"I'm pregnant"

With those words, Jean, my future wife put my childhood behind me. We'd been together four days.

I was twenty one, facing a pregnancy I didn't want believe I had the right to end. Jean, not wanting to give birth in Ibiza, soon left for the UK. I bought up the rear stuffing our possessions and her two children from a former marriage into my classic, 1956 Citroen for a three day drive to London.

The engine blew south of Paris, leaving us on the street surrounded by the detritus of our recently joined lives. There was nothing left to do but find a train and continue on. A day later, we stepped off the ferry at Dover. I had $42, just enough for tickets to London.

Jean was sitting an apartment for friends. It was our luck the Brits believed in month long vacations. We had a month, one month to find a job, an address, a life. The enormity of the change, its suddenness put me in a state of shock but I wouldn't consider leaving the woman carrying my child. The only resource was to take the next step and the next one after that.

So I looked at the wanted ads, tried a few, but without a work permit, my choices were limited to low end, off the books work in construction or restaurants and that wasn't going to cut it. One night, broke and hungry, we called some people Jenny knew and asked if we could come over for dinner. Her friends, having no idea what state we were in, sat down to talk, and talk, and talk, and all we could do was sit there and wait, wait, wait.

The next day I ran an ad in a newspaper that said "Abandoning your car?" I'll take it away free. I got calls from people whose cars were broken and still on the street, cars in the backyard, cars piling up tickets, cars nobody wanted anymore, except me, and I wanted them for two reasons; first, I hoped to find one I could repair and use. Second, I'd made an arrangement with a wrecker. He'd take the papers, take the car and give me ten pounds for every one I supplied.

It wasn't much but it was enough to keep us in food, and I found a Volkswagon that needed a new cylinder head. As an ex mechanic, I pulled the engine on the street and had it running in three days. Meanwhile, Jean was pressuring me to get married “ it would end my illegal immigrant status, she said, open up a legit job and a legal way to stay in England.

Two weeks later, we took the bus to Haringay Town Hall where, witnessed by my two stepchildren and a civil servant dragged from her office, I slipped a borrowed ring over Jenny's finger and officially entered marriage.

I felt lost, I desperately wanted to leave, but all I could think of was the damage my unborn daughter would face without me to protect her. All I could do was take the next step; get a job and get an apartment. As luck would have it, an apartment came up in the building and we got it, but the job wasn't going to be that easy. I had no visible skills and entry level was out of the question.

I decided to start my own business. I'd once worked as sandal maker in Ibiza's first leather shop. I knew how to cut a strip of leather and hang a buckle on it. I could make belts for a living so why not try? I scoured the East end of London until I found a small company that sold leather tools. The owner there, turned me on to Wiggins Thomas and Rudd, a mid sized, family owned leather company and tannery. Mister Thomas sold me “one time only he said, “a quarter skin. They rolled it up, wrapped it and I'm sure, thought they'd never see me again. After that I started hunting antique shops for buckles. The idea was beautiful belts with antique buckles, one of a kind at high prices and great profits.

Within a week, I had twenty belts to sell. We piled into the VW and drove down to King's road, the “Fifth Avenue” of London. I parked the car at the south end, near a traffic circle. Jenny and the kids waited while I entered a world I knew nothing about; the first business of my life.

I walked up Kings Road carrying my belts in a straw bag from Ibiza. I wore jeans and a work shirt. I walked onto stores and was met with quizzical looks, daunting looks and friendly looks and one way or anther, got turned down at every stop. The reasons varied, but the bottom line was this; stores don't buy one off belts. They wanted one style alright, but also they wanted the same belt it in many colors and sizes which meant I needed the same belt buckle by the dozens.

The day was saved by a store clerk who bought one of my belts for two pounds. When I returned to Jenny and the kids with the proceeds of the sale, we were able to buy an order of fish and chips. My pregnant wife got the fish, the children got the chips.

I had to figure out how to make this a business. Two days later, having borrowed money from Jenny's parents, I returned to King's road. I had slacks and a clean shirt, a case that held my samples and twelve new belts whose buckles were available by the hundreds.

That day, I got my first order for 36 belts. Thirty six belts at 2 pounds apiece! Each belt cost about .60 pence to make. I was manufacturing the belts in our apartment- except for the last step, hammering the rivets which held the belt buckle in place. That work was to loud and had to be done in the car. Banging the rivets closed over a small, shoemaker's last, I could only park in one neighborhood for ten minutes because at that point the house blinds generally went up while the owners tried to find out where all that noise was coming from.

I had my first belt order and I also discovered that no one pays for your product up front; the whole thing is a house of cards. Every company lives on credit and I had none. I was going to have to buy the leather etc, make the belts, deliver them and then wait 30 days for a check. In the meantime, I needed those raw materials; two more skins because the order was for black belts and brown belts. I also had to buy three dozen buckles and new tools to manufacture consistent quality. I was learning that success can ruin you as fast as failure if you don't have the manpower, money and skills to meet the demand.

For me it was money. I got the order on Friday. On Sunday, I drove down to Bayswater Road, a street that runs along the North side of Hyde Park. The park is bordered there by wrought iron fencing and every Sunday, merchants come from all around town and suburbs to sell their wares; velvet paintings of dewy eyed kids, antiques, you name it. I drove in at 4 AM, found a tiny spot along the fence among all the regulars and roped it off. Then I sat in the car till 8 AM, hung the remaining eleven of my original twelve belts on the fence and hoped for the best.

The best, as it turned out, was pretty good. I sold eight belts and took home 32 quid! I was incredibly excited. I had a product, a way, a resource to make this right! I even had enough money to buy a little food. Our staple was scrod, a fish whose meat is grey, so consumers only bought it in those days for cat food. It's probably called Dover Sea Bass now and sells in restaurants for twenty pounds a serving.

I had enough money left to convince Mr. Wiggins to sell me, last time I promised again, two, half skins. The rest went to buckles. I delivered the first order of my life that Friday. I was in business! At the company, Take Six, they took my invoice, took my belts and said their terms were thirty days.

I was still broke, so I went back to Bayswater Avenue on Sunday, where this time, I came to the park with a dozen belts in two colors and a range of sizes. By midday, I sold out, another confirmation that I had a product, a place to build some kind of life. And that's how it went for the next three months; sell at Hyde Park on Sunday, pay for raw materials on Monday, manufacture on Tuesday and Wednesday and deliver on Friday.

But I wasn't out of the woods. Getting ahead meant a lot more selling, a constant search for new designs, manufacturing day and night, a client base to build, credit to establish with a growing number of suppliers, talking a reluctant bank into loaning me money and yes, dealing with my marriage and my soon to be, new born daughter. I had no friends. Jean was jealous and manipulative of any relationships I might build so it was pretty lonely. I learned keep my thoughts and feelings to myself.

In those two years, I defined forever, the meaning of the words hard work. Two years after stepping off the ferry in Dover, we owned our own home and a Land Rover. My stepson was in private school. I had a business, an income and an identity. But my marriage was failing.

Four and a half years later, I was going to stand at the stern of a ferry from Corsica to Cannes, where I would slip a gold wedding band off my finger and throw it into the Mediterranean sea.

Four years after that, I was going to get custody of my daughter and begin bringing her up for the next ten years as a single parent living in New York and the then Los Angeles. But that's another story.