me how you do this then. What are you talking about – sixty, eighty pounds a week – are you nuts?’
So one day, I brought him my books. I had no idea about bookkeeping, but I had this big red ledger-type thing in which I entered the day’s takings, how much the items had cost me, how much I’d sold them for and, subtracting one from the other, the running profit. Totally the wrong method of accounting, but it was the way I kept control of things. I knew I had to be disciplined about this because I was told that one day I was going to have to give all my bills to an accountant and pay some tax.
‘Show me the book,’ said Johnnie incredulously. ‘Let me see what you’re on about.’ I talked him through it. Not that it was any of his business, but bear in mind that I was his future son-in-law, not yet fully approved and passed for quality control. The cold shoulder was warming up slightly, so I guess I was kind of schmoozing a bit, to get into his good books.
He started examining the ledger sceptically. Within about ten minutes of studying the book, his expression had changed to one of utter disbelief. He looked up and said, ‘Here, Rita, look at this – he is making the money!’
He turned to me. ‘Are you really doing this?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘What do you sell then?’
‘Well, car aerials, transistor radios – that type of stuff.’
‘This is ridiculous. If you can do it, I can do it,’ said Johnnie.
Rita picked up on this. ‘Well, Johnnie, you’ve been moaning about the business for months, if not years. You say it’s bankrupt – well, shut it down.’