Or as Frankie Howerd would have put it, “The Prologue.”
I started making this record of events because, when it was all over, and indeed during the long roller-coaster ride that was the relatively short life of the sales promotion (and subsequently direct marketing) agency, Marketing Principles which I co-founded, I was aware that so much had happened to us – Harold Macmillan’s “”Events, dear boy, events” – that it really was worth committing to paper. I’ve written it mostly in the present tense, largely because I felt it made it flow better and come alive; but because it was composed retrospectively – eight years after the endgame and more than double that after the start of it all, I am acutely aware that, while everything here did actually happen (there is no fictional over-writing to pep it up), it almost certainly didn’t happen all in quite the order it has tumbled out of my defective memory.
As I progressed with it – having started and aborted it three times because I couldn’t get the shape and feel of it right – I’m also aware that my recent activities as small business coach/mentor/non-executive chairman have coloured some of the later contents: while its primary purpose was never didactic, I increasingly felt it worth commenting on lessons learned, in case it benefits any future entrepreneurs who feel like giving it a go. If by any chance you catch this online, you catch it in the final phase of production. Having failed miserably to generate interest from any of the mainstream publishing companies it was submitted to (or any literary agents either), I’ve decided to self-publish through the Hilltop Publishing moniker my long-suffering wife set up. The first paper copies will be on sale from June 1st 2012, alongside an e-book version.
If the people involved in this saga get into this, I have changed some of the names to protect the guilty, though not all; the innocent largely, though not exclusively, appear as they are/were. Anyone who knew us will easily be able to work out who’s who, in any event. If you don’t like the way you are portrayed, tough: write your own record of events as a rebuttal. If you worked for us and don’t appear – either at all or very much, compared to your contribution to the business – take it as a compliment. I have very much concentrated on the big events in that 12-year history which shaped it( and sometimes shook it to its core), and that means focusing on the heroes and villains in the piece. If I’d written this contemporaneously and included all the bit-part players along the way, and there were many who contributed hugely to our success, it would have ended up twice as long and far too rambling.
If you get into it and enjoy it, let me know: dave@hilltoppublishing.co.uk. If you dislike it, for whatever reason, keep it to yourself. I did it for me, not for you, and as I complete the last sentence before editing and publishing begins, the catharsis is complete.
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