THIS BE THE VERSE By Philip Larkin They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. They fucked me up, my Mum and Dad. They didn’t [...]

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TOO CLEVER BY HALF In January 1966 when I was ten years old, I started at boarding school in Taunton.    Taunton was chosen initially for my brother because of its proximity to where my Mother’s family lived in Dorset and Somerset so they could easily look after us in loco parentis when M & D were abroad, and bearing in mind the likely places my father would be posted when he came home to the UK, which briefly turned out to be Topsham in Devon, then Portsmouth in Hampshire. As children, we spent quite a lot of time on trains, planes and [...]

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GIRLS AND SUMS DON’T MIX Thankfully, the Secretarial Years were short. This was never going to work. Whose crap idea was this? Oh, mine. Oops! After leaving school at 17 with my dodgy and almost 100% useless “qualifications”, I was enrolled at a top London secretarial college, going by a very swanky name. Miss J was the principal, an ancient old duck. There were more rules, sigh. No trousers and no nail polish. Whilst I used to wear frocks in those days, Gentle Reader, I swear to you today that not a day goes by when I don’t wear both [...]

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PERFECTLY CORRECT BUT ABSOLUTELY USELESS A balloonist lands in the middle of a field and says to a passer-by “Where am I?” And the passer-by says “You’re in the middle of a field.” And the balloonist says “You must be an accountant!” And the passer-by says “Why yes, I am. How did you know?” And the balloonist says “Because the information you have given me is perfectly correct, but absolutely useless.” I started the “job “in July 1977 with the Chartered Accountants in Dulwich Village as PA/secretary to the two male partners, Mr H and Mr N. So that made [...]

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I DISCOVER MY INNER DEL BOY Not long after I accidentally started my accountancy business, I met a man at the big contract I where I worked with H. This man had qualified as a lawyer but had never really worked except when desperate for cash, and even then not very much and not for very long. A string of dying relatives leaving him money and overly fiscally-supportive girlfriends had protected him from the necessity of having to work for a living like the rest of us. His goal was to make money without working; he was ahead of his [...]

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THE WOO WOO YEARS woo-woo adj. concerned with emotions, mysticism, or spiritualism; other than rational or scientific; mysterious; new agey. Also n., a person who has mystical or new age beliefs. If you began this story at the beginning, you will notice I let slip my woo woo, new agey credentials in the sixth sentence of the very first chapter when I said my parents had apologised to me from beyond the grave. If you didn’t lob your laptop across the room at that point and dismiss me in a heartbeat and you are still reading, let me tell you [...]

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THE WILDERNESS YEARS “The Promised Land always lies on the other side of the wilderness.” – Havelock Ellis The first weekend after I sold my business we all went to New York for a holiday. I cannot remember how many of us there were, but a goodly clutch. We stayed at The Chelsea Hotel, and my room had once been lived in by famous British theatre director Peter Brook.   The Chelsea is both down at heel and glamorous; it’s notorious, it’s Rock ‘n Roll; home to Dylan Thomas when he died of pneumonia and Sid Vicious’ girlfriend Nancy when she [...]

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I USED TO BE AN ACCOUNTANT, BUT I’M ALRIGHT NOW I “got” coaching from the first moment I heard about it, since it was something I knew I had always done instinctively. Ever the optimist, I seem able to see right through people to see their diamond-like potential and see how brilliant and talented they are before they do, if they ever do, whilst teasing out and inspiring their best. One close friend, the CEO of an academic body, who knows me very well and who also knows what great coaching is at first hand in her own career, encouraged [...]

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THE WEALTH CREATION YEARS “The ability to manage the unexpected consequences of our choices and decisions is the real secret in investment success…On the basis of my experience, greater danger lurks in the temptation to chicken out when the going is rough and your precious wealth seems to be going down the tubes.” (A forward from the book, Stocks for the Long Run by Jeremy Siegel, McGraw Hill, 3rd edition, June 21, 2002) – Peter Bernstein This is where the story really begins, the story of my going from penury to philanthropy.   If you have cut all the other life-context [...]

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  Chapter 10 – The Financial Years 2008- Chapter 11 – The Gap Years 2011/12- Chapter 12 – The Philanthropy Years 2012-

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