My Fight to the Top Read online

  My gran was a nurse for many years. Her husband left her when my mum was a wee girl and Gran never met anyone after that. She was a single mum bringing up three kids and working constantly – night shifts at the hospital. I think that was why she became an alcoholic. But Gran nearly burnt the house down when my mum was little and she never touched a drop after that. She joined Alcoholics Anonymous and even though she was sober for 45 years she would always tell you she was an alcoholic. She wouldn’t even touch the trifle at Christmas time because she warned us that ‘the taste of it will send you straight back’.

  Back when I was growing up, my gran would get the train into town once a week on a Saturday and we would all go for a Chinese or a high tea together. I remember going to a restaurant with her and my mum when I was seven and scowling at the paper table cover. There were food stains all over it. ‘I’m not eating off that,’ I said. My mum and gran stared at me in disbelief. It wasn’t like I was spoilt; I just wasn’t prepared to eat off a dirty table. I had standards that I would not compromise on.

  ‘Michelle is going to be something one day. Her attention to detail is something else.’ Gran Philips smiled.

  ‘Stop it, Mum,’ my mum shrugged.

  ‘No, Isabel, Michelle knows exactly what she wants, she’s going to go far in life, mark my words.’ My gran knew. She was like a white witch. She used to read everyone’s tea leaves and she must have seen the future in mine.

  I wasn’t like everyone else my age. For starters, I didn’t have the usual pin-ups that my other friends had, like Madonna and Spandau Ballet. No, above my bed was a picture of Richard Branson. I wanted to be him – a success. I would watch Dallas and Dynasty with my sausage supper on my knees and I thought, One day, I’ll have that sports car. One day, I’ll have that big house with the sweeping staircase. One day, I’ll be able to look after my mum and dad.

  So when I was ten, I decided I wanted to earn money. I persuaded the newspaper shop on our street that I could deliver the papers. There were a lot of them but I was determined – I started off my rounds in the evening after school, then I did the Sunday papers, and then I delivered the Daily Record in the mornings. It was too much for one girl to take on by herself so I decided to hire a load of other kids. Pretty soon I had 17 teenagers working for me. I’d give them the streets and I’d take a cut of their earnings. Can you imagine, a wee ten-year-old bossing around all these teenagers? My gran was right, I was different!

  Of course, it wasn’t too long before some of the kids wanted more money. A few of the boys asked to meet with me up the back of the Dyke, the name of a wall in the East End. The boys were standing on the wall, looking down at me.

  ‘We are three years older than you. We are going to take your paper round off you,’ one of them started to say. I can’t tell you how angry I felt. Just because I was a girl, just because I was younger than them, how dare they? No way were they going to bully me. I folded my arms across my chest.

  ‘Don’t you even think about coming on my patch,’ I blasted. ‘I started the paper round. If you want to start your own paper round and not work for me any more, fine, but you’re not taking over the East End, this is mine.’ The boys started getting aggressive, but I was having none of it. ‘I’m not going to even argue with you. This is business. And I’ll push you off that dyke right now.’ I couldn’t help myself.

  Their jaws just dropped. They’d never seen anything like it. I walked off feeling victorious.

  My first of many victories.

  2

  PASSION AND DETERMINATION

  I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ one of the girls from my school shouted as she pushed me in the back. I’d had enough of her bullying. I swung around and pushed her away.

  ‘Stop it right now,’ I warned her. The next thing I knew, ten teenagers from the same gang appeared out of nowhere. They formed a ring around us and started chanting.

  ‘Fight! Fight!’

  We looked at each other but neither of us really wanted to fight. The boys had worked themselves up in a frenzy, though, and wanted to see us tear pieces out of each other. I edged away but they pushed me back into the ring.

  One of the boys went for me, kicking me to the ground.

  Smack.

  Another boy joined in. The pain exploded in my body.

  Smack, smack, smack.

  I didn’t stand a chance against all of them. They kicked and punched me until I was left unconscious. The next thing I remember was waking up in hospital with my mum and dad beside my bed. I was in so much pain I couldn’t move. My face and my whole body were black and blue. There was a man from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) standing at the end of my bed, asking my mum questions. Mum explained to the officer how she had found me.

  ‘I went up Duke Street to pick Michelle up from Thompson Street primary,’ Mum started to tell the officer. Through my swollen eyelids I watched him take notes. ‘But she wasn’t there, so I came back along Bathgate Street and all the kids came running up to me shouting Michelle’s name. I couldn’t make sense of what they were saying.’

  ‘What’s happened? I said.’

  “Michelle is lying on the stairs. She’s been beaten up,” the kids told me.

  ‘My heart stopped. I found Michelle lying there. Her whole body was red because the bruises hadn’t even come out yet. I called an ambulance and went with her to The Royal.’

  I couldn’t remember anything of what my mum had just told the man. I started to cry but the tears burnt my cheeks.

  ‘Michelle, are you okay to tell us what happened?’ The CID officer turned to face me.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said, wiping my eyes with my bruised hands.

  I told him everything I remembered before I had passed out.

  This wasn’t the first time I had been bullied. The school I went to was really tough – kids had already threatened to beat me up. It had got to the stage where I was petrified to go to class. I think it was because I wasn’t like the other kids, so I got it in the neck for being ‘different’. One day, I woke up, and realised that if I didn’t stand up to them, my life would become an utter misery. That’s why I pushed the girl back when she went for me. That’s what you’ve got to do with bullies, stand up to them or they will keep on bullying you.

  ‘Do you want us to press charges? That’s not just a hit, they were kicking your wee girl,’ the CID officer asked my mum and dad.

  ‘No, I just want to give them a serious warning, make sure they don’t ever do it again,’ my mum decided. My injuries were so bad I was in hospital for three days before I was finally allowed home.

  By now we had moved into a ground-floor flat across the street from our old flat because Dad was too poorly to walk up and down the stairs. We’d moved nearby because that was what happened in the East End: if you moved, it would be to the next street or the same street but across the road. I finally had my own bedroom with a side table, an addition which meant a lot to me.

  My mum and dad were really worried about my injuries and mum kept popping her head around the door to check if I needed anything. But I’ve never been one to sit around and mope. I came from a place where you learn to shut up and get on with it. I know it sounds like a cliché, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. With every knock, with every beating, I felt stronger. I went back to school with my head held high because I’d stood up to those bullies and the ‘serious warning’ helped because they left me alone for a while. I was soon at Whitehill secondary school where I was focused on finding another job, earning more money.

  This is what I had: passion, determination and a ‘can-do’ attitude. If you’ve got those ingredients, nothing will stop you.

  My mum had worked for George the Fruitie at the weekends so when I was 12, I decided to ask him for a job. His shop was on the high street – Duke Street – not far from our flat. I can’t remember how much he hired me for but it woul
dn’t have been much back in those days. My job was to pack all the potatoes, weigh all the fruits and help George with his ‘marketing’ and ‘customer services’.

  As soon as the school bell went at 3.45 pm I’d run down to his shop, ready to start working at 4 pm. My friends would ask where I was going, wanting me to stay on and hang out with them, but I had work to do. Nothing was coming between me and work. I worked a full day on Saturday as well.

  The fruit shop wars were going on in the East End, so I wanted to do everything in my power to make George Number one. I used to slice up a few strawberries from new deliveries and hand them out as samples. ‘You really need to taste these,’ I smiled, holding out a sliver to try. On the Saturday morning I spent most of my time outside, fixing the display. I built all the boxes up and tilted them onto their side. It was the best show of fruit you could imagine.

  I must have done a good job, because a year later, I was headhunted by the sweet shop across the road – Pick A Pack. I was offered ten pence more an hour. I had to tell George I was leaving him. ‘Good luck, darling,’ he said. George was a lovely man.

  I’ll never forget getting my first pay packet from Pick A Pack. I got a bus into town, went into something like an Argos and I spent my savings on new kitchen gear for my mum. I bought her a bin, a kitchen-roll holder, a toilet-roll holder and a toilet brush. My wee arms felt like they were going to tear out of their sockets as I carried the goods home. But no effort was too big to help my parents.

  Equally, Mum and Dad would spend their last penny on me if they could. Mum would pay for me to enter dancing competitions and beauty shows to boost my confidence. They scrimped and saved to send me to elocution lessons because they wanted to better my chances in life. I’ll always be grateful to them for that. Elocution lessons seemed to me to be like a finishing school because I already had good manners. Mum and Dad had always taught me to be polite, but I did speak like an East End girl – that’s where I was from after all. The teacher would make me practise asking for my groceries.

  ‘I would like a pint of milk, please,’ I’d repeat after her. It was very different to what I was used to. People in the East End would say, ‘Gimme a pint of milk’.

  Mum would always make sure I had a good outfit to wear to my Saturday lessons. She used to stitch clothes such as dresses and pinafores. Perhaps that’s where my passion for design first came from. She had a sewing machine and if she saw fabric lying around, she would turn it into a new creation.

  I was grateful to my parents for helping me but the elocution lessons and the clothes did leave me open to attack. ‘Posh girl’, they used to call me at school. ‘She thinks she’s something special,’ they’d whisper behind my back. It also didn’t help that I was one of the few girls who actually wore the school uniform. Most of the kids would turn up in tracksuits and trainers but my parents insisted I looked smart.

  ‘Please, Mum, don’t make me wear this.’ I’d beg her to let me be like the other kids.

  ‘No, you’re wearing it, and that’s the end of it,’ Mum cut me dead. She was right to insist; you should always look well turned out. Back then I was just terrified of being beaten up again.

  Mum’s words rubbed off on me, though, because I made sure I always looked impeccable for my next job. I was 13 when I forged my mum’s signature so I could be an Avon rep. You had to be 18 to do that kind of door-to-door sales but I couldn’t wait until then: I wanted to make more money. I might have been shy around my friends but when it came to work, I had this armour of confidence that I would throw on. I could sell anything; I could sell sand to the Arabs. I used to go home, change into my smart clothes (I had a perm at the time too) and then I’d go from door to door. I’d collate orders, put them through the area manager and then collect all the money.

  Customers probably thought, Who’s this nice wee girl on my doorstep? But then I would deliver the most aggressive sales pitch ever. I’d go through each sales product, giving them the features and the benefits, and tell them how amazing they were going to look. ‘If you buy that,’ I’d say, pointing to some lotion, ‘then you really need to have the set.’ I’d always push. ‘It’s no good having something that you don’t have the whole set of because you’re not getting the full benefit of those products.’

  I always made a sale. And if I couldn’t at first, I kept on at that person until I had. ‘I’m not interested in buying on the door,’ they might say. But I kept going back and back again until I’d made a sale. Within six months I was the best selling Avon rep in Glasgow. I’m not kidding – and the best bit was they didn’t have a clue how old I really was. They thought I was my mum! My mum knew I was selling, because all the stuff would be delivered to our tiny flat, but she didn’t know it was in her name.

  Mum had enough on her plate to worry about anyway. My dad was now struggling to walk, even with a stick. He had to give up his job at the printers and there was a lot of pressure on my mum to look after Dad and still earn a living. Mum used to cry and shout and I felt helpless because I didn’t know how to make things better. I didn’t want to burden my mum with my heartache, so I would go to my room after dinner, and quietly cry into my pillow. I would never stay the night around friends’ houses because I couldn’t bring myself to leave my dad’s side. What if something happened? What if I couldn’t be there to help him? I would never forgive myself.

  I think feeling completely and utterly helpless manifested itself as OCD – obsessive compulsive disorder. I wanted to help my mum so I would repeatedly clean our tiny kitchen. I’d scrub the surfaces until they sparkled and then I’d do it all over again. I had to make sure all the labels on the tins faced the same way. I believed everything should have its own place – something that has stuck with me through until now. I’m not sure why I did it. Maybe because everything else in my life was out of control it was my way of creating some order.

  It was hard for me to focus at school while there was so much heartache going on at home. It didn’t help that I was dyslexic and struggled so much with my reading and writing. I dreaded going into class because I found it so hard and none of the teachers were really interested. I did have a small group of friends who I’d hang around with. They were from the posh end of the East End, the Parade, where people owned their own houses. Even with these friends I’d never let on what was going on at home. I was afraid if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself crying.

  I didn’t think things could get any worse but the worst blow was to come. I had come home from school on what had been a normal day but as soon as I opened the front door I knew something was seriously wrong. My mum’s face looked the colour of stone. Her eyes were bloodshot. The atmosphere in the room was as if someone had died.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. I could feel the pain before I saw it.

  My mum didn’t need to say a word. There was my dad – in a wheelchair. I clasped my mouth with my hand.

  ‘Dad?’ I cried.

  ‘Your dad’s not going to be able to walk again,’ Mum broke the news.

  I burst into tears. I couldn’t take any more. I loved my dad and I thought this was the end. ‘It’s going to be okay, Michelle,’ Dad tried to reassure me but I could tell by his eyes he didn’t believe what he was telling me.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I sobbed. I was 15 but I suddenly felt like a wee girl again – small and helpless.

  ‘Your dad’s got hemangioma,’ my mum said. ‘It’s a rare condition that attacks the spinal chord.’ Her voice started to tremble.

  ‘I’ll explain to her, Isabel,’ my dad interrupted. ‘It’s when blood vessels in the spine get bigger and bigger and trap the nerves.’ It didn’t matter how they explained it, the truth was my dad had become completely and utterly paralysed at the age of 38. There was so much sadness in that room, I can’t even begin to describe it.

  I lost all interest in school after that. All I could think about was helping my mum and dad. The final straw came in a meeting with my career guidance teacher
. ‘So, Michelle, what do you want to do when you leave school?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to be an entrepreneur,’ I announced. That’s what Richard Branson was and that’s what I too was going to be.

  She looked utterly puzzled by what I had just said. ‘What’s that?’ she scowled.

  I had to explain to my own teacher what it meant. She told me that she very much doubted that’s what I would become because I wasn’t very academic. She said I wasn’t great at school. ‘There’s a Co-op supermarket being built at the end of Duke Street. Maybe you should go and apply for a job there?’

  There wasn’t anything wrong with being on the checkout, but I thought, No, I can do better than this. I also thought, Why am I here? What exactly are you giving me? If my teachers didn’t take any interest in me, then why the bloody hell should I bother? Sod you, I’m off! I left school at 15 with no qualifications. I had the school board chasing me for a while but I didn’t care. I’d broken the cycle of what normally happens to girls in the East End.

  I wasn’t academic, but I was determined, and I was already on my path to success.

  3

  BE YOURSELF

  I’d rather be disliked for who I am than liked for who I’m not.

  I guess it would be fair to say I was as ambitious in love as in my work. It would have been very easy for me to end up with an East End guy, but I didn’t want that. I knew that if I did, then I would never get out. A few of the girls in my class had got pregnant at 14. That’s what life was like – you got pregnant, you got a house from the council and you never get out of the East End. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with that, it just wasn’t me. I had ambition. My drive came from looking around me and wanting more.

  I’d been on a few dates after I finished school, but they were nothing serious. I wasn’t ready for having a boyfriend; I was too busy thinking about making a career for myself. So I decided to put to good use the modelling classes my mum and dad had sent me to. I was starting to look quite glamorous by the time I was 16. I was tall, thin and I’d got rid of the perm. I always made an effort to blow-dry my long, blonde hair straight and I would wear eye make-up and lip gloss. I passed as older than I was, which helped me get my first modelling job – as a Tennent’s girl.