Persistence and travel rarely look romantic at the time, and as for sheer stubbornness… Leicester, Kinshasa, Jujuy — and the fine line between persistence and folly.

Kinshasa, Zaire (DRC). Photo: Jonnathan Tshibangu, Unsplash.

Strange people sometimes ask us: ‘If you were to be reincarnated as an animal, what animal would you choose?’ Of course, most people say a lion, or a golden labrador, or a Madagascan tortoise because they live for 300 years or whatever. Me? Well, therein lies the problem…

I have a strong suspicion that I am currently in my second life, and the only resemblance I can think of is …a mule. To paraphrase, that other strange quote people give ‘When life gives you lemons, make lemonade’, I must now decide what to do with this corporal mishappenstance. An aside, I know, but why lemonade? Surely vast pitchers of Gin and Tonics are preferable?

Of course, physically I don’t really resemble a mule, it’s more of a cerebral kind of gig. Over the course of my business and personal life, I have shown mulish stubbornness to remarkably beneficial effect at times. Let’s start at the beginning….

When we were 16 years old my best mate Andrew Neal and I decided we needed to get a summer job, make a bit of cash, impress the ladies we didn’t have. After doing all the pertinent in-depth research, we got on the 27 bus and headed intrepidly to Churchgate in Leicester city centre, and traipsed around the incumbent retail stores (Boots, WH Smiths, BHS, Littlewoods, you get the picture). Our wannabe acne-ridden Francis Rossi and flip-flop-adorned Bob Dylan persona were unfortunately too ahead of the curve for the doyens of Leicestershire fashion, and we returned dispiritedly home.

Of course, unless you are self-employed running drugs across international borders – illicit or prescription, I make no judgement there, this is strictly business – then being a mule is not particularly lucrative. But, voilà, as we drove down Queens Road (calm down, this is 1970s Leicester, not 1960s London), the Hoyes factory building hove into view on our right, and I thought well, one last attempt.

Besties, gizza job? Getting cultural with Andrew before Wembley, London, 1993.

Andrew, whose Dylanesque ideology did not extend to his own pocket declined to join me, but did say that if I got the job, I could give him 50% of my wages. My best mate should have gone into business at a very early age – and I should probably have reflected seriously on what constitutes friendship.

So, I hopped off the bus and went through the heralded gate to Hoyes’ lemonade and assorted fizzy drinks factory. Why heralded? Well, you’ve got to understand that to Leicester folk in the 70s, Hoyes was as Leicester as Walkers Crisps and Gary Lineker, Showaddywaddy and Engelbert Humperdinck. Nobody knew back then that King Richard III was buried under a car park. The soft drinks in Leicester pubs and shops were Hoyes, none of that new-fangled American stuff. Yes, it was a strange time.

Lo and behold, Hoyes just happened to have a vacancy for a driver’s mate, and so I had an immediate interview with a very pleasant Indian gentleman. I negotiated the harder questions (name, age, address) but stumbled at a question I couldn’t quite understand. A case of slight accent versus very untrained ear. After three attempts I realized it was a yes or no question, so went with no, which satisfied him enough to ask me to start on Monday. Score one for the mule.

What followed was an education. I was assigned to the lorry that delivered full crates of assorted sodas in enormous quantities to working men’s clubs, and reloaded the truck with crates of empties. We would do a lot of heavy lifting, five clubs a day, and at each one we would be offered a pint on the house. At the end of the day, the lorry would return to the depot with a mildly buzzed driver, Jeff; a sleeping 65-year-old assistant, Bert; and a totally ratted 16-year-old.

Moral of the story, if you want a job, bang away until you get one.

With mule, see the similarity? Calafate, Argentina, 1992.

My next tale of persistence also involved getting employment, my first proper job if you like. This time I was 22 years old, finishing at Bradford University, and ready to attack the world. Or more precisely, accept one of three jobs with accountancy firms, which would have meant three more years of hard studying, and a lifetime of pitying looks from anyone who had ever seen THAT Monty Python sketch.

So, one day I see a scrappy handwritten piece of paper pinned precariously to the Modern Languages information board looking for a French and German speaker. Aka, moi. I made the call and went to my first interview at the Norton and Wright premises on Kirkstall Road, Leeds. A non-descript door, attractive receptionist, very poor interview. Towards the end, they asked if I wanted to see the factory. Noblesse oblige and Eureka, in the same phrase.

The non-descript offices opened onto a huge printing and finishing plant, for instant lottery tickets. We wandered the floor amongst the hammering of printing machines and scything guillotines, the humming bustle of people and piles of printed matter in various stages of progress. These piles had names such as Hamburg, Ciskei, Barbados, Finland, Cameroon, Luxembourg, Cote d’ Ivoire. Magical names to me, living cultures which, hopefully I, with my years of language studies and wanderlust, could visit and explore.

Hmm, shame about the rather lack-lustre interview. At its end, I asked how the selection process would proceed and was told to call back at the end of the following week.

So next Friday I dutifully called. Brian Bateson, one of my interviewers, told me with an abject lack of enthusiasm that if I really wanted to, I could go over to Leeds for a second interview. The factory visit had kicked me into mule mode, so of course I was going to Leeds.

Getting mulish between two wonderful ladies, Kika Trossero and my mother, Buenos Aires 1992.

At times, life sometimes conspires against us, or more realistically, we conspire against ourselves. Until I got my first proper job, I had decided to stay in Bradford working at the bar in Pickwicks, a nightclub for students. A perfect job in many ways, I got paid very well in cash for working at a place I would be visiting anyway. The right side of the cashflow equation if you like. The owners Arthur and Sue were great, and enjoyed a drink, and twice a week they would lock the doors, and the staff would stay drinking until 7am, all on the house of course.

Unfortunately, the previous night had been of those lock ins. It had been an effort to make the phone call let alone go to the interview, but what can you do. Go swimming actually, but it didn’t wake me up. Drink coffee, nope. Aww man. Suit on, trudge to the station, and into battle.

Brian and Les Thorley were both present, as was Kevin Anderson, back that day from Cameroon. Kudos. The interview was awful; my brain would not work. Les pointed to a couple of advertising materials to test my German. Fortunately, he answered the first question himself for some reason, and the second one I just about got. The interview, if that’s what it was, finished sin pena y sin gloria. Les drove back to Walsall, and Brian and Kevin walked to their cars, me sheepishly tagging along.

At the gate, Kevin said that they were going for a pint and asked if I wanted to join them. Manna from heaven. We went to the Highlander, a wonderful tiny working man’s pub, and the pint kicked in, and we talked. One hour and five pints later, Kevin dropped me at Leeds station and told me to call on Monday.

That, as they say, was that. They were looking for someone who could speak the languages and handle himself socially. My insistence and the hour in the pub set me off on an adventure around the world which has still not ended. Thank you Hoyes – and Kevin!

So, another one on the board for the mule, the moral pretty much the same as the previous one, persist. Go one step further. Do not give up. In the words of Andrew’s hero, ‘Keep on keeping on’.*

Within two weeks of starting work, I was on my way to Germany. Incredible. Within a year I made my Liberian debut . Shortly after that, Brian picked up a serious heart disease on a trip to Sri Lanka and was sidelined totally for a long time. This stretched us terribly, and priorities were reassigned and I was given Africa.

Liberia was followed by Cameroon, and then Zaire. Contacts at Shell got us an opportunity in Madagascar and Mauritius, and Les decided to team Kevin and myself for this one. Following company policy, we added on a few other markets and went on a 3-week tour of Madagascar, Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, and Zaire, where things were not going well.

The real problem here was South Africa. Apartheid was at its height, and most African countries would not let you enter their territory if you had a South African visa in your passport. So, we both traveled on two passports. All good, until a conscientious security guard at Kinshasa airport discovered my second one. Convinced I was some kind of James Bond (or more probably Johnny English), he called in his superiors, my passports were confiscated, and the head of the military controlling security finally let me enter the country, with my two passports locked securely in his desk draw.

I went into full mule mode in Kinshasa – I was going to get out of there. The lottery was going badly, Kevin and I were understandably tired of each other after 25 days in each other’s pockets, and I had only one objective. Departure day arrived, and we drove to the airport.

On arrival in the taxi, a soldier attached himself to us. Unfortunately, a young child did likewise, which earned him a metal-booted kicking from the soldier. Kevin and I both looked away, in that situation there is nothing to say or do. We were in a world where the rules were different, and we were no one.

The soldier stuck with us, and we explained my situation and insisted on being taken to see the commanding officer. The soldier acquiesced, and led us to his office, which was open, uninhabited and featured a solidly locked draw. I went into full commanding French insisting that it was a matter of state importance and that if the soldier did not immediately give me my passports, I would bring a whole world of pain down on him. What pain precisely I have no idea; I was 25 and scared out of my wits. Not exactly Raymond Reddington.

Fortunately, the soldier’s imagination was far more vivid than my stark reality, and to Kevin’s and my amazement he gave a lock-splintering kick to the draw, and voilà, there lay my passports in regal peace. I thanked my somewhat violent guardian angel, promised I would pass on my compliments to his superiors, and we hurriedly made our way through security and migration, expecting at any moment to be called back.

Kinshasa survivors. With Kevin and Klaus Honsel, Aruba, 1993.

I have never been as relieved to get on a plane in my life, and Kevin wasn’t far behind. It was an extreme situation, in a very dangerous country. The Sabena air stewardess knew brought us a glass of champagne, and when we immediately pinged for another, she smiled and brought us a full bottle, subsequently collecting the empty one before take-off. Inflight safety is paramount. She will forever be, in my mind, the Florence Nightingale of Air Stewardesses.

The moral here? Often persistence is not enough. Insist, and show you are insisting. Sometimes it works.

Which inevitably brings me to my final example of mulish behaviour. We move from the sultry heat of Central Africa to the arid north of Argentina, and the province of Jujuy on the border with Bolivia.

In 1999, I was running the Subito lottery in Argentina, under the auspices of the Lotería Jujeña (the Lottery of Jujuy). We’d had a very successful year, and I realized now was the time to negotiate a contract extension. In countries as unstable institutionally as Argentina, you strike when you can. We presented an excellent case and all the formalities dealt with, I flew to Jujuy to sign the new contract.

As usual, following an excellent dinner with Cristian Vacaflor, a former President of la Lotería Jujeña and friend for over 35 years, I headed to the offices to put pen to paper. Cristian, then in his roll as Chief Auditor, received me, got me a coffee and went to tell the incumbent President, William Haquim, that I had arrived. William refused point-blank to receive me.

Did I mention that Argentina is unstable? William based his refusal on a visit from the Jujuy police launching an investigation into my company for money-laundering related to drugs trafficking. In other circumstances I could have laughed, the company didn’t have enough money to buy a washing machine. In these precise circumstances, the mule kicked in.

Cristian was in full shuffle-diplomacy, the more William refused to see me the more I refused to leave the building. Having accustomed myself to three hour waits for one-minute opportunities during my years in Africa, I had two books in my briefcase and studiously applied myself to my hobby of reading. In the end, a drained Cristian, feeling very much like a punch-drunk marriage guidance counsellor, told me that William had finally agreed to receive me, with the stipulation that he would not sign anything. Well, we’ll see about that.

You learn to take your wins whenever you can get them, no matter how small, so I followed Cristian to our master’s chambers. Now, William and I had our history, and whilst I doubt that he liked me, I knew he had a grudging respect for me. When I said ‘William, really, drugs and money-laundering?’. William looked me in the eye, nodded and launched into a diatribe about how could he sign a contract with a company which had just caused a police raid on his institution that very morning? Looking back now, I have a certain sympathy for his position, but sod that for a game of soldiers.

I responded, “William, come on, if we’d signed this yesterday, you wouldn’t blink an eyelid!’. Whereupon I received a surprise almost as big as that soldier’s boot flying into wood twenty years previously. William looked me in the eye, nodded and asked Cristian to fetch the lawyer. He simply instructed her to prepare the contract renewal backdated one day. William, I didn’t know you had it in you.

Within an hour everything was signed and I left for my favourite Jujeñan bar to see if I could equal my Sabena efforts. A worn Cristian soon joined me.

With Cristian, February 2026, 30 years on. Rosa Negra 1000, San Isidro.

The morals here, stand by your guns whatever. Use whatever earned leverage you need in a fair way. William and I had negotiated contracts before. We both knew it. I simply made that history count.

Now I must add some caveats here. As much as persistence and insistence can be wonderfully positive traits, I cannot ignore the annoying but pertinent fact that they have got me into worlds of pain on many occasions. Persistence in noble causes has brought me great reward, persistence in fanciful and frankly stupid causes, great ruin.

Discernment is a wonderful quality to have. To my knowledge, the mule doesn’t have it. Other animals do. So, it is important to surround yourself with an ample variety of other species, people who will look at things in another way, and in the face of your persistence, insist that you question why you are doing something.

I am lucky, I have several people like that I can call on. Unfortunately, not doing so has so often been folly of my own making. That said, I will not stop myself from doing something I really feel. No way. Forget discernment, follow your heart, even though sometimes you feel like David Coverdale. **

Enough seriousness. I never forgot the never understood question at my Hoyes interview, until one day, a long time after, it came to me. The pleasant Indian gentleman was asking me, ‘Do you have a police record?’. Good job I said no.

Actually, a doubly good job – come on, I was 16, and if I had understood correctly ‘Do you have a Police record?’ I would probably have said ‘No, I’m into Lynyrd Skynyrd and Status Quo, not freaking Sting!’ Blushes spared all round, me thinks.

• *Bob Dylan, ‘Tangled Up In blue’, from his album ‘Blood On The Tracks’.
• ** Whitesnake, ‘Here I Go Again’.