The rat that turned to face me was so large that the sound of it’s bottom scraping off the floor sounded like someone dragging a doormat off a granite front step. It was the middle of the night and I’d woken this creature from its sleep by turning the light on in my friend’s kitchen. I thought I’d seen big rats when I lived in Delhi, but this thing looked more like a small dog.
The beast looked at me contemptuously, like I was somehow trespassing on it’s territory. The look on its face appeared to be saying “Who the hell are you?”. I’d come down in that hour because of a nightmare about the very real debt-collectors that were chasing me. I was shivering from the November cold as the heating was broken in the friend's house I was sleeping in - I could no longer afford to rent one of my own. As this rodent of unusual size kept looking at me I did think “Who the hell am I, and how’d I come to this?”.
By the age of 32 I’d done a fair bit. I’d lived and worked as a journalist in London, Venezuela and India. I’d initiated and led the campaign to stop Brixton Market getting knocked down. I’d become a Labour Councillor for Brixton Hill, the area I was born, and more besides. But in spite of all that something seemed missing from my life. I felt like I wasn’t really living my purpose. That there was something bigger calling me.
I felt I had found it when one day in 2013 I was drinking a cup of strong black tea in an old working class caff. That moment sparked in me the desire to restore pride to our national drink, and by doing so help British people take more pride in themselves, through a Britishness worth taking pride in. It was the beginning of a journey that eventually led to the creation of the world’s first Tea Pub.
With just a brand this became Crowdcube's most-shared concept stage business gaining over 60,000 social media impressions, more than 35 pieces of media coverage and raising over £320k in investment. We had a great launch to rave reviews and then disaster struck. My business partner and key investor Jonathan died of a brain aneurysm. No only was this a terrible personal blow, it also meant a critical shortfall of working capital just as the business had launched.
I tried everything I could to save the business, including borrowing personally to make up the financial gap but the circumstances were just too tough. As a result I left the flat I’d lived in for 7 years, and began staying in generous friends sparerooms. It was in one of these that I now confronted this monster rat and my own feelings of personal failure.
The man who revealed the secret of the one story that spans all times and cultures, showed that it's at the darkest points that we find the power to achieve even more in life for ourselves and others, and this is what happened at that moment. As I faced that huge hairy beast, in a freezing cold kitchen, with the nightmare of vengeful debt collectors still working through my body, I laughed. I laughed long and loud thinking, “well at least this’ll make a good story some day.”. This booming laughter seemed to rattle the rat and it dragged its massive body across the floor and out of sight.
In the days that followed I took stock. While things had not gone as I’d intended with the Tea Pub I began to recognize where they had been successful. We’d raised more money and got more press than almost any other concept stage business of our type mainly through the strength of our brand’s story. Customers had traveled hundreds of miles to visit us on the strength of it