First Time On My Own
1995-1996
Bell Marketing
Operating alone. I was sure that I would succeed, using the example of Jeff Nutter as my target. In retrospect, this was overinflated confidence, but I wasn’t going to let any thoughts of failure enter my mind. I had persuaded Barbara that this was the way forward. If I could convince her, how could I possibly go wrong? We had a sizeable redundancy package from Sellers & Co to finance my plans, our mortgage was covered, and I had a wealth of industry contacts to exploit. Even Sellers had agreed for me to represent their interests in the area of the former Soviet Union as part of the redundancy package.
My first action was to decide on a name for my ‘trading as’ self-employment. I chose ‘Bell Marketing’, a play on the initials of my name. Later one of my helpers in Uzbekistan was to come up with the unprompted comment in Russian to a potential client that “The name shows how the company’s actions ring out like a bell”. I winced. Even in the world of marketing hyperbole, this was over the top. Yet I still remember the statement; perhaps in the realm of crazy promotions I should have continued to use it. I didn’t.
From the start I had decided to concentrate on acting as a representative for the sale of textile machinery and ancillary equipment to Russian-speaking markets. As I had been the member from Sellers & Co on the Exhibitions Committee of the British Textile Machinery Association (BTMA), I already knew six additional UK manufacturers – of spinning, carpet finishing, and knitting machines - who agreed that I could work on their behalf, as they were not covered by representation in the former Soviet Union. I also interested two German companies, manufacturers of brushing rollers and shearing cylinders, to come on board. In this way, I nominally represented the interests of nine manufacturers, using the name Bell Marketing.
It's only now, much more experienced and with the wisdom of age, I realise that a lot of what I intended was just wishful thinking. For example, I only had verbal agreements with a couple of companies that I would receive a 15% commission after received payment for any deal I was able to negotiate. I had nothing in writing. With the others, it was a case of “Let’s see what you can drum up and we’ll agree a fee on completion”. I was so keen to prove my capabilities that I never seriously considered compiling a business plan, something I would deem to be an absolute necessity with the benefit of hindsight. Without a stroke of supreme good luck – like being in the right place at the right time for a deal – all my plans were thus doomed for failure. But I couldn’t be accused of not trying to succeed.
I did, however, have a positive advantage in my plans. I had built up good relationships with the staff of the Moscow-based Wool Institute (Russian acronym “TsNIIShersti”), whose Director Vladimir Afanasiev had been photographed with me in the Huddersfield Examiner article recording his VIP visit to the Sellers’ factory only a few years earlier. His umbrella organisation, which was formed during Soviet times to coordinate the technology behind woollens production in the country, had now changed to a central advice bureau for the industry. Although still receiving some support from the government budget, the office was expected to generate survival income from its own resources. Therefore, it was in the Wool Institute’s interest to support activities like mine, with the objective of receiving a percentage of my earned commission from the sales of machinery facilitated by them.
Over my time with Sellers, I had built up a close friendship with Vladislav Morozov, the Deputy Director of the Wool Institute. Already in his sixties, Vladislav could relate the rare claim of having visited Bradford from the Soviet Union as a young member of a fact-finding party after World War II. From time to time he would recall with pleasure something he had witnessed in Bradford, but I didn’t go too deeply into his memoires, as I was aware that to have made the trip at that time he would have needed to be a trusted, card-carrying member of the Communist Party. After the breakup of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Russians generally preferred not to bring up past allegiances.
Vladislav was a keen promoter of my activities, all carried out with an energy belying his years. Together we pursued various potential options for machinery sales, as well as investigating the possibilities for joint ventures with western manufacturers to exploit Russian technologies. One proposal in particular, which would require substantial investment by a manufacturing partner, involved the use of cryogenics to obtain enhanced properties in natural fibres, including improved handle and strength. Soviet Union technicians had been experimenting with processing textiles at low temperatures for years, but the project was one of the first to go with the breakup of the country. We too failed to interest outsiders for a simple reason: we couldn’t supply treated samples for examination. Our scientific partners were highly enthusiastic about the potential of their proposal but we all quickly realised the hard lesson of capitalism – it’s products, not theories, that make profits. Interestingly, though I was assured repeatedly then that “Cryogenics will be the next big thing in textiles finishing”, even nearly thirty years later I have never seen this freezing principle employed on an industrial scale. Perhaps it will turn out to be an idea ahead of its time.
Although I travelled to Moscow a couple of times, building up high home telephone bills in between, it eventually became apparent that despite my best intentions, I was not receiving financial rewards from my representative efforts. My bank balance quickly exhausted, going into debt. One UK company, very reluctantly, paid my air fares for one visit, but I could only go to this well once. (To be fair, I was then in the final negotiations stage of a sizeable machine order for them – worth around £50,000 if I recall correctly – so it was a risk worth taking. I was very surprised when the deal fell through for undisclosed reasons, as I had already obtained a customer signature on the preliminary contract).
One occurrence dominates my memories of Vladislav. Throughout my life I have experienced coincidences which can only be described as uncanny. A few years after I had last left the city, in 2003 I returned to Moscow to take part in a corporate gifts’ exhibition. [See later section on working for Supreme Plastics]. Our small show took place at the same ‘Expocenter’ facility I had visited regularly whilst working for Sellers & Co. On this occasion, there were three or four separate shows running at the large showground next to the Moscow River. One afternoon, to take a break from the boredom of disappointing visitor numbers, I decided to have a look at the other exhibitions, on the excuse that I was going there to see if I could interest their show participants in our business gifts. On entering the last show to visit, I was aware that a couple had stopped and were looking at me. It was Vladislav and his female assistant. We were both surprised – and of course delighted – at bumping into one another this way. In a city with a population of 10 million, what were the odds of this happening? Vladislav said that it was “sudba”, Russian for ‘fate’, a common belief amongst his compatriots. Our situations did not allow us to meet up again after our ten minutes’ conversation. We parted with a bear hug, just the way I prefer to remember a great friend.
It was clear early that machinery sales alone would not finance my activities; I had to offer additional services. In this, in line with a deal now lost in the fog of time, I was paid to compile a computerised sales management system for a local textiles SME [Small to Medium Enterprise]. I didn’t do programming as such for the company, I simply built up their new scheme using Access, the Microsoft database management package. I recall that I just about winged it by working from dawn to dusk, always managing to keep one day ahead of promised deadlines, but I was delighted with the end results. I was able to successfully link the new database to other Microsoft programmes – Word and Excel – to allow the customer to print out correspondence, bills and accounts. I had tried something similar at Sellers, albeit on a smaller scale and with a less effective outcome, so the manner of this result was encouraging for me. I trained one of their secretaries on the system (she was involved in its development throughout) and accepted the agreed fee. My first mission in self-employment had been successfully completed.
I then tried to get the firm interested in paying me a retainer for marketing assistance (they needed it) but the best they could offer was a promise to consider it in the following year’s business plan. Nevertheless, all the evening class training I had undertaken as a trailblazer for Sellers & Co in word processing, spreadsheets, desktop publishing, and databases had paid unexpected dividends. I still retain these skills. Thankfully, Microsoft programmes are nowadays much more user friendly.
Textiles Press Articles
I find it fascinating that from a scholar who hated essays and failed GCE ‘O’ Level English Language, I have evolved to someone who finds great pleasure in writing. I think that the turning point came in the RAF in Germany when I submitted an article for inclusion in the station’s rugby magazine. Whilst having an obviously limited circulation, I remember the joy of having the piece talked about. I had entered the humorous piece anonymously, so at first only the editor and I knew who the author was. Later I started to add my name to presented texts – all with a comedy slant – thus my first steps as a would-be writer were made within this tiny readership circle.
Recently in 2024 I was contacted by a soldier who had served on Gatow. He had spotted my nickname "Leo" on a rugby photograph I had submitted to the Berlin Veterans Facebook page. He asked, was I the Leo who had written a comedy sketch performed by the RAF Gatow Variety Club? I had, but having never attended a VC concert, I was sure that the sketch I submitted had never been used. To my utter delight, it turned out that the piece had indeed been performed. Moreover, he still recalled a punchline I had written in the pastiche of a children's programme that used to feature on British Forces Broadcasting Service ('BFBS') Radio. In context, it was funny then - and possibly still is - a wordplay on "fresh bath towel" and "fresh bathed owl". He remembered this, because he had played the 'Owl' character in the scene and recalled the great response this line had received. Fifty years later, I've forgotten lots of things, but the memory of compiling this silly joke lingers on...
One by-product of learning languages, in my experience, is the necessity to first get to grips with English, particularly its dreaded grammar. Therefore, whilst studying Russian and German, I was toning up skills in my mother tongue, a precursor to producing correct translations. Towards the end of my RAF service, I passed an analyst’s course, where the emphasis was on compiling precise reports. Then later, as part of my stint in Higher Education, I wrote long coursework answers (latterly typed) and of course the dissertation. All this was grist to the mill in the development of an author.
My first attempts at editing came with the production of an in-house magazine (“Sellers Scene”) at Sellers & Co. Add to this marketing and business reports I generated regularly, and it is probably no surprise to discover that I was the first one granted permission to obtain a personal computer at the company. (The first one had an amber screen where I had to stop typing every few seconds to allow the screen image to catch up!). I took evening classes in using a variety of programmes, whilst the ladies in the typing pool were still saying “There’s no way you’ll get us on computers”. Unfortunately, redundancy – both for me and most of them – intervened before they would have had to ask me for assistance in using computers, a prospect I was cruelly relishing. But the die had been cast in my love of writing and, to their credit, the Sellers’ directors recognised this by allowing me to take the computer home when my position was deemed surplus to needs.
I somehow made contact by email and telephone with the editor of a Danish textiles magazine in early 1996. The connection may have originated from the stack of business cards which I retained on leaving Sellers & Co. Although the memory is vague, I think that I first submitted a detailed article about the production of woollens in Russia, using information provided by Vladislav. This interested the editor, so much so that he asked if I could possibly supply articles about textiles production in neighbouring countries. Based on my earlier visit to Kustanai, I immediately suggested Kazakhstan. He responded that this would be most welcome, suggesting a payment rate for submitted texts.
Through this brief exchange of emails, I decided to embark on a visit to Central Asia, a journey which would shape my life for the next few years.
Kazakhstan & Uzbekistan Visit
Although I knew that I would receive payment for any articles I was able to compile from the visit, this recompense – dependent on the length and interest detail of my submissions – would hardly cover the incurred air fares, never mind any additional hotel, internal transport and assistance expenses. As a final throw of the dice, I persuaded my bank manager to increase my business account overdraft (having shown him a most optimistic business plan I had made up) and ‘maxed out’ my credit cards. I was knowingly taking a big risk.
In planning the visit, I first used my contacts Galina Harris and Vladislav Molotov. Galina, from Kustanai but now resident in UK, was able to provide me with the name of a translator/agent friend in Almaty, whilst Vladislav sent on a list of trade contacts in Central Asia. Realising that I had to spread my research net as far as possible on the visit, I latched on to the idea of including Uzbekistan in my itinerary. By good fortune, it transpired that the contact in Almaty had a good friend in a similar position in Tashkent who could help me. Therefore, it was decided that I would first fly into Almaty in Kazakhstan, before travelling on to Tashkent in Uzbekistan, and return home from there. Thank goodness I still had a good relationship with Barry Martin Travel, a London company specialising in travel to the former Soviet Union. With their assistance I received a visas, hotels and travel package at the cheapest available cost. They too were keen to assist me in my new venture and pulled out all the stops to find me the best deals.
I flew out from London on Japan Air Lines, who managed to lose my luggage in transit in Moscow. When I arrived in Almaty (the then capital of Kazakhstan), my suitcase was not on the baggage retrieval belt. I managed to find the JAL representative, who – to save any timewasting form filling – simply handed me $200 cash for expenses to buy replacement clothing, together with a couple of traveller’s packs normally reserved for First Class passengers. He promised to follow up locating my bag personally. He was true to his word. Having been found in Tokyo, the case was delivered to my hotel on the third day. In the meantime, with the assistance of the translator/agent, I had been able to buy presentable made-in-neighbouring-China clothing at a cost of around $50. A totally unexpected financial gain
.
The five days spent in Almaty were interesting personally (the hotel restaurant’s speciality dish was “Twelve Types of Horsemeat”, for example) but not necessarily successful businesswise. Time constraints did not allow me to identify exploitable demand for the machinery I offered, whilst I learned very early that arranging business meetings in the area followed a differing path to my normal routine. Nothing was rushed. Cultural and bureaucratic considerations had first to be satisfied before an interview was permitted. It was not possible to simply turn up at a factory and expect to receive an audience. However, one of Vladislav’s consultant contacts gave me an up-to-date official statement of the country’s textiles production which was more than sufficient to form the backbone of the article I wrote later.
My transfer to Tashkent went well, where I was met by the promised contact. She apologised that she was too busy to accompany me on the appointments she had made for me, but could her daughter Natalya (“Natasha”) stand in? Unlike her mother, Natasha did not speak English. However, my language abilities overcame this obstacle. Together we made a good team. Russian by nationality, she was born and educated in the city, endowing her with valuable skills in how to navigate the oddities of Uzbek society and business. She made mistakes, but I soon learned from her that a forceful attitude was sometimes the best approach in discussions. Uzbeks are naturally friendly and, to avoid confrontation, prefer to give noncommittal responses. To break through this, and correspondingly gain their respect, it was now and again necessary to be diplomatically firm in negotiations.
Natasha later became one of my work team for a period in Uzbekistan, adapting well to the demands of the role. She was popular and hardworking. I later found out that all this time her husband had been a drug addict, in a country where opium from neighbouring Afghanistan was readily available. The last rumour I heard about Natasha, around ten years later, was that her husband had died and that she and her daughter were then living in Saudi Arabia, where she had changed religion and married a local. Certainly, like many I came across in Central Asia, she professed a desire to move out of the area, although she was the only one I heard of settling in the Middle East. Most of the others I know eventually emigrated to Russia, the USA, or Canada.
Natasha’s mother had done a good job in arranging meetings for me. We were kept occupied all the days spent there and, whilst no immediate prospects emerged, we were cordially received at each location. One suggested visit was so intriguing that I just had to take the opportunity: to Termez on the Afghan border. We flew there and back in a day at low cost, on an ageing Yak 40 aircraft of Uzbek Air.
Our time in Termez may not have produced results but it was nevertheless memorable. We had a meeting arranged with the city’s Deputy Mayor, which gave us unexpected VIP status for the day. The main target for our visit was a local carpet manufacturing unit. It was certainly interesting to see the production of hand knotted carpets there (by the mainly female staff) but the director’s only interest was to try to persuade me to arrange sale of their products in the west. I said politely that I would investigate, knowing immediately that this was a non-starter for me. I didn’t have the market experience. As for offering production equipment to them, this just wasn’t that type of carpet factory. The unique selling point of its output lay in the skills of its traditional manual labour force; mechanism would add nothing to this. In line with my rule of always acknowledging cooperation, I later posted a letter of thanks in Russian to the factory director, turning down his offer, which I hoped he eventually received.
My few hours in Termez were marked by three things: mynah birds, a blocked off bridge, and the commuter aircraft.
I came across the native mynah birds when taking a smoke break at the carpet factory. These dark coloured birds (related to starlings) were crowded on orchard trees next to the building, immediately noticeable by the cacophony of apparently human voices emanating from the branches. Our host told us that these mynahs were natural mimics. I like to think that I got one to repeat parrot-like “Who’s a pretty boy?” but it was probably wishful thinking…
As we had time to kill, we were taken down to the nearby bridge over the Amu Darya River on the border with Afghanistan. This was the location where the last of the Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan in early 1989. With a fortified fence on either side, the bridge’s now closed exit sports a memorial stone to the event. As the majority of the Soviet casualties in Afghanistan came from the Central Asian republics, the stone has great significance for locals.
The Yak 40 we took to Termez was little more than a flying taxi. As the city was ‘end of the line’, it was effectively a commuter service for locals to and from Tashkent; there wasn’t an alternative rail connection and the bus transport network was highly fragmented. Entry was from the rear, where we had to walk the full length of the cabin to reach our allocated VIP seats on the front row. In the reverse logic of flying Soviet-style, the advantage here was that we were the first passengers to disembark on arrival. On smaller aircraft around the region, the routine was for the engines to be turned off once the parking spot had been reached. After a few minutes’ break, the cockpit door would open and the pilot and flight engineer emerge and walk down to the exit. This was the signal for passengers to leave, strictly in order from the first row back, hence the advantageous selection of seats at the front of the cabin. In all the years of flying on small commuter aircraft around the former Soviet Union, I experienced that this practice was strictly followed, with no one attempting to ‘jump the queue’. Amazing.
On the day of our visit, the departure of the aircraft was delayed. And we were to blame. The Deputy Mayor came with us to the small wooden building which served as the arrival and departure lounge at the airport. It had a bar and, as was to become normal for me, the DM was enjoying our company so much that he insisted marking our visit with a vodka toast. Just when we thought that the toasting was over, he would refill the glasses. I suddenly realised that, apart from our table, the lounge was empty. All the passengers had boarded the aircraft. But yet another toast “To International Friendship!” (or the like) was proposed by our host. After what seemed an eternity, where I had long before resorted to sipping only at the filled glass, he eventually suggested that we board the aircraft. As soon as we climbed the steps to the aircraft, the rear door was closed and, on reaching our seats, the engines were revved up for departure. No comment about the delay was made by fellow passengers. I assume that regular travellers were used to such behaviour but I could not imagine it being tolerated elsewhere.
The flight path on arrival and departure to and from this southern outpost offered awesome vistas below – barren yellow desert mile after mile, interspersed with hills and mountains. Later TV reports from the post millennium war in Afghanistan were to mirror these geographical images.
On my final day in Tashkent, Natasha came to me with a document procured by her mother. It was a yet another most useful report on textiles production, this time concerning Uzbekistan. She didn’t say where it came from, just “a trusted source”. With its fascinating detail about the cultivation of silkworm cocoons and resultant silk fabric manufacture, together with figures for the country’s traditional cotton industry, it was a great source – together with the equivalent received about Kazakhstan – for the articles I was to submit to the Danish publication. Without doubt, this was information I would not have obtained without a visit to the area. [The internet was still then in its infancy and the scope of pieces recorded there was very limited].
On return to UK, I compiled and sent off the two separate articles about Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the Danish textiles magazine. The editor was most pleased with the contents, paying me in full by return.
Once back home I continued to soldier on without success. I was already looking at job adverts, recognising that my self-employed days were numbered. I then received a telephone call from the magazine editor in Denmark, asking if he could pass on my contact details should anyone request. (The Central Asia articles had been published without mention of my name at my request, to protect my information sources). I had no objection to this, considering it a standard demand from publishers, and thought no more about it. The consequences of this decision still have a fairy tale aspect to them: “Something that just doesn’t happen in the real world”.
A Life-Changing Telephone Call
The Bell Marketing mini office, with fax telephone and computer, was set up in the small bedroom at home in Huddersfield. Around 8 o’clock one Saturday morning in 1996, I was still in bed when I heard the work telephone ringing in the next bedroom. I went through and took the call.
Forty minutes later, still in my pyjamas, I had a well-paid job in Uzbekistan, offered by someone who did not know me and had never met me. Totally implausible!
The person calling from Tashkent was Poul Jahn, a Danish entrepreneur with a record of setting up import businesses in Ukraine and now Uzbekistan. Already in his 60s and the holder of a Danish ‘Ritter’ award (roughly equivalent to a British knighthood), Poul was seeking someone to further his investment project ideas in the country where he lived as an expatriate. He told me that he had read my articles in the Danish magazine and contacted the editor to find out about me. (It transpired that Poul knew the editor, but then there weren’t many leading businessmen in Denmark who he did not know. It could be that Poul had put the word out generally about the kind of person he was seeking and the editor had pointed him in my direction. That was Poul’s style. Not that it was important to me to know how we came across each other).
Poul outlined what he was looking for. Someone to investigate, report on, and follow up projects to be carried out in Uzbekistan. He had a special project in mind, but this would only be detailed once I was in position. At the end of the conversation, he told me that he would fax me a contract to examine. If I was interested, I was to let him know by return. The contract would come from his office in Copenhagen but he was due to fly home the following weekend via London, where we could meet up and sign it. Still shellshocked, I agreed to these arrangements without asking the important question – how much will I be paid? I found out an hour or so later.
Anyone who recalls the action of fax messages will know how slowly pages advanced through the machine, gradually revealing each page from top to bottom. Once the contract started to come through, Barbara and I sat and waited. Eventually after ten minutes, on page four, what we had been seeking: Salary - $60,000 per annum, plus accommodation and travel expenses. Great! And free of UK income tax too, due to the expatriate status of the job. Also, three business class holiday return flights home every year. Everything appeared to have been considered. There was nothing in the contract to cause concern. My only worry now was perhaps that Poul and I would not get on. I would find out soon.
Typical of Poul’s administration, arrangements for Barbara and me to travel to London to meet him came through quickly. Poul had insisted that I bring my wife and that we would all meet up at Heathrow Airport. His secretary (whose name I have unfortunately forgotten) at Jahn International A/S headquarters in Copenhagen organised everything efficiently, booking our rail connections and hotel accommodation at the airport. We travelled down the day before Poul’s arrival, as he was due in on an overnight flight from Tashkent and planned to catch a midday flight to Copenhagen.
Yet another of my uncanny coincidences happened in London on the way to the airport. In the foyer of Kings Cross underground station I recognised the person exiting the escalator in my direction. It was one of the male secretaries with whom I had worked in Jubail. In our brief conversation, he told me that in the nearly twenty years since out last meeting, he had married and settled in Cambridgeshire. We shared a parting agreement about our Saudi Arabia sojourn: “Never again!”.
On arrival at the Heathrow Airport hotel, we were informed that it had been arranged that all our expenses, including any restaurant bills, were to be covered by the client booking the room (Jahn International A/S). We were not expected to pay anything. Our room window overlooked the main runway at the airport. Barbara and I spent a memorable and relaxing evening watching the nonstop queue of landing aircraft from our magnificent vantage point.
The following morning we met Poul. It simply could not have gone better. Even after an exhausting overnight flight from Tashkent, he displayed an energetic enthusiasm which I was to discover was so typical of him. If we had any doubts about the validity of his hastily offered proposal, these were quickly dispelled. Barbara and I both liked him immediately. A mixture of kindly uncle and mad professor.
Poul and I signed my contract and he hurried off to catch his flight, with a plan to meet up again in Tashkent in a couple of weeks. Barbara and I had a leisurely journey home, contemplating how everything had changed so fundamentally for us in such a short time.
My two years’ adventure in Central Asia was about to start.
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