2000 - 2001

Moving on, let’s hit 2000. I was becoming quite restless at my work. I’d been at SCRI for 17 years and had been moved into graphics, which was fine but not what I wanted to do. I’d built up a successful wedding photography business, part time, and had a decent amount of bookings for the next three years, maybe not enough to have a lavish lifestyle but enough to live on and work towards such a lifestyle. I enquired about taking redundancy as there were always opportunities but this time it wasn’t worth my while. I was advised to wait a year so carried on building the wedding business while working at SCRI.

Let’s get into some juicy stuff as this is where it all gets interesting.

I can’t remember exactly when but Sandra had met a chap at work, Vic, who’s cat had just had kittens (proper kittens, not the kind Sandra was starting to have, considering the mess she was in). I was sitting in the house one evening, a Thursday I’m certain, watching the TV premier of Starship Troopers. Sandra was upstairs reading. As I watched the invasion force deployed to Klendathu to battle the Arachnids, the house phone rang and I answered. It was Vic, obviously drunk, and crying, looking to speak to Sandra. I humoured him for a bit then told him where to go. When I went to bed I quizzed Sandra over why he might be calling. She said something like ‘Och, he’ll be sitting in a pub lonely and drunk’. Now when you’ve been with someone for over twenty years you know when they’re lying and, believe me, I know when Sandra is lying. In fact it’s more difficult to tell when she’s not. Being with someone for over twenty years you get to know, just like her mum did. She has a habit of beginning her lies with a dismissive ‘Och’. It may be a nervous thing. I was looking out for her lies though as I had suspected something was going on as she had been coming home late from work in the mornings, giving excuses of road blockages, diversions and snow. ‘Och there was a diversion’, ‘Och there was a road block’, ‘Och the snow was thick and I had to drive slowly’. Och, Och, Och. Not only that though, Vic’s partner eventually started calling me asking me to keep Sandra away from him. She’d been following them, finding them parked up in secluded areas. These calls carried on for months. It was a deviation from her form of the past though, given that Vic wasn’t the partner of a friend of Sandra, which was a change of tactic. Probably a lesson learned from the bad experience several years earlier.

Early 2001, I went to see our personnel manager again as suggested in 2000. This time I was offered much, much more. Given the continued success I was having with the weddings this was an opportunity to grasp. And I did. I started working my one month notice. Things were to get much better though. I was sitting at my desk eating lunch one day, flicking through the British Journal of Photography and saw an advertisement for a portrait studio franchise. This was a company I’d read about several years prior and I realised it was a growing company. I applied and was offered an interview down at the flagship studio in England. From the few hundred who applied I was one of four chosen to open one of the studios. This was a fantastic opportunity and one that, as a couple and then as a family, had never come our way. We’d been married for nineteen years and for the first time we’d been given an opportunity, not only to make a comfortable living, but to put serious amounts of money in the bank, giving us a very secure future. An opportunity that would take Sandra to the same level, and in some cases beyond the level, of the ‘affluent’ friends she obviously aspired to.

But she screwed up. She’d been so desperate that her aspirations took her beyond basic hard work and, well, beyond petty theft. She well and truly screwed up and, to put it politely, fucked her family over.

I was delighted at the opportunity we were handed but, when I told her of the good news, Sandra greeted it as if I’d got a job wrapping individual sweeties in paper. Flat. And for good reason too. Not only was she flat, she was fearful.

All will soon become apparent.

Let’s talk for a bit about the studio franchise and the opportunity that came our way after lots of hard work by us both and Stephanie who also assisted at the weddings.

I initially wanted to base the studio in Dundee but, given the poor economy here compared to larger cities my business partner, one of the franchise owners, suggested the place to make a considerable amount of money was in England, particularly the larger cities. My business partner had lots of experience here. I was offered Newcastle as a site to open. I had a think about it and asked if I could have Sheffield, one of the largest and most densely populated areas in England, taking in Doncaster and Rotherham. Also a very affluent area. It was an area reasonably familiar to us all as a family, one of Sandra’s closest friends living there, an added bonus being her husband wasn’t Sandra’s type.

Sandra refused to grasp the opportunity.

This was a fantastic opportunity. I was being offered one of the best areas in the UK to start the business. Let’s put this into perspective. Keep in mind I started with the franchise in May 2001 and finished in November 2006. Five years, not a long time. Had we taken the opportunity I’d have opened the studio by September or October of 2001, just as my training colleagues did. As a family we’d have started house hunting, maybe taking six months to a year to find a house and sell our house in Inchture. Schooling wouldn’t have been an issue. The English studios were flyers. Had we moved I’d have earned at least £75,000 per year. At SCRI I was earning £18,000 in 2001. Over five years, given that I’d still left the franchise in 2006, we would have banked £195,000, taking into account dividends. Now, a studio with that level of profit would be worth around £1.2 million. That would be another £600,000 in the bank on selling my share. A total of £795,000 banked over five years is pretty good business. Had I stayed at SCRI I’d have earned a lot less. A lot less. When I took on the franchise I was looking at family security. Why would Sandra refuse to move house when given an opportunity for such a huge improvement in lifestyle? A huge investment in our family? An opportunity that would give lifelong security. A mortgage paid off and money in the bank. We’d spent nineteen married years struggling and then we get this huge opportunity that Sandra refuses. It was a no brainer for me. Of course it was a decision for both of us to make but who in their right mind would refuse such an opportunity? It wouldn’t have been an easy move but right now Adam, Stephanie and Sophie would all be more than appreciating it, given they all struggled to build deposits for mortgages, something Sandra and myself didn’t have to do as we bought our house during the Thatcher years. Even if I’d hit half of the figures forecast we would still have banked almost £400,000 in the short period I was with the franchise. Nineteen years and barely a decent holiday. Five years in England and lifelong security. No brainer.

So why would Sandra refuse such an opportunity? Why have absolutely no foresight nor care for the future security of her family. We’ll get to the reason for that and her reluctance to move home shortly.

Let’s get on to more juicy stuff though. Many of you who watch soap operas on telly may be familiar with the type of scenario you are about to peruse.

When I bought my photography equipment, several years earlier, to carry out photographing weddings, I funded it using 0% interest credit cards. I bought the equipment using a credit card with six months 0% finance. Once the six months was up I would take another out and then another until the equipment was paid off at no extra cost via interest, transferring the balance each time. I never used the cards for other purchases and once they’d served their purpose stored them in a drawer in my desk. In 2001 I noticed my statements started coming through printed on plain white paper, rather than the corporate designs of the bank the credit card belonged to. I never took much notice of my statements as I never used the cards. I’d started my training with the studio franchise by then so was only home from Thursday to Saturday weekly. One of the days I was home the mail came through the door and Sandra made a beeline to get it and took an envelope addressed to me. She stuck it in her pocket and acted as if it was a joke. She eventually gave me the envelope, which was a statement but I didn’t take much notice, as I had no suspicions at the time, and filed it. Eventually an original statement did come through and by chance I got it before Sandra did.  I did have a good read of this one as there were a fair amount of transactions on it and the account was in debt. I called the credit card companies and asked them to send me all the originals, which they did. Looking at the transactions on the originals I realised they were made at ATMs throughout Perthshire. All places Sandra was working in nursing homes. There were also amounts made to catalogues such as Freeman’s. I confronted her and she admitted to using the cards. It amounted to £5000 of fraud. Rather than report it I paid it off for her and put it behind us.

What she had been doing was intercepting my mail, taking the credit card statements, cutting out the parts where her fraudulent spends were, taping the statements back together, photocopying them and putting them back into the envelopes for me to open.

Let’s have a little break from the fraud for a bit as I’d like to address the period that included Sandra’s fortieth and me starting my training with the studio franchise. Now Sandra had claimed that her close friends and at least one of her sisters got together to pay for a holiday away to Spain for her fortieth. My first week of training with the studio franchise coincided with Sandra’s holiday to Spain. It was the first time we’d all, as a family, been separated. I stayed in a wee bed and breakfast along from the training studio, on the top floor and tried to contact Sandra on the day she was to have returned from holiday. There was never a response. When I arrived home on the Thursday she gave me a bottle of wine and a leather belt she ‘brought home’ but couldn’t look me in the eye.  She made the excuse that I couldn’t contact her as they’d all managed to secure an extra day’s holiday. Now when was the last time a holiday company allowed that to happen? I believe she went away with Vic and not her friends. If she did go with friends, I believe on her return she went and stayed with Vic until I came home from Shipley, dumping Adam, Stephanie and Sophie at their grandparents (the ones they have all ignored in their most difficult times). Something to bear in mind, by the way, is that most of the friends she claims spent a considerable amount of money to take her on holiday are now former friends.

My pattern of work while training in England was to drive down on Saturday evening and back on either Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. While I was away it turned out Sandra was dumping Adam, Stephanie and Sophie with their grandparents, whatever ones were handy,  and having days out with Vic. I know this as I was in the training studio one day and received a call from someone very close to Sandra, telling me what was going on. It was shortly after this that I started receiving calls from Vic’s partner.

Isn’t it ironic that Adam, Sophie and Stephanie have turned their backs on their grandparents during very difficult times and yet their grandparents dropped everything to look after them whenever Sandra asked. On this occasion it’s a shame their grandparents didn’t known what she was up to.