The Baby Mind Reader: Amazing Psychic Stories from the Man Who Can Read Babies’ Minds. Derek Ogilvie

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ was very inexperienced at that time, so through a friend of a friend I managed to locate a medium whom I thought would be able to help me deal with my spiritual encounter. The medium was helpful but honest enough to tell me that she was also out of her depth. I therefore decided to bring in the ‘heavy squad’, and located a couple of Glasgow University chaps who were part of a psychic society and asked them to come and sort it out for me. They did and were incredibly helpful. After much investigation, they told me that the ghostly presence I had been tuning in to was the spirit of a prostitute who had been murdered in the early 1920s in the building, and that she had obviously been seeking help to cross over fully into the spirit world. Thankfully, she had come across me, someone whom she knew could communicate with the dead, and had just managed to get her message through. We arranged for a priest to come to the bar and bless it in order for the prostitute’s spirit to be given the peace she’d been craving for nearly 80 years.

      I started to see my first boyfriend, Michael, around the time I opened Mojo. Michael, a teacher, was very supportive when I began doing psychic readings for friends and family. His encouragement really helped me come to terms with my sixth sense.

      Within a year of opening Mojo, I had achieved more than I thought possible. The bar was doing great and had become one of the coolest bars in Glasgow. However, I was beginning to get itchy feet. It was therefore a great relief when, in the summer of 1996, I received a call telling me that someone wanted to buy Mojo for £620,000. I jumped at the chance.

      My next bar project, Ocho, also made me a great deal of money. Because it was doing so well, in 1998 I decided to sell it and open another bar in Glasgow, Bar Budda. I’d always wanted to be a nightclub operator as it seemed a cool thing to do, and work on Budda Club started in late 1998. During the renovation of Budda Club, located above Bar Budda, we went from one crisis to another. The budgets went through the roof, but somehow we managed to open for business in late December, just in time for the Christmas and New Year period.

      Michael and I were working totally opposite hours at that time. I would be going to work when he was asleep and coming home just a few hours before he was due to get up for work. This issue, along with the advent of financial worries, started to put quite a strain on our relationship, so I wasn’t that surprised when Michael asked me to sleep in a separate bedroom.

      By March 1999 I was beginning to panic when I noticed that the club’s fortunes were not turning in the right direction. I’m not proud to say it, but I was losing my nerve. For some strange reason, I just knew that this was the beginning of the end.

      Michael had bought me some books for Christmas that I’d still not read by March. One night, in order to escape from the worries of life, I decided to read Richard Branson’s Losing my Virginity. I now wish that I hadn’t. I came across a couple of very interesting chapters that I felt had been written just for my benefit. I noticed that when the Virgin empire was in financial trouble, Richard expanded his company to increase cash flow. This gave him time to reconstruct his business and keep the creditors from the door. This, I thought, would be my plan too. I’d open up a couple more bars with borrowed money from the brewers, who at that time didn’t know the full extent of my financial troubles, and use the extra cash flow from those bars to pay creditors. This would also buy me time to figure out how to make the club work properly. I was excited and felt back in control again.

      Initially, my plan went quite well but by August the club was not making enough money for me to pay my many creditors and also keep the bank happy. To make matters worse, the successful Budda Bar was starting to lose credibility because of its association with the rather uncool club located upstairs.

      After much soul-searching, Michael and I decided to sell our beloved home and try to shore up the company with the equity from the sale. It was a terrible wrench and put a further strain on our relationship.

      This was one of the most difficult periods of my life. Friends who had made a great deal of money from me over the years were deserting me by the barrowful. People I trusted didn’t return my calls and, worse still, my staff began to lose respect for me. Many left and found other jobs in Glasgow’s overpopulated world of bars and clubs.

      Now when things are bad they can get really bad, even when you think they can’t get any worse. One Friday evening in November 1999, I received a call from my lawyer, Brian. He told me I had a major problem. The liquidation accountants were on their way to the Budda Bar to close it down.

      I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. What the hell was going on? I knew nothing about this writ and was totally stunned. I literally dropped everything and ran out of the house. I could hardly breathe and was shaking with fear. There were tears in my eyes and my head was bursting. If I couldn’t get over to Brian’s office as quickly as possible I would be out of business within the hour. I tried desperately to find a taxi but it was almost impossible at that time on a Friday. So I started running. I ran and ran through the streets of Glasgow’s West End in the pouring rain. I’d been running for a good five minutes when I saw a taxi with its ‘for hire’ light on. Within minutes I was at Brian’s office, shaking with fear and in a terrible state.

      Brian told me I needed to raise £25,000 by Monday morning to prevent my business being closed down. The weird thing was that the sale of our house was due to be completed the following week, so at the back of my mind I knew that if I could borrow money from somewhere I could repay it almost immediately from our sale proceeds. I lifted the phone and called my dad. He was pretty shocked when I told him about my predicament. He wanted to help but had only around £3,000 in ready cash. If I wanted more, he would have to make some calls and get back to me. True to his word, dad called back within the hour and told me that he could get another £10,000 from a friend of his. I managed to raise the remaining £12,000 from the weekend’s takings at my bars. I thought I was safe. I had bought time.

      I don’t know how I got through those dark days of November 1999. I suppose I just dug deep and hoped that things would turn out all right in the end. I was still fairly young and in good health, which meant that I could always start up again in business if I felt the desire to do so. But the magic was slowly disappearing from my world of wheeling and dealing and bars and clubs. I just couldn’t see myself going through the trauma of starting up from scratch if my business went bust.

      At this point, I found comfort in knowing that I could – if need be – take my own life. I understand that this may sound rather melodramatic or even selfish, but it was this thought and the ultimate level of control it brought me that really kept me going. No matter how bad things got, I had a get-out clause. It was also strangely comforting to know that I had an insurance policy that would pay out £1 million on my death, even if I committed suicide. If the worst came to the worst at least I’d be able to leave Michael and my family enough money for them to be fairly comfortably off.

      I was constantly bombarded with calls from creditors. Unfortunately, there wasn’t that much in the kitty to pay them. I could feel my business slipping away from beneath my feet like quicksand.

      When we finally sold our house, it wasn’t the anticipated answer to my financial problems. Once we’d paid off our mortgage with the cash from the sale we were left with approximately £113,000. As soon as the money hit our account the bank manager used some of it to pay off my company overdraft, so we were left with £73,000. The bank manager wasn’t finished though. Michael and I had credit cards, which we had been using for months to buy food and pay bills. Our card bill was sitting at £13,000 so the bank manager took our cards from us, tore them up and paid off the bill. We had £60,000 left but the bank manager still wasn’t finished. By the time I’d paid off some of my debts, I was left with nothing. Not a penny, absolutely nothing. I now had no money to pay back my mum and dad and I was devastated.

      Michael and I moved into our new home and were settling in. Christmas was only a few weeks away but we decided not to buy each other presents СКАЧАТЬ