Our story
Because of the Kindness of Strangers
There is an old Indian saying “Everything will be alright in the end, so if it’s not alright, it is not yet the end.” This is our journey looking for an ending.
One October morning, totally out of character, but understandably, Polly descended into an uncontrollable flood of tears, like black storm clouds gathering before an apocalyptic event, the long anticipated day had arrived. Collectively our assets now extended to just seventeen pence and a bunch of keys. We gave the keys to the bailiff and walked down the drive leaving behind all life that we had known.
Gone was the Georgian house full of history, new cars in the drive, children enjoying private education. Gone were the happy family meals around the table. By contrast, the long journey building a secure and comfortable lifestyle had been replaced by a sudden, swift descent into the anguish of homelessness. How had this catastrophe with no home, no money, and a four year old child begun? How did we get to this, how had we lost everything?
We first met in the spring two years earlier with all the anticipation and excitement that the year had promised, we shared the same tremendous
optimism of the nation looking forward to a Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics, we anticipated a fairy tale romance, but how Grimm our future would soon become.
Perhaps naively we hadn’t foreseen the problems that a mixed culture, generational age gap relationship would bring – this was steam and clockwork meeting computer technology head on.
Before being introduced we had each been independently secure, but together, as soon as our relationship became widely known, it was as if we had become infected with a highly contagious disease. Both our families argued vehemently against the relationship and each totally disowned us. Customers flocked away from our business like swallows when the first leaves turn brown, friendships established over years immediately evaporated. Suddenly, we became very isolated and Birmingham became a very empty place for us, yet this was only our first experience of social isolation, there was much worse to come.
“As we have discovered, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.” This part of a Boris Johnson speech certainly rang true for us. We started to live together and held our heads high. We developed a new business that with Polly’s enthusiasm took off like a rocket, then, suddenly hit by illness, a serious stroke and cancer eating at Chris' prostate and spine, it all fell apart.
Following the diagnosis, we lost everything in just over a year. Polly had to resort to selling furniture to put food on the table. The huge mortgage taken to settle a divorce became too much of a hill to climb. So, penniless, we handed keys to a bailiff and disappeared down the drive leaving our past behind. Even in our worst nightmares homelessness had never been a career choice that either of us had ever contemplated.
We decided that city centre streets were no place to live, particularly with our four year old daughter. So, full of fear and trepidation we set out for the countryside, rural Worcestershire was our thought, with no particular destination in mind, just generally south and west from Birmingham where we hoped life might be a little gentler and it would be easier to survive.
Never having experienced homelessness, the realisation that you have nothing, you are absolutely destitute, penniless, with no prospect for a future is totally numbing. The toxic cocktail of panic, shame, fear and disbelief lead you to accept unquestionably that you are a total failure. All your previous achievements melt away to nothing. It is as dramatic and painful as losing a loved one.
When we had a home, we had watched our fridge slowly empty, every time the door light came on it illuminated the fact that there was always less to eat, a portent of things to come. Now we had no fridge at all, no cooker, no table and no food. Simply, we had nothing apart from the clothes we stood up in.
We arrived at a farm without ceremony. We didn’t really know where we were, we just saw a large agricultural building on top of a hill in the middle of rolling fields and asked for shelter. As the days turned into weeks we were shown incredible hospitality and kindness, we discovered the owner of the farm was totally blind, both he and his wife were absolutely charming and thoughtful. They didn’t know us at all, yet without hesitation we were given a large wooden shed to live in. We scavenged beds, and basics, David, the farmer, gave us a wood burning stove to keep warm and heat water, very soon we had a shelter with the basics to survive.
To David and his wife Di we owe a debt eternal gratitude for their understanding and generosity. They never questioned; they just offered humbling Christian support that we will never forget.
We bumbled on in a daze, earning a little money wherever we could, doing odd jobs, collecting firewood, organising children’s parties. Life was hard, just getting enough together to put food on the table was a constant daily struggle. Fortunately our daughter didn’t see or feel the pain, she looked upon our new life as an adventure.
Neither of us had previously experienced hardship, we didn’t know about benefits, social security, food banks or supported housing so we struggled on alone. David suggested we approach Social Services at the Hive in Worcester where we met Usif and Alex, another two amazing individuals who helped us on our journey out of hardship – With their help we found a tiny two bedroom property in Worcester to rent.
Painful goodbyes were said to all at the farm especially to those who had helped us so much. Promises were made to David and Di that we would help those in need in the same way as we had been helped, we would accept the baton and pass it on.
A new door opened to a house on a modern estate at the very edge of Worcester. The forgotten luxury of central heating and running hot water become part of a new normal. Our lives appeared to be improving, we had an address, so applications were made for bank accounts, plans to establish a new commercial venture that could secure a living would be made a reality.Everything was in place by February 2020.
Where was Wuhan? How could events in a food market over 8500 miles away
on the Yangtze river change our lives so much? Like the rest of the world,everything went on hold, with no possibility of earning money we quickly fell back towards the homeless hole.
We tried to help others in housing need, most had been hidden in hotels by the Government to avoid becoming infected. We established a charitable organisation, we tried to raise money, it was all very difficult trying to do something positive to actually help those in need.
This gave us the great opportunity for thought. Is giving people money the answer? How does that action alleviate long term poverty? To whom do you give the money? How much? Redistribution of money is difficult and as George Orwell's farm animals discovered, doesn’t solve anything. We thought about the situation we had recently experienced. We didn’t want pity or to become beggars, we wanted the opportunity to earn and keep our self respect. We wanted independence not handouts. We believe that giving money to those in need is not an answer, it may offer a little comfort for a day or so but it just moves the problem along a bit. John Rockerfeller once said “Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to be independent of it.”
It was our decision that we would help disadvantaged individuals by offering opportunity, encouragement and in total difference to other charities, those we helped would become the masters of their own destiny. We would follow the “give a man a fish and you feed him today; teach him how to fish and you feed him for life” concept.
The business model, for every charity is also a business, would be simple. We would provide a workshop and retail outlet together with tons of enthusiasm and encouragement. The philosophy would be to always just do the right thing, so good would come of it; rather than just work for financial profit. We would look to measure profit in people, rather than pounds.
Theories are great, but as we found turning ideas into practical solutions can be very difficult.
We had no money, the country was emerging from lockdown and the public didn’t have much appetite for great social change.
We found a tiny empty shop, a space smaller than most sitting rooms, in a quiet part of Malvern with no parking or people walking by. We approached the local papers to ask for help to gather donations. It was hardly the news story of the year, so we had little response. Polly with her usual ‘out of the box’ thinking suggested something quite radical. Two homeless people with a tiny shop having neither stock nor customers would pick a fight with the biggest retail company in the world.
Our enterprise would be called “Amaze” and have an arrow underneath connecting the A to the z just like Jeff Bezos. Now at this point you could regard Polly’s next action as either madness or genius. She contacted Amazon and complained, asking if they were aware that somebody in Malvern had stolen their trademark. Within days we had a courier arrive with a thirty five page communication from Amazon threatening to sue us in every European country. Polly then contacted the BBC News; did they know that the world’s richest man intended to sue two homeless people over an arrow?
Polly’s brilliance paid off, three days before we had planned to open the shop, every press agency in the country wanted our story. We had nationwide coverage, three hundred and eighty people came on the first day and we sold the shop out. By three o’clock we had nothing left to sell, we had arrived in retail.
The success of that first day helped to build momentum, we gained the support of our local M.P, Harriet Baldwin, our efforts had good press coverage, Almost a year to the day after opening the door on that tiny little shop we graduated to a prime location property in Great Malvern, where we were able to help more people.
We have had the shop on Belle Vue for a couple of years but, sadly, the high street as we once knew it has died, Covid and the internet encouraged people to shop from home by pushing buttons.
Our high streets are filling with coffee shops, hair dressers and nail bars – only because you can’t acquire these services on line. Despite the lack of demand for retail space, shop rents are soaring, forcing remaining small independent retailers online under the Etsy and Amazon umbrellas.
Our “Subtle Pun” range of cards and books have proved very popular, but to keep costs down and make enough to provide employment opportunities for those in need we to are disappearing from our high street shop and moving production to an industrial unit.
The face of Amaze is now going to be via magazines, distributed to coffee shops, hairdressers, pubs, train waiting rooms, dentist’s surgeries, and restaurants, in fact everywhere people sit with a little time on their hands.
We are anxious to grow, to help more people and we would like to establish subtle puns in every town in the UK. We have proved the concept; people in need can rebuild their lives with just a little help and encouragement.
We don’t think we are at the end of our journey, but it feels closer.