Mending Lives

Jane_Houng: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jane Houng, and this is Mending Lives, where I'm talking with people from a patchwork of places. Some have had their lives ripped apart by loss, some are in the business of repairing others brokenness, but we're all seeking to make this world more beautiful.

Welcome to another episode of Mending Lives. In this one, I delve into a conversation with Nigel Perkis, a dynamic shop owner whose current life is as vibrant as this apparel. Nigel shares his journey from once managing a network of 300 shops up and down the UK to his retirement, the running of his own boutique, And his sharing of insider information to help less experienced retainers increase sales. More than just the tale of retail, this episode also includes Nigel's candid revelation about abuse at [00:01:00] school and his struggles with depression, offering invaluable insights for anyone seeking light in the darkest of days.

So, Nigel, I came into your shop a few days ago. So fed up of not having enough warm clothing because the UK is unexpectedly cold at the moment, and I walked into your shop and was just dazzled by the color.

Nigel: Well, color is the most important thing about my shop. Um, I'm now retired, and I spend a lot of time in my shop, and my shop is, is my life because it's the thing that I love to do the most. But I used to [00:02:00] sell to 300 shops across the country, and a lot of them would say to me, what do you sell in your shop, Nigel? And I'd say color, because there's not enough color in the high street and color attracts in colorful people and

Jane_Houng: Like me

Nigel: That's exactly what sells the stock that I have here because it's colorful.

Jane_Houng: And I'm looking particularly colorful, am I not. Because I am sporting one of the coats that I purchased here. It's multi colored. So vibrant. I feel like I should be on stage as part of Joseph and the amazing Technicolor dreamcoat.

Nigel: Well, the thing is, the color that you're wearing is very flamboyant. But I do lots of other color here. But it has to be color. Because that's what makes me different to the high street. And my market, you mentioned theatrical. My market is the theater here. I'm the closest shop to the [00:03:00] festival theater. And the same people that come to the theatre, go to the galleries, or they'll walk the walls here, uh, all of those things are colourful.

Jane_Houng: Interestingly, you are very close to the theatre, not on the High Street. Does that affect sales?

Nigel: Not at all. Um, in point of fact, if I was to pick this shop up and put it down into East Street in Chichester, which is the High Street, you wouldn't have even found the shop. Because my customers come from far away. I'm not saying that I don't sell to local people. I do. But I didn't set the shop up here to sell to local people. I set the shop up here for London. Lots of people said you need to open a shop in London. And I don't want to live in London. Um, so I opened it here because the Festival Theatre is the rehearsal theatre for London. And many things here are rehearsed first and they go to London. And the real [00:04:00] theatre buffs come down from London to see it at the Festival Theatre first. And then it goes to London. And I get a huge number of actors and actresses coming here because they've come down to see their friends performing. So it's, but if I put this in the town, I could only sell about 12 of the coats that you're wearing now. But I say this to everybody. The coat that you're wearing is the biggest selling coat that I have. And very often someone will come into the shop and say, I love this coat. And I wear it so often I've had lots of compliments. And I then say, and how many other people have you seen wearing one? And they say, I've never seen anybody wear it. Because I may sell 200 of them in a year, but that's tiny numbers in comparison to the high street, and I don't have a website, and I'm not planning on opening any branches, so this is what I do, and I have a lovely life because of it.

Jane_Houng: And [00:05:00] you're retired by choice. You are here every day.

Nigel: I left school, on the 19th of June, 1969. And I started work on the 22nd of June, 1969. And I've been working ever since. I love what I do. I've had a very varied life, but I wouldn't know what to do with retirement. I don't play golf I don't have a boat at the moment Uh, I really wouldn't know what to do with myself. So here it's a structure for me. I come here open the doors and I have people like yourself coming to see me because if you don't like color, and 60 percent of women will not wear color, they walk straight past my shop. But I didn't put it here for them. If I was to try and put clothes in for that sector as well, which is very well covered by the high street, I would lose my way. This is here, I put it here [00:06:00] purposely for the theatre because I see colourful people.

Jane_Houng: The shop's called Gorgeous and I'm feeling rather gorgeous, especially as I've just come back from London and had at least five compliments.

Nigel: There we are. Well, London, I mean, the problem is, I had 300 shops that I used to deal with. I didn't have one in Central London at all. I didn't have one in Liverpool, or Manchester, or Leicester, or Nottingham. All of those huge places. There's no individual shops in them. And in Central London now, if I was to open a shop, I would open it in Notting Hill. Why? Because that's where the visitors go. Anybody visiting from overseas will go to Harrods, which is the number one tourist destination. They'll have a look at Buckingham Palace, they'll take a whiz on the wheel, they'll go to a theatre, and they all go to Notting Hill because of the films. And that is where I'd open.

Jane_Houng: Can you believe it? In my [00:07:00] very colorful life, I worked in retail for a number of years, too. I was general manager of the Body Shop in Hong Kong and Macau.

Nigel: Amazing!

Jane_Houng: Met the inspirational Anita Roddick many times, the founder. I loved her product. I loved the ethics behind it. In many ways, it was the best job of my life and she lived quite close to here.

Nigel: Yes,

Jane_Houng: Isn't she?

Nigel: Yeah, she started here. But ridiculously, I'm now going to give you my view on the Body Shop.

Jane_Houng: Briefly, please.

Nigel: Very briefly. It was fantastic, but it didn't change. And the single thing that the body shop didn't do was introduce color. And along came the new company, Lush. Lush. Yeah. What is that shop?

Jane_Houng: Colour plus smell.

Nigel: It's colour. All they've done is they've taken the bath business away from Body Shop and [00:08:00] they've put that in. They've started going into sort of small skin care , but it's all about colour and smell and their staff are trained to take you around the shop and show you what they do. And it's a shame for Body Shop because Body Shop was so good, but it was too, I'm using Clinique, that's another company, but it's, it was too clinical for too long.

Jane_Houng: And, yes, that's interesting perspective on it. Um, certainly Anita Roddick was a very ethical person. She was, yeah. And, she loved the sourcing of natural products and things being made of natural products. But let's go back to color, because it's so interesting, isn't it? It is. I feel, I feel gorgeous in your coat. I'll say that one more time.

Nigel: And you look gorgeous darling.

Jane_Houng: Oh, thank you.

Nigel: You have a wonderful smile. You've got it. I think, I think more than anything, you want to be happy. People who are happy want to be happy. I don't want to be unhappy. So [00:09:00] therefore, even at times when I'm not particularly happy, I do things that are going to make happy. And if I can bring happiness to somebody else, that is happiness. Is what I love it when people walk out of my shot saying we've really enjoyed this experience because I've enjoyed it as well.

Jane_Houng: The power of colour.

Nigel: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: I mean, it's all there in the science, is it not?

Nigel: Yes, of course.

Jane_Houng: That colour is a vibration.

Nigel: Yep.

Jane_Houng: Um, so, yellow, for some, the scientists have proven, physiologically, we feel happier. We feel more creative if we're wearing yellow. Whereas if we're wearing blue, or seeing blue, it's not just about clothing. Blue is a calming color. Green has healing energy.

Nigel: All of the color that you see, if you look at the walls in my shop here, there is the sun. And then I put lime in the shop because that is a bright color. [00:10:00] But the biggest color that I, I would sell in this shop, and I'd make sure that I always have it, and it's difficult to get hold of things that are, is orange. Because orange, the high street would never do orange. And I do orange because it's a sun color. And, uh, I could do blacks and a lot more navy and loading greens and things like that, but why? Everybody else is doing that. So I would be interested in color. Color is happy.

Jane_Houng: As you know, I lost a daughter in a particularly tragic way. Her favorite color was orange. And. She was a very stylish dresser. She was known for what she wore. She was, she was rather original in her choice. But orange was a color she particularly liked, and I've used the color orange . And one thing I want to ask you about is black, because [00:11:00] I've written my memoir and I remember writing that for at least six months after I got the news. I Didn't have the energy to wear any color, but black.

Nigel: Well, that black has its place. And I'm talking about my shop here, but I'll very quickly see if I can answer that question as well. The reason I don't do black is because the high street does. And I'm, why am I going to take space in my shop to try and, , put something in my shop, which is only the same as you can go down into the town and buy there. Um, however, there are certain garments that I buy that are reversible. And if it reverses to black, that's perfect. I, this shop, my, my market in this shop is 50 plus, , I'm not saying that I don't sell the garment that you're wearing today. I, about three or four weeks ago, , a young lady [00:12:00] came in with her father in tow. Of course, I am, I was known him. I didn't find this out until a couple of years ago, but I was known as the wallet in my shop. And my daughter would ask her friends and they said, well, I didn't know this sounds expensive. I'll have to ask the wallet and I was known as the wallet. But as far as now, I've gone off piece there. Let me just what was I talking about?

Jane_Houng: Just quickly about black. Never mind.

Nigel: No, no, it's just as far as black is concerned. There is a place. Oh, that's what I'm going to say. I have a lot of ladies that come in here. And they are, they're actually looking for something to wear to a funeral. Because they feel like a funeral. I help them. I do because I, I know everybody has an experience of death and loss. Maybe not as close appalling. I haven't lost a child, so I can't imagine that. But I do [00:13:00] know about loss, and actually what people want is they want to be lifted. I'm not going to sell them a coat like you're wearing today to go to their husband's funeral. That, that would be wrong. But I can do something a little bit more tastefully and they often come back in and thank me and they put their arms around me and say, thank you for what I did when I, and it isn't, I am a feeling person. That's it. That's why I'm doing this. If I could, if I could, pass on or share me. I would have had a hundred of these shops across the UK and I'd be a rich man. I cannot delegate. Nobody can do it as well as me. And that is what holds me back. But it's fine. I accepted that years ago, that I would have a good life. I would be comfortably off, but I'd never be a rich man, because a rich man has 10 of me out there doing it for him.

Jane_Houng: Well, I look at you, and you look so healthy and [00:14:00] energetic. And, I do believe that everyone has to suffer some form of loss at a certain stage. And ultimately, you have a choice. I mean, whether to wear black for the rest of your life or whether to think, right, I'm going to, I need to uplift myself. I need to look at the bright side of life I I see a lot of people in England wearing dark colors you referred to that as I was shopping here. So right Nigel, I mean people are down aren't they the economy's poor? They're suffering, you know the cost of living. I know i'm generalizing.

Nigel: But a lot of people don't want to be looked at and that's why the high streets stick to plain colors. So the high street, it caters for them. Um, the high street will only ever cater for a body shape. And a tube shape is a lot easier to sell than the shape that you're wearing now. I pick my customer [00:15:00] and I try to put them in something that is going to suit them, that they're going to love. Not, not like, I love. I'm not a like shop. People come into my shop and they love it. And there you go. And I'm, I feel blessed with that. But. I, I have to say, just going back to a little thing, and that is, um, I, I've suffered from depression, uh, in my life, uh, and I, I actually, I say I've suffered from it. I've, I've stopped suffering from it. I accepted it completely about 20 years ago. And I live comfortably with it now.

Jane_Houng: How did you manage to do that? May I ask very relevant? Yes Mending lives because if you have a story that people can listen to and and and it can help.

Nigel: I have never recorded anything like this today. Uh, but I have shared and I have a lot of people that come into the shop and some of them will mention depression and I [00:16:00] talk to them about it I have, I have no problem in talking about it, uh, at all. The biggest possible thing that you can do, and it's the most difficult thing to do, it's the, you have to accept it.

Jane_Houng: Yes.

Nigel: And when you, don't fight it, because if you fight it, you're going to make it ten times worse. You accept it. Once you accept that this is what you've got. And then I, all I want to do is I want to make myself better. Um, the depression that I had, which I'm not going to talk about , the origins, except to say that I went to a boarding school. And yes, the worst things happened to be there. And it took a, a lot of my time. I, my feeling if I was writing a book about this is very simply that, people that come out of child, uh, molestation or whatever you call it, people who come from there. They're not suffering from it in the, in 17, 18, 19, not even [00:17:00] 30, at the age of 35. I think that they've probably come to the point in their life where they've done every single thing that they're going to do except die, and they start looking backwards. And when they start looking backwards. That is when they that the past catches.

Jane_Houng: And that's the mind. That's the way the mind works. Does it not? these traumatic incidents and events we put to the back of our minds into the subconscious and get on as you said with it with the process of making your life building your career family and everything but it's it's always there. It's like a seed

Nigel: To me I I put it like this, I think everybody is born with a pint glass full of nerves and if you have a happy childhood, you go into adulthood [00:18:00] with probably 80 percent of that glass full of nerves there if you're molested as a child and you've lived that and you've no help from you've had a very difficult relationship with your parents because

Jane_Houng: Control about that kind of thing.

Nigel: You can't talk about that, but and they couldn't talk about anything I mean, I can't remember my father ever putting his arm around me or ever he both of my parents were they were mother and father not mom and dad. And they, that is, that, that's how it was. So , what happens is that , you get through to that adulthood. And if you've had a, a reasonably happy upbringing, you go into life with an 80 percent full pint glass full of nerves. If you've had a difficult childhood, , you're, you've used up your nerves. So, of course life is like that, but the way that I look upon it, and this will take one minute, but it's worth it.

Jane_Houng: Please.

Nigel: Um, I look upon it as though you've got a haversack [00:19:00] on your, on the back, of your, of your back. And, um, Well, as you go through life, the things that are the most difficult that you cannot face, it's a rock that you put in the haversack and that haversack gets ever bigger, sorry, ever heavier. And everybody fights, everybody. My biggest fear as a child is that I was going to end up, um, in the loony bin.

Jane_Houng: Yes.

Nigel: That is, that was my biggest fear. Well, that's what happened to me. Because, actually, I had so many rocks in that haversack, and I'd fought it for so long, I was bent over like Yoda, uh, and eventually I fell. And you cannot start getting better until you've broken down. You have to break down, because then you're lying on the floor. There is nothing else that you can do. And I was hospitalized, so I ended up in an asylum. And it was only when I was in the asylum that I actually [00:20:00] understood the word asylum. And asylum is a wonderful word, because you are in that hospital. And it's all for you. It's everything that you're going to get back.

Jane_Houng: It's a sanctuary.

Nigel: It's a sanctuary.

Jane_Houng: It's a place of peace.

Nigel: Right.

Jane_Houng: Security. Unless you're drugged. I mean.

Nigel: Well, the saddest thing about it is that on both occasions, and I haven't been hospitalized for 20 years, I, if it were to happen again, I would accept it. I would accept that, but I don't need it now. Um, my depression is, , it comes and goes. It does. And I just know when I have it.

Jane_Houng: What do you do?

Nigel: It's not going to last.

Jane_Houng: Ah, yes.

Nigel: It won't last. So, even if you, it's the most simple thing in the word , and you'll learn this if ever you've been hospitalized. You do a graph, and you go Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and you go from eight o'clock in the morning, hourly, through to the end of the day. And you mark on that chart where you are between one and ten. One is, [00:21:00] I've actually just jumped off the building, and I'm on my way down, and ten euphorically happy. And it's absolutely amazing, if you do that, four days, four to five days, and you will, nothing will have changed, but your spirits will have lifted.

Jane_Houng: And maybe, as you said, you've learned to live with it. I'm very interested in a Zen Buddhist concept of where you feel pain in your body and the only way out of it is to sit with it. Just focus on where it is. Focus, you know, if it's your heart or stomach or whatever. There will be a place where your trauma has lodged. And if you relax with it. Breathe into it. It does dissipate and that sounds fairly similar to your [00:22:00] experience.

Nigel: It does. I mean, I can remember the first time that I was admitted to a hospital. Uh, I hadn't slept for 16 nights. And when I say I hadn't slept, I mean, I went to bed every night. And. I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't sleep and I didn't sleep a wink for 16 nights. So you can imagine how I'm feeling. And I had, I broke down. I ended up in the hospital. I was being admitted by a very kind psychiatrist. And he listened to my story, which was very brief at that time because my book is vast now. At the age of 18 or 22 or 23, you have a small book. But by the time you get to my age, which is 71, you've got a very large book. And, uh, I, this very kind man said to me, after listening to me, he said, Nigel, um, you have to understand that you're thinking too much.

Jane_Houng: [00:23:00] Um.,

Nigel: You're just not thinking the right things. And I leapt across the room. I almost had him by the throat saying, of course, I, of course, I'm not thinking the right thing. And that he was, and he had a couple of nurses there who were sort of holding me back, if you like, not that I had any intention of hurting anybody. But it's very easy to say to somebody, well, you've got to accept this and you've got to learn to float with it. It needs more than that. I'd only been speaking to this man for two minutes, but I, after listening to what he said, I then, I actually slept because I was chemically sleeping for two or three nights. But that's better than no sleep at all. Believe me. Um, within two weeks, I left that hospital and I was eating well, but I'd spent the last three or four days counseling other people [00:24:00] telling them about my experience and they and I had a whole crowd around me listening to what I was saying because they looked at me and thought, he can't possibly have depression. He can't possibly have this. He can't possibly have that.

Jane_Houng: And you found a remedy. And, yeah, and you're saying that it was the kindness of that psychiatrist.

Nigel: Very kind.

Jane_Houng: And one thing that has really helped me through my journey is the kindness of strangers. And there's something, a phrase from a poem that is lodged in my mind. It's: until you know, what kindness really is, you must lose things.

Nigel: The world that we live in today is we listen to the news, and either on the radio or on the television, and it is all bad. Even the things that they finish the program with a little light thing, it, pathetic. Uh, as far as I'm concerned, we're sitting in here today. If you walked out of this shop and you tripped over on the pavement, You'd have [00:25:00] six people trying to pick you up. I firmly

Jane_Houng: Is it the code?

Nigel: Because of people.

Jane_Houng: No, I'm joking.

Nigel: I firmly believe, I mean, look at what's happening in the news. I mean, that China and everybody over there is going to hate China. We've got to hate Russia. We've got to. No, you hate what's happening to their people. We live in a democracy. The Americans live in a democracy. Europe lives in a democracy and we are capitalists now. So I'm a capitalist democrat. There you go. Uh, , that's what I am. It's not perfect. But looking around the world, all the other ways of living in a country, whether it's a military junta, whether it's communism, communism, the word, the very word communism, if it worked, I would be a communist. I want desperately for people , to, to all be happy together. I was a hippie when I was younger. I [00:26:00] loved it and it's very hard on young kids today. This is a hard world for them. I love the love and peace man bit. I, by the way, got most of the peace, but the, other thing that I'd say, you mentioned the word kindness. My two favorite words are grace and kind. And I hope that I can live my life that way. I wouldn't want to upset anybody. , I can be firm. with my children, but we have a wonderful relationship.

Jane_Houng: Congratulations! And to talk and you mentioned when I met you a few days ago here in the shop, you were saying that, you know, some young retailers here and you share your secrets.

Nigel: Well, I had young retailers all over the country. These are, because I was in the fashion business. They were 99 percent were young girls. And when I say young girls, they'd probably be between 25 and 35. And they want to start a boutique. [00:27:00] And they've got this vision in their head. Of what they want to do, but they think that just by setting the shop up. And putting clothes in it and opening the doors, that's good enough.

Jane_Houng: So what do they need to do Nigel?

Nigel: They need to stand across the road from their door from their shop and they need to look at the shop from the outside. Because they're looking at their shop from the inside and that's not what the customer is seeing. Their customer initially is seeing the outside of their shop . Their windows have to be perfect. Not perfect. Interesting. Colorful. And it, and, and not too full, but certainly not empty. Don't, don't put one piece in. But lighting is the single thing. Uh, lighting is.

Jane_Houng: Tell me about lighting.

Nigel: Well, lighting, um, in the shop that I've got here, , I've got lots of little spotlights that everybody uses to light their shop. That doesn't light a shop strip lights, light a shop. [00:28:00] If I mentioned ever strip lights, people think of a lone strip light in an old kitchen or something like that. These are banks of strip light, the sort of thing that you'd find in a building society or a bank. What are they doing up there? Well, they're lighting the shop. Would any of my customers ever look up at the ceiling? No. But they look at the results, and the results are that my shop is bright, it's colourful, and it's happy. So when they often walk in it from the pouring rain because we live in England. So it's pouring with rain and they walk in the shop and they say oh the weather's been terrible. And I say to them it's the sun's always shining in here. Come and relax in my shop. There you go.

Jane_Houng: Yes.

Nigel: And I spend a lot of time with people I'll get people trying things on I don't make them buy them I put something on them that I think is going to look good, and then I put them in front of a mirror, and they make the decision. Do I ever, so [00:29:00] called fail, that, where I have people that don't buy things? Of course! Of course I do. Um, but they've tried something on, and they've gone, well I've really enjoyed this, thank you very much for showing me what you do. That's fine, that's perfect, that's part of it. What else am I going to do when I'm here?

Jane_Houng: You know why I bought your coat?

Nigel: Go ahead.

Jane_Houng: Because I felt you genuinely cared. You were interested to make me look better.

Nigel: Why, why else would I do that? Why, people come in, everybody's got to buy clothes. You've just bought some clothes, but you enjoyed the experience doing it and you're enjoying wearing that.

Jane_Houng: I really enjoyed it another common factor I've found in other shops, but not yours is that there's this always this pressure about discount . Oh, if you buy two you can get 20 off, you know, or I find it so tiresome, not because I've got tons of money in my pocket, but it's. [00:30:00]

Nigel: Well, I'll tell you a little story because there's lots of little stories about my shop, but my, favorite one was, um, a lady trying on a coat, very similar to the one that you're wearing here. And her husband, was outside the shop. Smoking. , I had a shop full of ladies and it was winter. So the doors were closed, And she stood in front of the mirror and she loved it. And , all the others, the customers said, you look fantastic. And she said, well, I'm going to have to ask my husband. And she said, He's horrible and all the other girls now are looking at this little chat and, and he wasn't, he was quite small, but,

Jane_Houng: well is that

Nigel: He was looking at me directly in the eyes whilst he was smoking.

Jane_Houng: Don't sell her a thing or beat.

Nigel: As though he was saying, don't do it. So I have my father's desk here that we're sitting at and he came, she knocked on the window and he came into the shop and he didn't take any notice of her at all, but he just went over and he picked up the label that it was on. [00:31:00] Uh, and he, he looked at the label and he said, I, by that time had my bottom against my father's desk here. Uh, and he looked at me and he said, how can you justify selling a coat for 395? That's a very good question. Well, I said, you don't know anything about me. I said, but I live in a very large house in the New Forest, and I drive a Jaguar, and my wife drives a Mercedes, and my daughter has horses. And do you know, I couldn't do any of those things if you weren't buying a coat for 395. Anyway. Fair enough. And he went back outside. Sorry. I miss it. He said, fair enough. Buy the coat, babe. And he went back outside and he lit another cigarette.

Jane_Houng: What do you attribute his reaction to Nigel? Man to man.

Nigel: Man to man. Just reality. That's it. Reality. And no fear. I'm not [00:32:00] afraid , of price here because the garment that he was looking at was a wool cashmere coat. It was beautiful and she would wear that and I know she would because I've sold them for 30 years I don't stop selling a perfect garment if there's a perfect garment the fashion business will have kicked it out long ago I don't because what most people want to do is if they see something in a window, they want to come and try it on if they tried on it. It fits them. They'll buy it. .

Jane_Houng: I know a little bit about markup on the high store and, and pricing. And , I guess that what you're selling here is very good quality for the price that I mean you needn't reveal to me your figures because you know,

Nigel: No no, well, I don't mind I don't that the coat that we were talking about at the end of the procedure of the shop and the running costs and the tax of the.... it all the way through I probably made 50 pounds out of that [00:33:00] now if you go to the high street today, you'll buy a polo shirt for various prices. So if you go into this shop, which is a low end shop, it'll be this price. You go into the best of shops and it'll be that price. You can buy four polo shirts for a dollar. In, in China, and you can have whatever you want put on them. The margins that they're making are simply outrageous, but people would look at my shop and think it's an expensive shop, whereas paying 29. 95 in a high street store for a polo shirt.

Jane_Houng: Good value.

Nigel: They'd think it was good value. So that's not where I am at all. I sell gorgeous. If it's not gorgeous, it doesn't come in here. But what I'm not doing is I'm not doing what they sell in London, where you'll walk past a shop window and you'll see a frock in there for 3, 950 quid. That's not my shop. That I couldn't do that anyway. [00:34:00] Ethically, I couldn't do that. Ethically, I am very happy with the prices that I have in my shop. And do you know what? So are my customers.

Jane_Houng: There you go. They're happy. And you're making them feel good.

Nigel: Well, I hope so. I hope so.

Jane_Houng: Indirectly mending their lives in these dreary times.

Nigel: I have no problem with that. But I also, um, I've enjoyed it as much as they have. So this is, what we're doing here is we're talking actually about me. And....

Jane_Houng: You're a fascinating person.

Nigel: But that's only just occurred to me. , But whenn customers come through my door, and they're buying something from me, of course I'm selling, that's what I do. But ethically, I could never sell anything to someone who doesn't want to buy it. That is, that, that's the truth in selling, a good salesman. I love what I sell here. And the person that puts on the, , of course it's gorgeous. [00:35:00] I haven't put it in here if it isn't gorgeous. If they come in and they try it on, they look in the mirror and say, I love that. I want to buy that. I'm happy. That's what I want as well. But I, so I'm not satisfied because I've sold something and I can put it in the bank. I'm happy because they're happy. And, that, that worked. This is my retirement. I don't need to do that.

Jane_Houng: What would you be doing? Otherwise?

Nigel: I'd have to buy another boat. I, the, the thing is, whilst I've got the shop, it's pointless having a boat. I, I had boats. I've had a lot of boats in the past, but you never, I never use it. I think the last year when, when I sold the last boat, I'd used that boat for three weeks. In the whole year I will. Seriously retire probably in three or four years time. And in three or four years time, , I will buy a reasonably good sized boat and Aaron and I will go down through the canals of France to the Mediterranean and we'll leave the boat down there. And then we'll fly up and down to see it, , [00:36:00] often. And that's, that's what I would do with a retirement because when I'm at sea, uh, I concentrate. And I think of nothing else but the sea. I relax. And that is, I've accepted, I'm not a relaxed person. I'm not I'm and that's another good reason for having this shop because if I was at home retired. Well, what do you mean you're doing nothing? Get out and do something. I'm not one of those people. So therefore I love doing what I'm doing here I look at the time at the end of the day and it's half past six

Jane_Houng: You can't believe it.

Nigel: I'd better get going. I'd better get going. But, that is, this is my life and what a lucky man I am. What a lucky man. Bless. I drive three miles now to this shop. I open the doors. I have gorgeous things in my shop and I have lovely people walking in. Does it get any better? And at the end of the day, I go home to a [00:37:00] loving wife that I adore, , and I have children in my house. I have children to me are the most important thing in the world. They are. And I've brought my children up in a very different way to the way my parents brought me up. Love is the most important thing. They are, they they're both married. They've given me wonderful grandchildren, but they're happy. They're unbelievably happy. They've got great partners husbands and wives. Great partners and I love them too. Uh, it's I'm, just very blessed. I'm very lucky.

Jane_Houng: Dear Nigel, it's been an absolute pleasure to meet you. I get to know you better.

Nigel: It was lovely meeting you too. Lovely.

Jane_Houng: Thank you. You enthuse energy and enthusiasm. Um, your words give me hope. I'm a little younger than you, but I mean, yeah, to strive for happiness, peace, between family members.

Nigel: One, one thing, last thing, [00:38:00] because it's a huge subject. For someone that's depressed. Always want to be better. The biggest thing that I noticed when I was in those hospitals is that a lot of people there, they hadn't even started on the road of recovery. And they can't start on the road of recovery until they want to. Because you have to take some actions. That haversack full of, uh, rocks. Do you know what I did with them?

Jane_Houng: What?

Nigel: I took each of those rocks out of the haversack in that hospital, and I looked at them, I turned them over, and each one of those was a huge problem, I turned them over, and I had to look at them and say to myself, can I change it? And the answer to that is no, I can't change it. Therefore, I am not going to worry about you anymore. I didn't bury any of those, but I call them, I've got [00:39:00] an open graveyard of my problems. And there's the headstone, and next to that headstone are different rocks, and one would say school on it, one would say abuse on it, one would say parental problems , and that sort of thing. Each of those rocks They're there. I haven't buried them. I can't bury them because they're part of me. But I don't have to live with them anymore. And I haven't buried them and I can look over them and say, Well, do you want to go back and pick one of those rocks up and look at it again? No, I don't. Okay, I've accepted, I have accepted what happened, happened, I want to move on, and I love the fact that it's two or three films where , I've watched where powerful people have said, move on, move on, and move on is, I have an admiral. That comes to see me with his wife and they're 92 years old. He said to me, I only found out that he was 92 on the last visit. [00:40:00] They've been buying from me for two or three years. And, uh, and he's last year, I said that I was going to be 70 and I couldn't believe it. And he said, we're 92. I said, how have you done that? And he said, I can't tell you. And I said, what do you mean? He said, but I can't tell you. If I tell you, you are going to be as, you're going to be in the same position as me then. And I said, I've got to know now. I have to know now.

Jane_Houng: What was his secret?

Nigel: It's very simple. Very simple. He said, always get up and never give in. Remember those words. Then you're going to do the same thing as me. Always get up and never give in. Any time that somebody's got a problem and they tell you about their problem, from the beginning to the end of their problem, 99 percent of the time they either didn't get up or they gave in. But if you always get up and you never give [00:41:00] in, You're gonna be standing here. It's biblical. There's very many references in, in, in the Bible to exactly that, but....

Jane_Houng: Communication, reaching out to people, and it's sharing your pain.

Nigel: Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. But yes, but share, that's important. Sharing pain. I don't want people to be in pain. I mean, that's all you hear about when they, when you're in a hospital, is, is pain. Just want to be better and then start doing things that are going to make you feel better I think the haversack full of rocks and each of those rocks.

Jane_Houng: A lovely analogy.

Nigel: That is a hugely important thing because how long are you this morning on the news? I heard uh, somebody's standing up and bleating on how long have have the empire, countries got to be beholden to people for repaying back. I mean It would be like

Jane_Houng: Endless.

Nigel: Endless. And that's rather like, one of [00:42:00] our, or we're sort of cheering in, in Rome, wanting reparations for when the Romans were in this country. How long do you do it? How long do black people

Jane_Houng: Feel oppressed.

Nigel: Nobody who is living has ever been a slave and nobody in who is living has ever been a slaver. Okay? But that is a huge problem that's going, still going on in America. Move on. You've got to and you can move on. These people have got to move on because they, you are not going to, if, if I didn't deal with the rocks. If I hadn't dealt with the rocks that way. So, why did the rock go over there? I can't do anything about it. There's nothing that I can do to change it. Nothing. So it's there and it's not thrown away. It's there and it is there still just big bigger problem. Nothing I can do about it move on and you want to move on for you. You want to get better. So [00:43:00] and there are ways of doing that. And do speak with people, do, I take amitriptyline every night. Um, , the reason for that, I don't want to be ill ever again. Uh, it's a very low dosage, but my doctor tells me that it's almost a placebo effect. That's fine.

Jane_Houng: Is it electrolytes.

Nigel: It's amitriptyline and it works for me.

Jane_Houng: It's not one of these inhibitors.

Nigel: No.

Jane_Houng: No.

Nigel: No. And the last time I ended up in hospital, it was because I was put on citralifram, which....

Jane_Houng: Which is a sort of, uh, what do they call it? It represses the emotions.

Nigel: Actually, you know when you open a packet of pills and you start reading through the notes, which I never did until somebody gave me citralopram. And I'm reading in hospital the notes about citralopram. And rather than having a positive sleep effect, it's got a negative sleep effect. So it was keeping me awake and I need my sleep. Um, but more [00:44:00] importantly, it does create suicidal tendencies, which is a pretty good thing for a, for an antidepressant.

Jane_Houng: Oh, so they blunt emotions, dull emotions. Yeah.

Nigel: I went, I went back to, to, to taking a, a low dosage of amitriptyline and working on getting better.

Jane_Houng: Better.

Nigel: Eating and energy and then.

Jane_Houng: Exercise for me.

Nigel: Exercise for you.

Jane_Houng: Moving my body, let's say, you know, keeping, yeah.

Nigel: I, I prefer getting in a TBR and taking it for a crack up the road.

Jane_Houng: Ah, yeah, you're a man.

Nigel: There we go.

Jane_Houng: Ah, dear Nigel. Well, um, thank you so much for telling me so very much. It was perfect. And let's hope that many people listen to this. I will. And it offers a glimpse of hope for their own.

Nigel: As I say, my book is 70 years. It's, my book is 70 years thick now. Uh, and, but you'll, you will have a book at [00:45:00] whatever age you are.

Jane_Houng: Yes.

Nigel: 16 plus. And why? Not talk about it. If you look at my body, and I'm looking at your body, every other part of your body, pretty much, every living organ inside you, your heart, your lungs, your liver, your kidneys, they're the same as mine. But your brain is going to be very different, because it will have reactionary things that have happened. So my depression was a reactive depression. It was a depression, not because I was clinically ill. Uh, it, I'm suffering from the things that have happened to me in the past. If you're ever going to suffer in life, The likelihood is the most important part of you, the most technical part of you, the most difficult thing to do is, is your brain. Because....

Jane_Houng: Your mind and controlling your mind.

Nigel: You are standing there saying, I'm not going to accept that. I don't have depression. I'm not going to [00:46:00] accept this. I'm going to continue. I'm going to fight that. Don't fight it. Because you won't win. Relax. Float. Terribly difficult to do. And you need help to do that. But you've got to learn to accept. So there you go. That's the word that I'm going to finish with. You acceptance.

Jane_Houng: This is a word that I won't forget as a result of meeting you. Thank you so much, Nigel.

Nigel: Thank you.

Jane_Houng: Goodbye.

Nigel: Bye bye.

Thanks again for listening to Mending Lives with me, Jane Houng. It was produced by Brian Hou. You can find relevant links to this show in the comments section. I would not, could not, be doing this without many people's support and encouragement. So until next time, [00:47:00] goodbye.