A Risk Worth Taking

by Robin Pilcher

  Bloody fools, Dan repeated to himself. Fancy having to work hours like that and not make any money.

  Katie’s involvement in the company, however, ended on the eve that Max (now 10 and pictured left) was born. Her duties then changed from office administration to child care, a task that included trying to stop the little baby from freezing to death.

  “Scotland was hit by one of the severest winters ever experienced for about twenty years,” says Katie. “The only source of heat in the cottage was an ancient wood-burning range in the kitchen, which filled the room with smoke if there was even a hint of dampness on the logs. It was pure hell. I think Max spent the first six weeks of his life, day and night, cocooned in an old sleeping bag that, judging from the smell, had been at one time occupied by a family of mice. I think that was when I reached my lowest point. I just longed to be back in our old life in Plymouth.”

  I bet you did, thought Dan.

  A year and a half later Sooty (8, pictured right) was born, making her first appearance into the world with a mass of jet black curly hair. Although christened Sacha, the nickname that Patrick gave her on first seeing his new daughter in the hospital has stuck. “Sooty’s arrival spurred Patrick into action,” says Katie. “He knew that if I was to go through yet another freezing winter with two children, let alone one, then he ran the risk of losing his whole family. By this time, we were beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel with Seascape, so Patrick managed to persuade the bank to let him take out a mortgage on a nearby farmhouse that was being sold by the estate from which we rented the cottage. The house was pretty rundown, but at least it had an oil-fired Rayburn and central heating, so my days of shifting around armfuls of wood thankfully came to an end!”

  Getting up from the table, Dan walked over to the fridge and took out another can of beer. He flicked the ring pull and took a drink. He was beginning to have a certain amount of admiration for this family stuck away up in the north of Scotland. They may have been mad, but by God, they were resilient. He sat back down and found his place in the article.

  Living on the breadline, however, continued to be the name of the game for the Trenchard family. One of the ways in which Katie embraced this culture was by starting to make clothes for her children, using off-cut fabrics that she bought from the local drapery store in Fort William. Her design principle was based on what her children seemed to be comfortable wearing. Baggy trousers in brightly coloured brushed cotton with elasticated waists, and big pockets in which useful things like toy tractors and crumbling biscuits could be stored. The design for her skirts followed a similar vein. Next came sweaters with wide, easily rolled up sleeves, and made out of a polar fleece material that Katie sourced from a factory in Inverness which specialized in clothes for hillwalkers and mountaineers.

  “What I hadn’t bargained for,” continues Katie, “was the demand from mothers at Max’s playschool for me to make similar clothes for their own children. At the time, we needed every bit of spare cash that we could lay our hands on, so the kitchen became like the Tailor of Gloucester’s workroom!”

  One of her greatest aficionados, however, just happened to be the nine-year-old son of the chief executive of the Local Enterprise Company, a burly red-bearded Highlander called Rhuraidh MacLeod. Rhuraidh was a good friend of Patrick’s, having helped him on a feasibility study for an expansion plan for Seascape, so there seemed nothing unusual in his visiting their house one evening with a clump of papers stuck under his arm.

  “He wasn’t there to talk about Seascape, though,” says Katie. “He wanted to talk to me about my clothes.”

  Over a glass of whisky, Rhuraidh explained that there was a small clothes manufacturing unit on the same industrial estate where Patrick’s plant was based that had just lost its main customer, a large retail chain in the south that had decided to cut costs by moving its manufacturing base to Eastern Europe.

  Quite right too, Dan thought to himself. I’d have done the same. He turned the page. There was another photograph, this time of a brooding young male model with thick brown hair worn fashionably messy and a crucifix dangling from his left earlobe. He was wearing a black T-shirt that fell well below the waistline of his open bomber jacket and a pair of trousers cut like army fatigues, their cuffs caught up on the padded tops of his Nike trainers. The image took up the whole page with the typeset of the article wedging the young man in from all sides. It was large enough for Dan to be able to make out a label with the name Vagabonds sewn onto the right-hand side pocket of the trousers.

  “Rhuraidh said that the twenty jobs that were to be lost at the factory might not seem that much, but it would be felt like a hammer blow in such a small community as Fort William. He felt, however, that it could be saved, and before he took his leave of us that evening, he presented Patrick and me with a brief, three-page document which outlined his plans.”

  Rhuraidh MacLeod had given the company a working title, Vagabonds, a word that Katie had heard him use quite often to describe his young, hyperactive son. He envisaged the new company to be mail order, so that manufacturing, ordering, and packaging could all be handled from the same unit, and payment for articles would be up front. Rhuraidh’s idea was that the workforce should be laid off for two months during which time he had set Katie the monumental task of sourcing fabrics, producing samples, and photographing the catalogue while he would use the expertise in his office to set up the computer system and buy in mailing lists.

  “It was pretty daunting,” admits Katie, “but the carrot that Rhuraidh cleverly dangled in front of my nose was that, for the first six months, manufacturing costs would be borne jointly by the Local Enterprise Company and the District Council.

  “So I decided to take on the challenge—not so much because I wanted to do it, but more out of a sense of loyalty to Rhuraidh. If he had taken this much trouble to save twenty jobs, then it had to mean a great deal to him. So Vagabonds became the name of the company, and exactly two months after Rhuraidh’s visit, the first little pair of baggy trousers with elasticated waist and oversized pockets rolled off the production line and were sent off to our first mail order customer. It was a very exciting moment!”

  Two years later, when demand for Vagabonds was spreading right across Europe, Katie was approached by the headmaster of Fort William High School to help their final-year Art and Design students with design technique and manufacture.

  “I agreed to do it, although somewhat reluctantly,” says Katie. “I really felt that I couldn’t spare the time. But thank goodness I did. Those kids were so much more in tune with what everyone was wearing, and from that first year onwards, I incorporated many of their ideas into the Vagabonds range of clothes. I always credited their names in the catalogue under the heading ‘Designers,’ which I think made them feel that they had hit the big time!”

  Almost six years to the day since the company started, Katie has decided that the time has come to sell up.

  “The company is now in the position to be taken to a worldwide market,” says Katie, “and it needs someone with a greater business brain than I to be able to accomplish that! What’s more, I have been so occupied with Vagabonds over the years that I feel that I have missed out on a great chunk of my children’s lives. I just want to spend more time with them.”

  Dan looked up as the door of the kitchen opened and Josh walked in.

  “Hi there. Where have you sprung from?”

  “Upstairs,” Josh replied, pulling the flex from the kettle and filling it up from the tap.

  “Really? I thought I was alone in the house. Aren’t you working tonight?”

  “No. I couldn’t be bothered. I rang in and said I was ill.”

  “Oh,” Dan murmured before turning back to the magazine to read the final paragraph of the article.

  “Vagabonds is not only a niche market, but our products would seem to be considered a classic, judging by our ever-escalating order book. It will quite simply run and run.”

 
“Hey, Vaggas. Awesome wear.”

  Dan turned to find Josh looking over his shoulder at the magazine.

  “What?”

  “Those trousers. They’re called Vaggas.”

  Dan frowned quizzically at his son, then shot a glance back at the photograph of the young male model. “You mean you know about them?”

  “Of course I do. They’re Vaggas.”

  “Which I suppose has to be an abbreviation of Vagabonds, the name of the company that makes them.”

  “Whatever,” Josh said, moving over to the sideboard to make himself a cup of coffee. “I just know them as Vaggas.”

  “But how on earth do you know about them?”

  “I’ve seen them worn in the Inferno. They’re great for clubbing, being loose-fitting and all that.”

  “Are you telling me that these trousers are considered ‘cool wear’?”

  Josh laughed. “No, I’m not telling you that because I wouldn’t use a phrase like that. Maybe . . . um . . . ‘ultimate’ wear would be better.”

  “For heaven’s sakes,” Dan murmured incredulously, knowing that Josh’s use of that word was reserved for only the best things in life.

  “They’re pretty difficult to get hold of, though. All I’ve ever managed to lay my hands on is one of their baseball caps, and that’s because I nicked it off a friend. You know the one. It’s got a V on the front with sort of squiggly bits at the side.”

  Dan nodded slowly. “Yes, that does ring a bell.”

  “I’ve tried to find the company on the Internet, but I don’t think they’ve got a website. From what I gather, you can only buy them on mail order.”

  Dan flipped over the page to study once more the unassuming, countrified woman who had obviously stumbled upon a style phenomenon. “If these trousers are such a success, why has nobody ever tried to copy them?”

  “I’m not sure—but if I was going to buy a pair, I’d only want them to be the genuine article. It’s like you buying a pair of Levi’s, isn’t it? You wouldn’t want to walk around in a pair of denims with the name of a supermarket stuck on your backside.”

  Dan took Josh’s point with a flick of his head. “Probably not. So, in your opinion, the market for Vaggas, as you call them, could grow?”

  “And how!” Josh replied, taking a swallow of his coffee and pulling out a chair for himself next to Dan. “I wouldn’t think they’re even scratching the surface yet. I’m not the only one who’s been trying to get hold of a catalogue. Nobody even knows where the wretched company is based! I mean, whoever’s running the business at present has no idea what a huge market he’s missing out on.”

  “Seemingly, it’s all run from the north of Scotland.”

  “Is it? Well, maybe the boss should lay down his bagpipes and get down here and do some marketing.”

  Dan slid the magazine across the table to Josh. “That’s the ‘boss’ there,” he said, stabbing his finger on the face of the woman. He could tell from Josh’s expression that he was unimpressed, almost disappointed.

  “Doesn’t look particularly dynamic, does she?” Josh remarked.

  Dan smiled. “Not really. But give her her due, she did start the company as a hobby. She’s obviously done bloody well to get it to where it is now.”

  Josh drummed his fingers on the table. “Maybe, but what they need to do is find someone who really knows how to run a business like that. Like Mum, for instance. If she took it over, she’d just make the whole thing explode.”

  Dan bit thoughtfully at the side of his cheek. “I wonder. I mean, I don’t doubt your mother’s capabilities, but this really is a completely different kettle of fish. Rebecca Talworth’s name was pretty well established before Jackie started building up the company.”

  “Dad,” Josh replied, shaking his head, “go into any club that has a name for itself south of the river and ask if either the names Rebecca Talworth or Vaggas mean anything to them. I know what the answer would be.”

  “You’re going to tell me Vaggas, aren’t you?”

  “Probably ninety per cent?” Josh hazarded a guess.

  “This is unreal!” Dan stated incredulously. “I can’t believe that something started from sewing scraps of cloth together in the north of Scotland should become sort of cult wear.”

  “Well, it seems to have worked.” Josh drained his coffee. “Hey, that article doesn’t give a contact number, does it?”

  Dan flipped over to the end of the article. “No. Nothing. I suppose you could get it through directory enquiries.”

  “Yeah, I suppose.” Josh rinsed out his mug under the tap. “Don’t think I’ll bother, though. I’m a bit skint at the minute. I’d just get tempted.”

  “They don’t cost that much, do they?”

  “About fifty quid, which is more than I can afford at the minute.”

  “Fifty quid! Bloody hell!”

  “Well, they don’t seem to have any difficulty shifting them at that price.” Josh got up from the table, walked across the kitchen, and opened the door that led into the hall. “Listen, I’m going to have a quick bath, and then go around to see Phil Neilson. We were supposed to meet over the weekend, but we never got our acts together and he’s heading back to university tonight.”

  Dan pushed himself to his feet. “Okay. Maybe see you later, then.”

  Josh nodded. “Are the girls not here?”

  “No. They’re spending the evening with one of Millie’s friends.”

  “Right. Are you okay by yourself, then?”

  Dan smiled at his son’s unnecessary but kindly concern. He shot him a wink. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  As he heard Josh’s footsteps ascend the staircase at speed, Dan picked up the Sunday magazine that he had initially sought out and took it over to the table. He pushed the Woman’s Weekly to the far side of the table and sat down. He read one paragraph of an article about some high-flying interior designer in London, but his mind was elsewhere. His eyes went back to Battersea Gran’s magazine. He reached over the table and drew it towards him, opening it once more at the photograph of Katie Trenchard and her two children.

  If Josh was really right about this, then maybe it was worth finding out a little more about the company. If there was this huge untapped market, then maybe it could be a winner. He’d always gone on about something turning up. He’d never believed in omens, but nevertheless, the way that this had come to light was all pretty strange. A woman’s magazine given to him by his mother for some ghastly recipe, the article, the company for sale, and then Josh telling him that their product was one of the hottest things around. Maybe he was right about Jackie’s expertise. Of course, she had her job with Rebecca Talworth, but if he were to take on the management of the company, they could work on the marketing together. In fact, doing something in which they both had a common interest might be the stimulation their relationship needed at that precise moment.

  Dan pushed back his chair and pulled out the drawer in the table. After a bit of rummaging, he found a blunt pencil and one of Nina’s old exercise books. He creased it open at a blank page. Right, he thought to himself, let’s give this a bit of thought.

  I. Source a manufacturer in Eastern Europe. Cheaper production costs.

  II. Mail order and Internet sales. Spread the market worldwide.

  III. No need to live in Scotland. Could run everything from Haleridge Road.

  IV. Not stock, though. Need to rent a small industrial unit nearby.

  V. Fabrics, designs, etc. No knowledge of that. Maybe have to keep Katie Trenchard on as design consultant for a year. On second thought, maybe not. Contention between her and Jackie?

  VI. Funding. Mortgage house? Idea dismissed. Telephone Nick Jessop to see if he could wangle a short-term loan without collateral through Broughton’s.

  Nick. Of course. That was exactly to whom he should be talking. Dan got up from the table and walked over to the telephone. He dialed his number from memory.

  “Nick?”

 
“Hi, Dan.”

  Dan heard a loud splash of water in the background. “Sorry, have I caught you at a bad time?”

  “Sort of. I’m just giving Tarquin his bath. Hang on a minute while I get him out.”

  Dan waited, hearing Nick’s muffled voice talking away to his son.

  “Right,” Nick said eventually. “That’s him sorted. I hope you’re not ringing up to do more gloating about that result yesterday.”

  Dan laughed. “Now would I do a thing like that?”

  “Yes, too bloody right you would!”

  “Well, you have to admit, it was a pretty good match. Anyway, thanks, Nick, for getting me those tickets.”

  “No problem.”

  “Listen, that isn’t actually the reason for the call. You’re a wealth of information about all things to do with young children, and I just wondered if you had ever heard of a mail order company called Vagabonds?”

  “Yes, sure I have.”

  Dan was momentarily struck dumb by Nick’s instantaneous reply. “What? You know of them?”

  “Of course I do. It’s a pretty well-known company. I think Laura came across them about a year ago. She gave a pair of their trousers to one of her godchildren, and we’ve been getting their catalogues ever since. In fact, Laura was thinking of ordering up pairs for both herself and Tarquin.” Nick’s voice went distant. “Weren’t we, my little man?” His mouth came back to the receiver. “So, why this sudden interest in Vagabonds?”

  “Oh, no particular reason,” Dan replied airily. “It’s just that I read an article about the woman who started it.” He paused for a moment. “So, do you know others who buy from Vagabonds?”

  “Sure. I couldn’t tell you right now who they are, but yeah, I’ve seen adults and kids of all ages wear the trousers.”