Page 141 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

the Lincolnshire Standard at Boston as an Advertising Space Salesman and
copywriter......so I was soon the No 2 Ad Salesman at Skegness News!
It was a thankless job assisting the Young Ad Manager who gave me all the rubbish jobs,
but at least he had to take the “flack” when it was flying about from the Horncastle head
office!
My many years of experience in marketing and publicity led to my being asked to help one
of my ad clients with a mailshot/ leaflet for a new project in the town.

John Kirk was one of the two brothers who ran the popular Kirk's Butchers in Skegness
High Street. He was launching a new “Kebab site”. Not exactly a cafe, more a “drop in”
where folks bought something different, in the same way as Fish and Chips.
The new “shop” was very close to the sea front at Skegness and in the middle of the
existing shopping area. An excellent site.

My job was to devise and organise a “leaflet shot” to include the whole town but section by
section. The steady drip idea was devised to build up the trade steadily. I designed a
simple but effective leaflet and we found a printer just up the coast towards Mablethorpe.

It was the day we were to go to the printers the first time, when John asked me about the
Beaujolais Run. We took a Sierra Cosworth to the printers.
The road up the east coast in Lincolnshire from Skegness is abysmal. Truly. No straight
bits longer than a few hundred yards and corner after hairpin corner.

There was not much traffic about on that first trip and we timed each other, one driving
going, the other driving coming back. If I remember, I won and would have liked nothing
better than driving with John thorough the French Countryside for four days or so as fast
as we could go, with safety.

However, and it was a big however, it was only two and a half years after I had
experienced a heart attack, brought on by the delayed stress of loosing our transport
business in 1984. I really thought it inadvisable to take on something so stressful when I
was still not really sure how stable the old ticker was from day to day!!

I believe John had second thoughts too as he was married with a young family and the
event, to one of the premier wine areas of France and back again, with the new wine,
was not without serious risk.......although defined as NOT a race!!

The Cosworth was some beast and a delight to drive. Certainly the fastest pair of wheels I
had even driven........we could really have had some fun with that car but with my health
record at the time, I could not be certain we would return in one piece, or even return at all!

The leaflet campaign ran so well, John had to delay the second leaflet drop for several
months. His shop was an immediate success.

I moved on then after persuading my employers, Mortons of Horncastle, to start a weekly
newspaper in the town of Spilsby where I lived. There begins another story.