Standing At The Crossroads

How can this ‘Ratcatcher To Entrepreneur’ evolve? From those humble beginnings of nearly seven years before, the hobby of being a DJ on the side, to a full blown job of 5 nights per week, plus a full time ‘day job’, how did I do it? In truth I felt I was ‘Standing At The Crossroads’ of my life having to make some long term decisions.
The skills and experience of DJing had given me access to some busy nightclubs in the city; have to say it was nice to see my name in ‘almost lights’. I loved entertaining and watching people enjoying themselves, it’s truly a wonderful experience.

Unfortunately me being the person who couldn’t ever say ‘no’ found myself in a position of taking on more and more work. My working day ran something like this; wake up at 6, go to work, start at 7, finish at 5, go home, leave home at 8 to go to the club, start at 9, finish at 1, go home, wake up at 6.... etc, etc. Sometimes I wouldn’t need to start at the club until 10, however in these cases it would run through until 2 in the morning, those were particularly punishing!

The strain of this was starting to show and it would be only a matter of time until something had to give. At around the same time I had also visited the local radio station and had a meeting with the Station Controller – David Bassett. To this day I can still remember him saying ‘your voice was too light in timbre and you should go and does some hospital radio work’. This never dampened my enthusiasm, it only galvanised it to keep moving forward.

At the same time I met a girl (whom I would eventually marry) at the club I worked. She was the ‘busty barmaid’ (her words not mine). Ironically, the first thing that attracted her to me was my voice! So that just goes to show what do Station Controllers know, lol.

With love in my life this was going to have an influence on my decisions and career path. At that time I simply did not have the self belief to pursue a life as a DJ, and to jettison my ‘day time’ job for good. You may call it indecision, that was just the way it was. At that time I did not know but it would pay a significant part in my next career move which was just around the corner.

I was standing at the crossroads of my life. Looking back on it now it all adds up to life experiences. Certainly, I ‘may’ have prolonged by DJing career by various means, but probably I instinctively knew I could do more with my life. Simply there are no wrong decisions, just different ones and it would be no good thinking of ‘what might have been’. It is more important to think of ‘what will be’.

Broadening My Horizons

As the 1980’s kicked in my services became more in demand and not just under the guise of ‘Dr Hall’. I was now gaining bookings from a variety of sources and broadening my horizons. So by day I was a Technical Officer for the Trading Standards Department and by night something completely different, not quite a Klark Kent and I didn’t need a phone box to change in.

During this time I was also learning to drive, my confidence was sky high about passing first time and fully believed I would, however life as you know occasionally puts in things to trip you up and that I certainly did. In fact, it took 3 times! There were periods with this I thought I would never pass but constantly battled with myself and each time I failed I took it as a test and just brushed myself off and focused on the next test, I was determined!

On the day of the third examination (19th Feb 1981) I had a heavy cold and wasn’t feeling too good, I didn’t mind not being well and in a strange way it took the edge off me and I was really relaxed. The test itself flew by and with it a ‘pass’ certificate was winging its way to me.

From passing my test this made it so much easier to run my business, the next target was to buy a van to complete my independence. I was and am very fortunate in the way of having a brother whom wheels and deals in cars and managed to buy a Ford Transit at a knock down price of £255 (instead of £500). I was so proud of my first vehicle even though it regularly ‘locked’ in gear, was painted using coach paint and whilst it was drying a downpour reacted with the paintwork. To top it all when I was driving it and it rained water would pour in the drivers cab via the wheel arches, so the only way to stop getting wet feet would have been to have worn wellingtons. All this simply didn’t matter as it was mine, bought and paid for!

Looking back on those times reminds me that I still have the same determination and focus now and not to be put off by things that can sometimes get in the way. These qualities have helped in all of my business ventures. That’s how life is and drawing on that experience helps to broaden one’s horizon.