What is the truth? The truth should be something that is concrete, that cannot be unaltered, an eternal constant that runs through your life like the lettering in a stick of Blackpool rock. However, one soon discovers that the truth lives in many varieties. My truth might be very different to yours, right? It’s about perspective and it is about presenting the facts in a cogent, unbiased way.
With that preamble out of the way, my attention was turned today to one of the magazines aimed at the retail trade. The story of our tragedy was featured but given a slightly different slant. I am a member of a trade association and I signed up and paid my dues because when I started as a shopowner, I thought it would be the right thing to do. I thought it would help me in my industry because I was inexperienced and was willing for any pointers.
When the disaster happened, my local rep from the trade association quickly got in touch. Of course, there was much sympathy to our plight, but the neverending theme put to me by him was that we must restart our newsrounds immediately. Forget the fact that you are homeless, forget the fact that you have no livelihood, no electricity, nowhere for your 13th-month-old baby to play. Forget all your life’s possessions spread over the wreckage of your former home, moved by the builders to make room for emergency structural work. Forget the unending dealings with loss adjustors who only exist to fulfil one purpose: to wriggle and squirm out of their moral obligation to pay out on legitimate insurance claims. Forget the emotional impact the catastrophe has had on you. Forget everything that might be at the front of your mind. The only thing that is important is to restart the newsrounds.
And so my utter loathing and contempt for the newspaper industry really began. I know what journalists and the press is like. I’ve been a part of it once and knew what that particular game is about. But if you think that news journalists are the bottom of the barrel, that’s nothing compared to the wholesales, the people that make sure the newspapers get supplied to newsagents.
I quickly realised that for them cash is king and my plight was a blip in their gameplan. Got no shop? No problem you can use part of our warehouse to make up your newsrounds. Can’t drive and are required to make a 60 mile round trip to the temporary accommodation you are living in to the wholesaler and your shop? The rep from the aforementioned trade association will drive you there everyday! (Yeah, right) Of course, there are all manner of logistics when running a newsround. Having the cash to buy the papers is useful. All my cashflow died when the car struck the building. Having a working computer system on which to run your database and generate daily newsrounds is crucial. My computer was back at the powerless shop and where I was living was no bigger than a one bedroom flat housing myself, my wife, my baby, my mother and two dogs – plus various bags of possessions we’d scrambled together from the wreckage.
During the first week, I was phoned on a daily basis by the two newspaper wholesalers I deal with and my assocation rep, insisting I restart my rounds immediately. I couldn’t give them a definite answer as to what I was doing as I was about to be made homeless for the third time in the space of seven days (we moved to the in-laws first but they didn’t want us, then we went to a holiday chalet but they were closing at the end of October). So I was under a lot of pressure just to find us somewhere to live while also battling with two insurance companies who both refused to concede responsibility for paying up for temporary accommodation.
In terms of the newspaper rounds, various options were given to me. All of them were either impractical or just plain going to ruin my business. While some profess altruism, there are many out there who would steal your customer base in an instant if the opportunity came your way, so I had to play my cards close to my chest. At one point, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to re-open.
And so I read this article today where the association rep is presented as the hero of the hour, even helping find us temporary accommodation (an utter out and out lie). Not quite the truth, but a variation on it. Yes, he offered impractical help and solutions to problems that were no solution for me. The only good thing the association did for me was to give me a payment of £450 from the benevolent fund, which didn’t even cover half my monthly commercial mortgage payment. That makes me sound ungrateful, but I am not. I am grateful for any help that I can use or find practical, but one soon learns that helpful people are often serving other motives and one realises that the wheels of business will grind up the likes of me; the innocent, trusting, naive beginner like myself. I felt bullied by the people who are supposed to be supporting me. Business doesn’t work like that though…
Now I could fire off an email of complaint and whinge and moan and curse, but there’s no point. The damage was done when the car picked us out. It is obvious that the article was just a puff piece to promote the work of the trade association involved. That’s all well and good, but it hurts when its your efforts alone that’s gotten you to this point.
Re-opening was made able by myself, The Missus, my mother and my member of staff working hard to clean and rearrage the shop and coming up with practical solutions to impractical problems. At the moment, we are trying to get an interim payment from the insurers but I fear that despite our efforts, the game is up. Even if they do pay out, I don’t know if the cash sum will enable me to sustain the business. I need sustained cashflow, it is our lifeblood.
Yesterday, we served 28 customers and took about a sixteenth of the takings we would normally take. We normally average 300 customers a day. I’ve got paper boys and staff to pay. At this rate, I’ll have to borrow money just to keep them on board.
I can see no way out of this.
Meanwhile, the rumour from the village is that the cullprits were drug dealers, rehoused in the village by the local police for whatever nefarious reasons. This might explain the non-reply we’ve had from the boys in blue. The village appears to be host to 4 paedophiles and have a number of safe houses for those who are on the fringes of decent soceity. Nice, innit?

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