A Pocketful of Holes and Dreams (22 page)

It was a very hot summer in 1985 when Gina and I opened the doors on our newest venture. The premises were big enough to accommodate both Girls Talk and Kids Talk, and so we were able to provide a new shopping experience for young mums with small children. Our quarter of a million pound investment soon became
the
place to go for fashion in Chester, and in no time was as successful as our other boutiques in Liverpool.

Sometimes I had to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. Our success was so phenomenal. We now had four shops on the high street that were doing exceptionally well. I always believed my mother was looking down on me, though it was such a pity she wasn’t there to share in our success.

Finding winning styles week after week was a problem.
Top of the Pops
was one of my favourite ways of coming up with bestsellers. Whatever the pop stars were wearing, the public wanted it the following week.

One Thursday night, Wham! were on with ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go!’ and George Michael was wearing a large white baggy T-shirt with ‘Go-Go’ printed on it. The following morning, I was immediately on the phone to our suppliers looking for XXL plain white T-shirts. I was in luck, as they had them for £1 each, so I ordered a thousand. The supplier was based in London so I asked him to put them on the next Euston to Liverpool train then ring me to let me know what time they were due to arrive.

It was now ten o’clock, and the next thing was to find a local screenprinter. I rang all the people I knew but kept drawing blanks. In desperation, I rang Liverpool University’s art department, chatted to a very helpful lady, and asked if she knew of any students that could do it. She said she’d try her best to find someone.

Not convinced that I’d find anyone now, this late on a Friday afternoon, I headed to the station to pick up the T-shirts. A short while later, returning to the shop, I found two dodgy-looking characters dressed like tramps waiting to see me. ‘Can I help you?’ I asked.

‘You’re looking for someone to print something,’ one of the youths mumbled.

This was not quite what I’d had in mind, but I asked, ‘Who told you?’

‘The bird from the uni,’ said the other one.

‘Right, OK.’ Taking a T-shirt from the box, I asked. ‘Can you print “Go-Go” in big black letters on the front of this?’

‘No probs.’

I stood there wondering what the hell he meant.

‘No probs.’ The other one said the same thing.

‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘We can do it!’ Right! I was now getting the hang of his business negotiations.

We agreed a price, and I gave them £50 for materials and an extra £10 for a taxi, which I loaded with the T-shirts, and waved them goodbye. My staff told me I was mad, saying I wouldn’t see the students, my money or my thousand T-shirts ever again, but I simply said, ‘Oh ye of little faith.’

The following morning, I arrived early at the shop and found the two young men standing outside. Both of them had their arms full of T-shirts hot off the press. They had worked through the night and had printed five hundred! I put the T-shirts on the mannequins in the front window, and they sold like hotcakes. By the end of the day, we had sold out. And all this less than forty-eight hours after I had seen George Michael wearing one on
Top of the Pops
.

That year, we sold 250,000 T-shirts in every possible print you could think of. ‘Frankie Says Relax’ was our bestseller, particularly in the smaller sizes for kids. There was a £3 profit on every T-shirt, which made us a cool £750,000 on a moment’s inspiration. My two dodgy-looking friends printed every one and went on to be very successful printers in their own right. However, my biggest thanks still have to go to George Michael, for helping me revolutionize the printed T-shirt business!

Gina and I became very wealthy, and along with the money came all the trappings. She now drove a black Mercedes sports car, while my choice was a Jaguar. One evening, arriving home in the dark after work, I was going through the large metal gates at the bottom of the driveway when a man suddenly jumped out from behind the hedge, his face appearing at my window. It frightened the life out of me, until I realized it was an old friend from years ago – John. Lowering the window, I was about to say hello when he said, ‘Jeff, I don’t know what you’re doing, but they’re on to you.’ He was speaking very quickly and quietly. ‘They’re tapping your phones and following you!’

When he paused for breath, I managed to ask him, ‘Who?’

‘The bizzies. They’re asking informers to grass on you!’

Suddenly he was gone, disappearing into the darkness without another word, leaving me very confused. John knew, and associated with, a lot of real villains in the city, but he was a pretty straight guy himself.

I went indoors and told Gina what had happened. Her response was to tell me not to be daft, John had most probably been drunk. ‘Gina, I’m telling you, he wasn’t drunk. Something must be going on!’

Having my phone tapped and being followed, if true, really worried me. I walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver, listening intently, but could hear nothing unusual. I called Gina’s parents, and when Bob answered the phone, I heard a strange sort of
beep-beep
,
click-click
before I heard his voice saying hello. ‘Sorry, Bob,’ I said. ‘It’s Jeff here, I think I’ve dialled your number by mistake.’

I told Gina what had just happened, trying to convince her that our phone was being tapped, but she wasn’t having any of it. ‘Who do you think you are? James Bond?’ she said, but I was still feeling anxious when I went to bed.

The following morning, I kept checking my rear-view mirror as I drove to work to see if I was being followed. I was becoming paranoid, imagining that someone was tailing me. However, once in the office, the day-to-day routine pushed it to the back of my mind until Gina called me at around noon. Once again I heard that
beep-beep
,
click-click
noise, and this time Gina heard it too. I put the phone down and went to Kids Talk, where I called my solicitor. ‘Stay there, Jeff,’ he said. ‘I’ll pick you up shortly.’

Ten minutes later, I got into his car, and he drove me to Cheapside police station, where he had made an appointment for us to see a CID inspector.

At the station, my solicitor told the inspector that I had reason to believe I was being followed and that my telephones were being tapped. The inspector had a file in front of him and, when he opened it, he confirmed my suspicions. I nearly fell off my chair with shock. Flicking through the file, the inspector started to talk.

‘Six weeks ago, we had a tip-off that Mr Pearce could possibly be laundering drug money through his shops. We therefore had no alternative but to carry out a thorough investigation into these allegations, and had to inform Customs & Excise and Inland Revenue. We followed Mr Pearce to London in the early hours of the morning on numerous occasions, and yes, we have been tapping his phones. These were serious allegations. But I’m pleased to inform you that we are more than happy with Mr Pearce’s business activities and can see nothing suspicious going on. We are therefore now closing the file.’ He apologized for any inconvenience but explained that tip-offs like this could not be ignored.

When I thought about it later, I figured the only reason it had happened was the speed with which Gina and I had expanded our business and the wealth we’d accumulated in such a short time. Someone must have been very jealous: we must have rattled somebody’s cage somewhere along the way.

There was a hilarious end to the story though. While the investigations had been going on, I happened to be involved in the
Liverpool Echo
’s annual fashion show, and I had had the idea of giving each customer a £1 voucher to spend in our shops, so I’d instructed our printer to produce green £1 notes. They were only printed on one side and they had ‘The Bank of Girls Talk’ rather than ‘The Bank of England’ on them but, otherwise, they looked just like the real thing. We’d run out, so I’d asked the printer to print me an extra thousand, unaware that my phone was being tapped. He agreed to do it, but they never turned up. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later, when I called to pay him, that I found out why he hadn’t delivered them.

‘Don’t talk to me about printing money!’ he exclaimed. ‘Not long after I spoke to you on the phone, the police burst in and arrested me, keeping me in a cell overnight until they had searched my shop and house! They thought I was forging real bank notes!’

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was all my fault!

That wasn’t the only problem wealth brought, though. As a child I had dreamt of one day of owning a Rolls-Royce. All the other kids would laugh at me and taunt me, saying, ‘You’re poor, you are, Pearce. You’ll never own a car like that.’ On the day my dream came true I drove my new Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow out of the showroom and straight to the neighbourhood where I grew up as a child, and drove up and down the streets. As the young boys stared, I smiled and gave them a wave. I thought to myself, were they thinking what I did when I was their age?

One afternoon Gina told me that she was just going to nip to the butcher’s to get some mince meat, so I volunteered to take her, finding any excuse to drive my new toy. As I waited outside I noticed the butcher admiring the graceful lines of my elegant car. When Gina returned, she told me that my luck was in. ‘We’re having fillet steak tonight,’ she exclaimed. ‘There was no way I was going to ask for half a pound of mince after having got out of a car like this!’ It was the best-looking car I had ever seen. But it made me feel uncomfortable driving it. When I stopped at traffic lights, I felt like a horse with blinkers on, unable to look at motorists alongside in case they thought I was looking down on them. Instead, I would sit behind the wheel staring straight ahead, feeling very self-conscious. And if I saw someone I knew at a bus stop, if I offered them a lift, I was being flash; if I didn’t, I was a snob. It made me realize another valuable lesson that Mum had taught me: it was OK to admire someone and what they had achieved, but envy was a different matter. It was a no-win situation, so the car had to go. I took it back to the showroom and, fortunately, they still had my Jag. Exchanging the Rolls for my old car, and losing £2,000 in the process, I drove away a happier man. I had only had the Rolls for seven days, but at least I could say that my dream had come true.

Gina’s dreams also came true one Christmas morning. Katie and Faye opened their presents on our bed, and then it was Gina’s turn. The first box she opened contained a pair of jodhpurs and a riding hat; the second had a pair of black riding boots and a crop. After a little bit of encouragement, I managed to get her to try them on. Puzzled, she said, ‘Are you getting kinky in your old age?’

‘Not yet!’ I assured her. Standing in the bedroom, dressed in her full riding kit, she certainly looked the part. The only thing missing was the horse. I suggested that she open the curtains, pretending I wanted to see what the weather was like. Suddenly there was an almighty scream: ‘Jeff, there’s a silver-grey horse in the garden!’

Now standing beside her, I whispered in her ear, ‘Happy Christmas, Gina. Her name is Foxy Lady, and she’s all yours!’ I could hardly get the words out for the tears running down my face.

Gina had often told me that, when she was a little girl, she had dreamt of owning a horse, and that it had to be silver-grey. Suddenly she was off, out of the bedroom and running out into the garden, Katie and Faye watching. By the time we’d all got dressed and gone outside, Gina had disappeared. We found her trotting up and down St Mary’s Road, riding like a true professional. Foxy Lady was to change our lives, as she was the first of many.

By the middle of 1986, J&R Fashions had expanded to seven properties, with four retail shops, two distribution warehouses and a head office, stretching from Warrington to Chester. This, with the weekly trips to Manchester and London, meant I was spending too much time driving. So one day I marked out X’s on a map showing where all our properties were located then dropped my pen in the middle. It landed on a place called Whitegate, in Cheshire. The following day, Gina drove out that way with a friend to have a look around and see if there was anything for sale, and that evening she showed me some property details she had picked up. One of them was perfect, a magnificent country house by a small lake with ducks swimming on the surface. It was called Abbots Walk. We went to see it a few days later, and bought it there and then.

We were all sad to leave our home in Huyton. Although it was old and somewhat eerie, the four of us had grown to love it. If we could have picked it up and transported it to Cheshire, we would have.

We set off in convoy to our new home on a fresh November morning in 1986. As we drove into the village of Whitegate, the first sight that greeted us was the magnificent steeple of the sixteenth-century church. Opposite it, we made our way down a narrow lane with old oak trees on either side, their branches forming a thick canopy overhead and almost blocking out the daylight. This tunnel of trees led all the way to Abbots Walk, our new home.

When we arrived, Gina gathered up Katie and Faye and went off to show them the ducks, while I went to chat to our removals men. Suddenly I heard a woman’s voice shouting loudly. Turning around, I saw Mrs Woods, the lady we had bought the house from, having a go at Gina and the girls. I went over to see what was wrong, and she soon let me know what the problem was: she wanted us to leave the property, as it didn’t yet belong to us. ‘Go on,’ she screeched. ‘Get the hell out of here – now!’

We had no alternative; she was hysterical and totally unwilling to listen to reason. So our convoy was once again on the move, ending up in the car park of a large country pub some two miles down the road, the only place big enough to accommodate us. I rang my solicitor and told him about the unpleasant reception we had received, and he called back after a few minutes to inform me that the property would not legally become ours until noon, but from then on we were entitled to tell
her
to ‘get the hell out of there’!