Road to Recovery

  Chapter 2

  George Albright’s father had been a fairly prosperous doctor, although he only had a small country practice with few real patients, but that didn’t seem to be a problem at all; in fact it allowed him time to indulge his real passion – medical research. George wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but it seemed to keep them ‘in a manner too which they quickly became accustomed’. Throughout his formative years George attended private schools (to which his father willingly donated heavily to all their causes, new gym, new swimming pool etc.) and he turned out to be one of the fortunate few that didn’t have to study very hard to pass exams, it was assumed by all and sundry that he had a natural talent when it came to examinations. It was also assumed that he would follow in his father’s footsteps, but during his first year at medical college things seemed to change. No matter how hard he tried to study (in between the parties of course), his progress started to seriously flounder, and finally, in desperation, he went to his father, pleading with him to pull a few strings. The only response he got was ‘work harder, I’ve done my bit, now it’s up to you’. This of course made George quickly realise that partying and late nights didn’t ensure good exam results, large donations did.

  Towards the end of his first year George had a phone call, not from family or friends, but from a reporter.

  ‘Do you have any comment on your father’s dealings with MEDILUX?’

  Of course he had heard of MEDILUX, his father had been dealing with them, one of the largest Pharmaceutical Companies in the Country for years. He always seemed to be writing reports about one ‘clinical trial’ or other for them, but having the sense to utter the time honoured words ‘no comment’ he hung up and then tried to ring his father, first at the family home - no reply, ‘he must still be at his surgery’ - no reply there either. As he was returning to his room he overheard the name MEDILUX mentioned on a neighbouring student’s television, and standing just outside her door he was informed by a very prim and proper Television Newscaster that the said company was in turmoil, and Members of the Board `and others’ were under investigation, for among other things ‘falsifying results of clinical trials’. As the report continued on he began to realise where his family’s wealth had come from, and it was certainly not from the small country practice. George returned to his room, and medicine suddenly didn’t seem as interesting as it had done twenty minutes earlier. Even if he did manage to ‘pull his socks up’ and struggle through all the exams he had a shrewd suspicion that the name ‘Dr George Albright’ (he had been named after his father), was not going to be synonymous with good medical ethics, but what to do next? A couple of acquaintances had recently been extolling the virtues of ‘trading’ and ‘playing the markets’ in ‘the big smoke’, while at the same time showing off their flash new motors. This sounded right up his street, and it was, he took to it like the proverbial duck to water – and although he didn’t realise it at the time his timing was perfect. One quick phone call and he was on the next train to London, within a couple of days he had a job, within three months he had his own flash motor and within six he was naming his own terms. A year after that he went for broke, and putting all his eggs into one basket, and committing himself in a big way to ‘new-fangled modern technology’ he became the master of his own destiny. He started off quite modestly really, no staff to eat up profits, just emerging computers and a rapidly expanding market. His first million was the hardest - that took him almost a year. The rest; the multimillion, the first billion etc. came quite easily after that.

  His father managed to stay out of the courts; instead he became a statistic in someone else’s court case. Some months earlier, to cut yet more corners he had apparently become a self-medicating human guinea pig, using, as it turned out to be, one of the more dubious concoctions that MEDILUX were conducting trials on. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he succumbed to a very quick, but relatively painless demise; poetic justice, and his mother Maud survived her husband by no more than 3 months. George believed that it was not so much that she couldn’t live without his father, more; she just couldn’t live without his money.

  Having no other surviving relatives George found himself friendless, relative-less, and starting to get rich, and as time progressed George did indeed become very, very rich, which could have tended to cause problems for a lesser person. Fame, expensive cars, private jets, begging letters and so forth, but not for our intrepid George, he came across Millie, a financial wiz at the local bank. Like himself an only child, with absolutely no interest whatsoever in increasing the world’s population, and ‘sensible’ about money. First she fell in love with his bank account, then to everyone’s surprise she actually fell in love with George, and George reciprocated in kind. They shared the same values; hard work, a love of cutting edge technology, and not spending their gains wantonly. Don’t get me wrong they spent some of it, in fact quite a lot of it. They went on the cruises, not in the ‘best’ suites, that would have attracted all the attention, rather the ‘nice ones’, the ones that Bank Managers and Company Directors could afford. When they flew, yes it was First Class, but they never caused a fuss, always keeping in the background, as though they had just been given an ‘upgrade’ by the airline, in fact George’s only passion, outside of his dealings (and Millie), was flying. Not in the aluminium tubes that passed for mass transport, more the canvas and string of vintage biplanes. Millie, bless her heart, had seen the way her beloved George gazed on those ‘vintage string bags’ whenever their paths crossed, so realising that his birthday was looming she got her man, a man who could quite literally have ‘almost anything that the modern world could offer’, half an hour of history. It was a thirty minute flight in a Tiger Moth biplane, operated by a local flying school. When the pilot was eventually allowed to land, pleading that they really were flying on fumes, George leapt out of the aircraft and made a bee-line for the office. He quickly signed up for a course of flying lessons and promptly climbed back into the by now re-fuelled aircraft for his first one, and George found out that he also had an aptitude for something else in life, he sailed, sorry flew through the course with flying colours. On gaining his wings he took Millie up for a celebratory spin – literally - and after she had filled a conveniently located paper bag she demanded that he return her post haste to terra firma, and then explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that THIS was ‘his’ hobby, she was sticking firmly to her embroidery, and so his flying ability rapidly grew as he found more and more time to indulge his hobby, firstly by hiring the ‘Tiggy’ Moth at every possible opportunity, then by buying it. He then came upon the second love of his life (or was it his third?), a beautifully refurbished bright yellow North American Aviation ‘Harvard’. This Second World War training aircraft only had one set of wings, and no canvas, but he didn’t care – it had wheels that went up & down. He purchased a ‘quarter’ share in this wonderful machine; people accepted that it was expected that a man with ‘a little money’ shared such an exotic toy with other likeminded friends - he failed to mention to anyone that he had also purchased the other ‘three-quarters’ as well.

  But how did George and Millie end up with a caravan? By the way please don’t call her Mildred, as in that popular sit com TV show of yester years, George did once and it nearly cost him a divorce. I wonder if I will ever pluck up the courage to call her ‘The Dragon’, nah I think not, now back to the question, so how did they end up with a caravan? Well, on the cruises that they went on they usually met people who turned out to be short term ‘best of buddies’, and then went their separate ways, and that suited them both just fine, neither of them were into long term `best friends`. They were not anti-social, far from it; they really did enjoy the company of other people, just in very small doses, and whilst George met quite a few ‘acquaintances’ as he flew around the countryside enjoying his hobby, Millie preferred to stay at home with her embroidery, she really was not in any way shape or form interested in the cylinder head temperature of a
passing Spitfire. What they needed was a pastime that involved them both, and so one morning, as they were returning from watching the current ‘must see’ show that they had both liked the sound of (on Broadway), they were sitting quietly in the corner of the British Airways First Class Lounge when they overheard a quite well known Politician singing the praises of caravanning. ‘I love it,’ she was saying, ‘it can be done in comfort; you meet the nicest of people, everyone is treated as equal, and if you do find the odd unpleasant person you just up sticks and move site’. This may have just been a typical Politician earning her crust on the way back from an International Caravanning Convention, but, ‘What do you think Millie?’

  ‘I like the sound of the ‘comfort’ bit George’.

  ‘So do I, alright let’s give it a try, what have we to lose?’ (How about your head George)

  Six weeks later (they don’t hang about), fully kitted out with a new Toyota four by four and the latest top of the range caravan, complete with all the must have gadgets, except for one (‘Sorry Sir, awaiting delivery of the electric mover, we will fit it as soon as you return, they really are very popular you know’) they went in search of the sun. They decided to do it the quick way, ferry to Santander, a quick overnight stop near Toledo (they didn’t even unhitch the caravan), and then into a rather pleasant sounding site just north of Granada, ‘Alhambra Palace here we come’ they thought, then came the rains!!!!

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