Chapter 10

Andrew revisited the things he didn’t understand very well a lot more than the things that he did. Compared to an accountant or someone with a lot of financial sophistication Andrew’s explanation of how he made and invested money must have seemed superficial and incomplete. But this aspect of his life was something that did not come naturally to him, in part because this was as much psychology and human nature as it was financial planning or investing. His thoughts about money continued to grow and evolve. The main tutor was Doug Somers, the acerbic and bitter investment manager that was one of the investors with Andrew, Brian and two others in the fund they used to invest in individuals. But it was Doug who talked about what they were trying to achieve and it was Doug who regularly made them face up to unpleasant facts, however much they wanted to wish them away.

Scotland’s industrial heritage was in shipbuilding, heavy engineering, locomotive engineering, coal mining and steel foundries. The near 40 years since the end of WW2 had decimated a lot of this industry and those heydays were never to return. Doug had won a convert in Leslie and she was adamant about the Endowment Trust supporting and developing new industries as opposed to old ones. The three days in March 1984 laid the foundations for what they were trying to achieve and also served as examples of what they could not achieve.

The Trust had £5.4m to invest and had managed to invest a mere £120,000 in December. Andrew remembered their initial challenge was to find suitable companies or groups to invest in. There were too many deluded people wanting to resurrect what was never coming back. They all met in Drummond’s boardroom on Queen Street in the New Town of Edinburgh. At the meeting were Andrew, Leslie and Julian, his dad, Brian Campbell, Doug Somers, Mhairi Connelly and Creighton Davies. Leslie ran the meeting.

“Mhairi and Creighton have created an Endowment Trust with a broad and purposefully vague set of objectives. We have received £2.4m from 41 individuals all of whom read the prospectus and signed off on endowing the money to the trust. Julian, Andrew and I all contributed £1m each and are the three trustees of the fund. The offices of the fund are in our building in Duncan Street. Creighton already works there and we have a receptionist to take messages. It is about 10 weeks until I finish my final exams and then I will be full time there as well.

“You have in front of you details of the investments we have made so far, just the three of them, together with all of the applications for investments. Even if we were to fund all the proposals, and I am sure that we will do no such thing, it will come to less than £1m. Currently there is a dearth of decent investment proposals. You will see what I am proposing to do with £2m of the money in the meantime. We also have to figure out the structure of the computer company if we are still thinking about restarting such a venture.”

Here Leslie paused and Julian and Andrew looked at each other.

“Don’t look at me, you are the one that wants to marry her.”

Unfortunately his sotto voce wasn’t sotto enough and Andrew was whacked for his trouble. Some things never changed. It was at this point that they got another lesson from Doug. There were several proposals for restaurants in front of them. Doug talked about how many restaurants fail within five years of being established. Those numbers were controversial but it was not just the failure of a new restaurant that he was talking about. He also talked about displacement. If the Trust invested in a restaurant, for example, and it was successful then there would be an effect on the local competition. And if five restaurants are doing well in an area and they supported the opening of a sixth, it could be that the market expanded sufficiently to allow six restaurants to thrive but it is more likely that the customers would be spread over the six and nobody makes any money, or very little, or even more likely that one of the other restaurants would close.

“Look, if we run a better restaurant and the customers vote with their feet and wallets then that is capitalism working and I don’t care. But if you want to increase employment then all you are doing is moving jobs from one restaurant to another and the economy is no better off. That is before you even consider any of those individual proposals to see if they have a plan to run a profitable business. It doesn’t mean that you can’t invest in a new restaurant but be aware of the pitfalls.”

And that became their biggest roadblock. Trying to figure out how to help without making it worse. They were going to make mistakes and lose a lot of money on some of the investments. It was the nature of the business. Doug was relentless, he needed to be and the three of them would have failed horribly without his hard-earned experience. He always talked to them about the fact that they were not and could not pick winners. Linwood was the example he used most frequently. The government for political reasons placed the car factory to the west of Glasgow. Well they didn’t place it but pressured the company, provided incentives, things like that so that in the end a car factory was built in Scotland. The entire rest of the company and all its supply chain were in the Midlands of England. Poor quality and unreliable cars meant fewer people bought them, the company lost money and the factory closed less than 20 years later.

Andrew thought about that example a lot because those three days they talked themselves round in circles. There were a bunch of proposals that seemed well thought through, had a decent business plan, and most importantly were in a growth sector of the economy, oil and gas. About two thirds of those proposals were approved. But they were the easy ones. The Trust invested in two hotels, a brewery in Falkirk or Alloa, somewhere in central Scotland. They also funded an expansion of the EEC farming consultancy which had already seen strong growth with the potential for even more. But they spent a long time on four specific areas.

Leslie had put forward two proposals to use some of the investment funds. They would use the return from part of the fund for grants for post-doctoral research students at universities in Edinburgh. She had calculated they could support eight researchers with the return from £1m. Given that they had no opportunities for these funds the money was not the issue but there was a long discussion about what the point of this was. This was Leslie’s baby.

“I have spent many hours with Doug, he has been incredibly generous with his time and I have learned so much. What I have taken on board is that he thinks that the bedrock of the Scottish economy for the last two hundred years is gone, and it is not coming back. He has also drummed into me, and here today, all of us, that we can’t pick winners. Funds such as ours survive by spreading the investments around and making an outsize return on one or two of them to cover all the losses on the rest. I have just taken this one step farther. I am proposing that we invest in research. Now I know that I will create a bunch of work for Mhairi in these deals so that we get a piece of the action if something gets commercialised from the research that we support. But in some ways I don’t care, I just want someone smart to think about inventions, industries, jobs of the future. It is a drop in the ocean, this is eight researchers for three years but if we want to invest in companies that have a future then we have to also be seen to be supporting research that creates these companies in the first place.”

And this was not the only thing that she wanted to do at a foundational level. The next one was even more out there.

“I also want to support the teaching of science in schools, in areas where it is underfunded. I want to outfit 15 old buses or coaches and create mobile science labs. Set up a program where they are at schools or community centres both morning and afternoon to encourage pupils to think about science. I want kids who didn’t have the opportunity that the three of us did, to have a chance as well.”

This was treading dangerously close to the work of government. But Andrew saw what Leslie was trying to do. Give pupils the opportunity to explore science and nurture that passion. Support brilliant minds as they extended their research to the point where there may be a commercial opportunity. And then on top of both of those layers, invest in companies to allow them a chance to succeed in the market.

And do you know what, it worked but not in the way that they ever thought. The school’s science program took a long time to get set up and running smoothly, there were education authority issues, union issues, local government issues, the press were all over it as well, the whole thing seemed like one step forward two steps back half the time. But Leslie and a dogged administrator that she hired overcame them all and for 15 years the program ran in the original three cities, Glasgow, Newcastle and Edinburgh. Finally, the focus on STEM in education made what they were doing redundant and the program was quietly wound up. They kept the administration down on all the programs, which meant they didn’t try and keep track to see whether anyone who came through the program went on to win a Nobel Prize or anything like that. But that program together with the support for fundamental applied science at university departments across the city meant that the CMS Endowment Trust had a reputation. And no it was not as naïve do-gooders but rather as an organisation that stuck to its principles and did what it could. It supported science teachers in schools and it supported university departments as well. So when a promising new start-up was looking for funding most of them came to the Trust for some of their funding. And as the space got ever more crowded the Trust was still involved. They spent 30 plus years supporting the Scottish scientific community and reaped the benefits over those same 30 years. Were there times when it did not seem worth it, of course there were. It all came down to the key point that the three of them agreed upon years earlier. They were going to try and make a difference, and they spent the money to prove it. They worked with what they had and tried to do the right thing, as they saw it. As you can imagine these two proposals took them all by surprise but they were approved for a three-year trial run.

Andrew had walked to Drummonds so cadged a lift up to Tony’s shop from Julian. Of course when he entered the shop there was no sign of Tony, just Stacey. Andrew mentally shrugged. If they couldn’t even talk about the shoot there was not much likelihood of it actually happening.

“Hi. As I am sure you are aware I was surprised last night when I heard about your request. Can we have a quick chat?”

Stacey tried to look calm, although that was fraying round the edges, and nodded.

“Maggie told me she had created an album that showed the progression of the poses. Rather than me presume what you want to do, why don’t you explain to me why you want to pose and how daring are they going to be?”

Andrew saw her swallow and take a deep cleansing breath.

“The why is easy, I want to see what it is like. I have worked here since before the kids were borne. At first I kept quiet and didn’t ask about the women turning up at the end of the day on a Friday. But over time it came out. People like Maggie popping round during the day, you know what she is like, happy to chat about anything. I had learned that the Friday night sessions involved nude modelling but it was only once I started speaking to the models that I came to understand why most of them did it. The perceived glamour, the allure, the sense of having a naughty secret. All these things, not just the money. So I would think about it but just in a ‘I wonder what it would be like’ sort of idea, I never thought I would have the nerve to do it myself. But one night I was lying in bed with Hamish watching some French movie. It was late at night and one scene had a model being photographed, and she ended up topless. We watched the movie and chatted afterwards. I had told Hamish about the camera club here and he was always joking that he was going to join. Suddenly out of the blue he asked me if I had ever wanted to model. He wasn’t angry or upset he was just interested. So after a bit of persuasion I confessed that I had daydreamed about the idea but had never really thought about it seriously. It became something that we chatting about in bed together. But then about two months ago, so it must have been just after Christmas, we were out and he told me that I looked fabulous. He is a real sweetheart and made some comment like you couldn’t tell I had three kids. Something like that. But later he said I should think about modelling, at least once. I think he said ‘live your dream’, some phrase close to that. I am 36 and managed to get back into decent shape after Ally was born. I figured that I wasn’t getting any younger and so it is all of that. I would like to get an album as a surprise present for Hamish. As to how far I want to go, I am a complete mess. I would like to think I could be topless and maybe even nude if carefully covered. But I also know there is thinking about it now but then when the moment comes could I stand there taking my bra off?”

Andrew remembered how June had been very gung-ho in the run up to her shoot but when the moment of truth came, had suddenly been very unsure.

“Why me?”

“The quick and easy answer is that you are not Tony. I couldn’t imagine posing for him. It would just be too weird afterwards. But Maggie talked you up, and I know you but only see you occasionally. I would also like my friend Elspeth to be there, to give me some support and encouragement.”

“Okay. I am here for another two weeks before I head back to university. I am busy this Friday night but how about we do the shoot after work next Friday. Then you can tell Hamish that you modelled on a Friday night. I am going to work with you and talk you through poses assuming that you want to get topless and maybe flash a bit of your bum. But I am not going to push you. If it just ends up as all tease shots and you keep your underwear on then I don’t care. I am also going to leave you to deal with Tony on the logistics of the shoot. I will be here at 5.30 a week on Friday and we will shoot from 6.00 to 8.00. Okay?”

Stacey swallowed again and nodded.

“And don’t stress about the shoot. This should be something to look forward to, as you said earlier, a naughty secret. If you change your mind it is not a big deal.”

Tony was getting ready for his workshop so they didn’t stand and chat. Andrew retreated to the darkroom and Tony told him that Maggie wanted to sit and chat to him while he worked. She arrived as he was hanging up the developed rolls of negatives from the gown shoot in January and was starting on the four rolls from the previous evening.

“Tony and I have been pretty bad about just focusing on photo shoots and not chatting to you about the rest of your life. Before we talk about the next two weeks tell me about some of the things going on in your life. You said you had business meetings today and the rest of the week, what were they about? Are you doing computing again? Or can you not talk about it?”

“No it is not computing.”

These were the type of conversations that Andrew felt uncomfortable with. He wasn’t ashamed about what they were trying to do, the exact opposite, but he always felt it was bragging. But, hesitantly at first, he talked about the Endowment Trust and what they were trying to do. Maggie took the news remarkably well.

“I was going to say that you constantly amaze me. But it was the singular you and it is not just you on your own but the three of you. It is quite the thing that you are trying to do. It also highlights what an odd life you lead, especially here in Edinburgh. Last night we sit and chat for hours, talk about the plans for the break and then we do a photo shoot. 12 hours later you are discussing investing tens of thousands of pounds, and yet here you are developing those pictures of me while chatting to me, a secretary for the Council who moonlights as a nude model.”

“One of the things that flits in and out of my mind is the sense of I don’t know how to behave at times. I know lots of serious important people yet I am still an 18 year old young man. So yes it is an odd combination but why not? In many ways the oddest thing about me is that I don’t drink heavily. I drink often and regularly at university but I have never seen the need to be blind drunk. Everything else is.”

Andrew stopped and marshalled the right words.

“I have been told that my life has no down time, no slack in it. And when I stop and think about it that is probably the oddest thing of all. So yes I am on break from university but I rarely sit around. The time that I spend with you and Tony is fun but it is also part of me growing up. I have learned a lot from Tony over the years. Like I said to you yesterday the time I spent talking to you when I was 15, 16 and 17 were hugely influential. I wouldn’t be modelling myself without having known you, and I wouldn’t be an amateur glamour photographer without you. I don’t get crazy drunk and I don’t watch television, I do other things instead.”