CHAPTER SIX ANDY PRITCHARD

Chapter Six -

Andy Pritchard

During the time that I have written this book, the layout and plan of it has had to take shape on its own, and sort of morph its way to the finish line, evolving and changing as it goes.

Any proper writer will probably tell you that you should plan it all out before you start putting pen to paper (or these days, finger to key). Because I didn’t do it that way, this book has been quite an ordeal. In fact, as you will have heard in the preface, I pretty much gave up twice. Initially I just started writing down jokes and anecdotes that Jim and Barry told, and it grew from there.

If I had the time to start this best seller again, which I can’t because I have ideas for several other books (which, yes, I will plan this time), I would start it that second time around with the Andy P Chapter.

During the researching into this book, otherwise called drinking, eating, chatting and going to various sporting and social events, it had become clear to me that I wouldn’t have met half the protagonists at the level I have, without my little pal.

So, I am coming to him late. I am sorry about that, but here I - Andrew Simon Pritchard. He is most definitely the man behind me having so many of these meetings and experiences and helping me get to know so many people I can now call good friends.

Actually, he would also have always been in the book even if he is a little young. I would have had to write a bit about him because, for one thing, he would never forgive me if I hadn't but also because I see a lot of him these days so don’t need to make up an excuse for a meet up and a bite to eat. I can get his chapter started straight away.

As I say he’s not strictly in the age bracket of the other stars of the book, but let's explore this strange little phenomenon.

I say little because as mates we are bit different structurally. In many ways after that we are very much opposites. I am seventeen stone (‘and the rest’ I hear many

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of the readers shouting in unison) and he is about 12 stone (‘no way’ I hear you all shouting now you’ve taken to the other strange phenomena of heckling while reading).

I guess I am over 6ft 3inch and he is, I would guess about 5 foot nine.

Little and large maybe?

He's the same age as me, give or take six months, and I was recently (2015) best man at his third wedding. I have known him since 1981 and we have stayed pals through thick and thin since then. His life has been very different to mine and I am convinced this is one of the reasons we still enjoy each other’s company and are still great friends.

Other reasons would include that we never seem to have a serious conversation and that we don’t do any business together.

And then there’s a massive wealth discrepancy, but more on that later.

The reason I met him in the first place was that I began working for that firm of accountants called Arthur Young McClelland Moores in my very first ever ‘proper’ job. They became Ernst & Young as you probably know, so that was a lucky call as we both then had some very good experiences when it became a larger business with more departments and more varying opportunities to be offered.

He had started the year before me (he is about six months older like I said and I had done the Oxbridge exams at school which added another term to my schooldays). We were both in that same office in Silkhouse Court in Liverpool. As luck would have it, we ended up working on some jobs together.

As the old saying goes, we knew how to work hard and also play quite hard. We are both quite fond of a glass or two of vino and the occasional Guinness and on certain occasions both at once – though not, of course, in the same glass. Who do you think we are?

The department we worked in was auditing, or otherwise known as the checking over of other companies’ financial books for various reasons. He was, as I said, the year above me so on a number of jobs he was what was called the audit senior and I was his junior.

To summarise the way, I broadly understood those roles; I messed about and he tried to stop me.

He would much rather have joined in the messing around, but his role was actually to get the jobs done.

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We always ended with a mad dash in the last few days to get the bulk of the work done and often simultaneous with extraordinary hangovers.

While doing that last push he also probably ended up doing the bulk of the work. In hindsight, I should probably now say, “Sorry mate”.

After a few years, we found ourselves working at the still small but fast-growing Iceland Frozen Foods and we were conducting their annual audit. I had been busy failing my exams again, so I was still an assistant and it was Andy’ s job to devise and plan all the tests we were going to do on the financial systems of this fast growing, exciting company.

As we all know, today Iceland is a massive organisation employing thousands of people and having about 750 stores but back at this point in time a handful of the main people worked in porta-cabins at Deeside.

Alongside these cabins a big new build of state-of-the-art offices was well underway, and I was told very shortly after arriving there that they already knew the half-finished accommodation was not actually going to be big enough when finished. That was how fast they were growing.

We had a ball on this job I must admit but we also had a big job to get through. We did work very hard, as I was only joshing before. It was a formative time for Iceland and every time we visited it, it had changed and grown almost beyond belief in the interim.

Meeting the main people at that time meant we had from then on a close affinity with them having seen them at these early stages, when they were probably more approachable and informal. We formed long lasting associations and friendships on those visits.

The following year we were about to be back there again and suddenly Andy accepted a job offer from Iceland itself and he changed from being the auditor of the company to being the financial controller of the same company: the ‘audited’ if you like. That was unusual.

He sort of knew all the checks I was going to do on what had now become ‘his business’ as he had planned most of it before he left. It did give rise to some potential conflicts of interest.

When he had started at Iceland and I arrived there soon after as the senior auditor, he made it clear very early on that he was keen (extremely keen I would say) to see the book that I had in my possession which included the details of the senior managers and directors’ salaries.

Andy was very ambitious you see and he very desperately wanted a look at that ledger! He wanted to know what they were all on and it was part of my role to 60

make sure that no one (except authorised personnel) found out this information and at that stage Andrew Simon Pritchard was not yet one of those ‘authorised’ people. I think that rankled him a bit to say the very least.

This was in the days before mobile phones, but in the big office where I was stationed to work there were fixed phones on the tables almost everywhere and they each had extension numbers written on them.

I recall the one next to me was something like number 232 and Andy’s, in his office across the way, was maybe 230, and you will soon get the picture. When he came out to talk to me I knew it would be about the infernal salaries book so in anticipation I had placed my phone on the chair next to me slightly under the table. Just when he started to nag about letting him have a little ‘peak’ at the salaries, I reaffirmed this was not going to happen.

This was a lot of fun for some reason, and I was wriggling with excitement. I had that weird restless legs feeling.

This did not make him very happy and while he was threatening me with all sorts of other things that were also never going to happen, I lifted the receiver of the phone under the table on the chair next to me and dialled his extension without looking away or visibly moving above the table and hence without him noticing.

‘Bugger’, he muttered as he heard it trilling and he ran back to his office 30 feet away, inside a sort of glass box, shouting something along the lines that it wasn’t over and he would ‘be back’. A sort of accounting Terminator!

As he arrived and picked it up, I put it down simultaneously at my end and carried on with studying the exciting pages in front of me. I was still wriggling.

‘Bastard’, I think I heard him say and he legged it back to resume the interrogation. You can guess what happened next. I got him to run back to his room twice more before he twigged. As it went dead that third time, he looked out at me and he spotted my arm directed under the desk and it dawned on him. I probably had a massive smirk on my face too, which many of my readers would recognise.

He wanted to be very angry, but he also couldn’t hide the fact that it was seriously funny.

Later that week he tried a different tactic. I had a room to myself this time as for some reason, we kept getting moved about, and he simply rushed in and tried to grab the damn ledger from the top of the desk right in front of me. It was very close to me so I was able to grab his sleeve and pull him towards me so I could then grab him around the neck and put him in a head lock.

He is a strong little bugger but had no chance with the weight difference that I had mentioned earlier. He wouldn't let go of the book and I wouldn’t let go of 61

the grip I had on his neck. As we stood in the middle of the room, wrestling, Malcolm (you know, the boss, now Sir Malcolm, the Chief Executive and founder of the entire company) stopped in his tracks as he passed the doorway.

‘Everything OK?’, he enquired quizzically.

We replied ‘Yes thank you, Malcolm’ in feeble unison.

My version was the clearer, whereas Andy’s sounded a little stifled. Malcolm walked away and Andy did a sort of MMA tap out on my arm because in the stress of things I was squeezing a little too hard and denying him oxygen.

Because I had made him look bad in front of the boss, actually probably both of us, he suggested that I give him the book to make amends, but I wasn’t going to fall for that one either.

I don’t recall if he ever saw the book that year but it wasn’t long before he was in charge of the accounts department anyway as he rose quickly through the ranks. Eventually he was in fact jointly in charge of the whole company, many years after, and Malcolm’s right hand man and confidante - which I of course would have been had I stayed.

So, at his peak he was one of the two main men together with Malcolm himself.

Andy and I worked on jobs all over the UK and we learnt a lot every day about business. Having been quite entrepreneurial when I was younger I now just worked, had fun and played rugby. I spent two years in the training department at EY after that having a lot of fun and in 1998 I left and moved to another firm of accountants. Within two years of making that move Andy poached me to go and work for him at Iceland. Hence, we were back in touch a lot more regularly.

Anyway, this is about him and not me.

The guy has been enormously successful in an enormously successful business, and he is now absolutely bloody loaded. However, like many people in his position he will admit that it's not all roses.

It's not until you know someone in his situation that you can see that it's actually sheer hell being rich. I’m sure it must be the subject of other more serious books but I would bet they conclude that being wealthy is not all it’s cracked up to be.

He gets by though and Andy’s plan these days is have a bloody good time all the time and, in the process, treat his inner circle of pals very generously indeed! I wish I could think of ways to repay him but I can’t, and he doesn’t want me to anyway.

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I have to say that he is seriously good at his new role: this enjoying himself stuff and he is remarkably generous to his mates (and to charities) and takes them (the mates) on all sorts of excursions all over the world, when they can make it.

Sadly and bizarrely, I have to spend a lot of my time thinking of excuses as to why I can't make it! Don’t get me wrong, I do want to go, but I just can ’t. I still have the kids to sort out and I think I am destined to work into my seventies as it is (if I can survive that long). I can’t go on amazing trips all the time because if I actually had any spare time I should use that time with the dear little ones – oh, and of course, Ali.

I know what you are all screaming at the pages excitedly now:

‘But you will be rich when your completed book starts hitting the shelves!’. Well, that means you haven’t concentrated so far: the book is for charity.

‘But you will make money anyway, on the next book, your album, the podcasts, the movie of the book, and the Graham Norton show and all that!’

I know, I know, it’s very nice of you and thanks for that and I do hope you’re right, but I suspect you are deluded. Anyway, you’ve distracted me, so let’s get back to Andy.

These days Andy shoots, he fishes, he goes to mega charity parties, he plays golf, he travels and so on.

During all these “sporting” events, he has to compete with his wife, Patricia, who is pretty good at most things she takes on. She is definitely a very fine shot and an extremely competent big motor bike handler.

It is so hard to say no when he wants you to come along, but I have to... sometimes…. nearly always.

I think I do well at saying no the right number of times but at this point it would be so funny to let my wife Ali have a little time at the keyboard.

She would probably say I am always away on trips. It’s funny how the human mind can become so confused like that and recollect things so wrongly. I am hardly ever away. My mates call me the Olympic Torch as I never go out (She hates that joke). Anyway, most of it is… er… business… or networking.

I’ve just told her this and reminded her of the ‘Olympic Torch’ nickname and she said something cryptic about a clucking bell, I think, but I have no idea what she means.

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Andy now goes out with all his pals, most of them quite wealthy and I like pretty much all of them. He has nearly always been a good judge of character, with one or two exceptions which we actually all fell for.

He seems to have avoided people whose wealth has gone to their heads and they have become arrogant or dismissive and so on. Quite an achievement that. I think it’s vital that he has retained loyalty with a few old friends. He’s done well, he’s a good egg., and although a small one nevertheless a good one.

So now when we are sort of back together again it just clicks and we are back in the groove: the groove of talking nonsense. I probably wouldn’t do anything he does in the same way that he does it, and vice versa, but that’s life and I don’t nag him and he doesn’t nag me. We make each other laugh. He doesn’t try to change me and I wouldn’t/couldn’t change him.

But when one party in a relationship is richer than the other, some things become difficult. It’s very hard for example to go out for a night out with him as his drink’s rounds will involve expensive bottles of Chateau de Nerves 62 and Chateau de Bankbalance 84 while mine will involve trying to find the closest bottle to £24.99 (and that’s quite high to be honest). That’s after I have made that tricky selection of which wine - red or white?

If that happens with us and it gets to my round he tells me off for ordering cheap wine and he says he will pay, but that’s awkward isn’t it, as I don’t like not being able to pay my way. But then it’s sort of paying ‘his way’ in that instance, if you get my drift. What often then happens, if it’s my turn to pay, is that he pays for the wine.

I was in London with my old pal and business partner Arthur Marley in a gorgeous little restaurant called Blandford Comptoir in Marylebone. We know the owner, legendary Xavier Rousset, sommelier extraordinaire and lovely French chap.

Because of Xavier’s pedigree, we were concerned about how our choice of wine might be viewed. Arthur put my mind at rest and immediately took over:

‘You put your finger exactly halfway down, then go up an inch’ he advised. ‘You will find what you need there both quality and price wise.’

He demonstrated the technique and his finger alighted on a lovely Pino Noir at a very reasonable, I don’t think, £55 a bottle.

Unfortunately, the wine waiter had arrived behind him at just that moment. He hadn’t heard what I had said, but he was poised with pen and nifty little pad in hand. He could see where Arthur’s finger had landed and helped with:

‘A very good choice if I might say so, Sir’.

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There wasn’t time for Arthur to say:

‘Jesus, better move my finger a bit lower.’

He ordered the Pino.

We drank two bottles (sorry Mum) and in the event the wine ended up actually being excluded from our bill as a favour. On the face of it, a lovely gesture but for me, bad news, as Arthur would later feel we somehow had had a windfall that would justify the argument behind heading for a massive Chinese banquet later that night!

Sorry, I digress.

The best way to describe mine and Andy’s relationship, is that he invites me on a ‘once in a lifetime trip’ every month!

Andy has been married three times. I think he likes wedding cake?

You may never get to read this as they all have the right to veto stuff and when he sees this, he might not want it broadcast – but until then, let me carry on.

Many decades ago, I knew his first wife, albeit fleetingly. A childhood sweetheart sort of relationship.

His second wife was called Debbie and was, when I first met her and before they were married, in charge of the entire purchase ledger department at Iceland Frozen Foods!

A big responsibility, a big cheese herself and a mighty efficient professional. She was in charge of many staff, mostly ladies, checking all the invoices that came in for the things the company bought, making sure that Iceland got the goods for the items and then paying them: a multimillion-pound entity in itself, and a very high-powered role.

With Andy now being the Financial Controller, they worked a lot together. I believe they tried to fight their growing feelings for each other but eventually they cracked and ran away together, and in fact, they actually eloped. How exciting!

The elopement had an immediate impact on my life. I don’t mean life changing but in the bloody shock I got.

I was sitting wearing, as I’d call it, my tiny weeny flat in Birkenhead one night. When I say tiny, I do really mean that. It was the roof space in a detached Victorian house. The first part of my bit of the building was just a flight of stairs. First left at the top of this flight was my kitchen. Then the stairs carried on up to the next

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floor and they were so steep that I usually went up on all fours. At the top were two rooms with a tiny bathroom between them.

I used one as a lounge, and though it was cleverly done up have I said it was tiny. I could not stand up at all on the top floor and the ceiling was basically the roof of the building. What sort of halfwit at probably 6ft 4inches back then (I’ve shrunk) chooses a flat like this?

Oh yes, the ‘me’ type.

The top section all sloped down at the sides as it was the roof of the building and so much so that I could only put furniture in certain places.

In the room on the right at the top I had a tv and a sofa bed, and that was my lounge. On the left was my bedroom with the curtains nearly always closed because the young buxom girl in the house opposite always seemed to be washing up topless. Yes, I have been very lucky at certain stages in my life.

Anyway, one quiet night in (and that didn’t happen very often), the intercom buzzed on the wall outside my kitchen, making me jump quite alarmingly as it was very loud, and I didn’t really get visitors that much.

For a start, most of my rugby mates wouldn’t fit in the place if I was also there.

I walked out of the kitchen and picked up the receiver on the stairs.

‘Let me in, its Andy’.

‘Andy who?’

I didn’t really know that many Andys except my mate from work who lived miles away out in North Wales.

‘Andy… Andy Pritchard’

‘What on earth - what the hell are you doing here?’

‘Let me in and I’ll tell you - its bloody freezing out here’.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, TWO people walked up the stairs that night, Andy and Debbie had eloped from their marriages to be together, and they stayed that way, mostly very happily I believe, for 25 years!

When they eloped, I believe Debbie had only been married to someone else for a matter of weeks. I guess she tried to overlook her feelings and press on regardless. I really don’t know but it must have been a tough time for both of them but all in all they made the right decision and had 25 happy years.

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We got on well and I saw them regularly. I even did a striptease at her 40th (an ‘accountant a gram’ as I called it) in front of her, about 40 other women and some quite startled restaurant staff.

I won’t mention anymore as it can go in the autobiography when the demand forces me to write that.

Now Andy is remarried, again happily. Patricia is a very strong German Italian lady and there is a larger age difference than ever before, but they are absolutely made for each other and blissfully happy.

When she says jump, most people are already in the air and wondering whether it will be high enough. They might even be wondering if it is safe to land. She is scary, but I guess it comes with the nationality at times, so she can’t change that. Andy seems to like it.

Fortunately, she is as mad as he is and the two of them are hell bent on spending their wealth ASAP.

(In my opinion that is, no lawsuits please!)

Is it a coincidence that his initials are actually ASP, which is so very close to ASAP?

This third marriage meant that I had to attend four stag dos as the best man in 2015. I won’t go into them in depth as that’s a further separate book again (actually someone has gone and, rather annoyingly, done a dumbed down version of them called Hangovers 1, 2 and 3).

In summary they took one whole year out of my life and aged me about five years. Really, I mean it. They actually shortened my life, left me in crippling debt and landed me with recurring nightmares and yes, of course I would do them all again!

The first 15 minutes in Ibiza sums it up. I checked into the magnificent hotel that Andy had paid for and sunk into the Jacuzzi I had on my own balcony (yes it was mine). I also had another one in the bathroom! Within a minute of slouching down and before I could say ‘this is the life’ my phone binged the infuriating text noise it makes right next to my ear.

I should never have looked at it.

‘Downstairs in 15 minutes - we are going out’

I’m not sure whether we ever came back.

I saw that room for about 6 more hours in the next four days. It would have made more sense financially if I had slept rough.

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And yes, as I said, I would do it again. I loved pretending I was young and I don’t care if I looked ridiculous.

These days, we have settled down into a slightly more sedate routine. He has moved to Jersey where he is undertaking the enormous refurbishment of a massive house that will take ‘two years’ (and the bloody rest) and I am working my whatsits off.

I don’t know why but I think it has dawned on him that I can’t go on the ‘once in a lifetime’ experiences every month so he only invites me to things occasionally.

I think maybe he has found some better mates too who can also afford the Chateau de Window 86. I wouldn’t blame him.

I’ve been with him to football matches including the Champions League final (I didn’t even like football then!), I’ve been fishing in Iceland, and I’ve been on a luxury yacht in the Greek islands, and so much more.

Sorry it might have been quicker to list the things I haven’t done.

What an amazing set of experiences.

Oh, and his bloody wedding – oh, my good lord, let’s not forget that!

It was three days of insane lavish festivities at the Four Seasons in Hampshire. It was enormously extravagant, and as a result I now have three daughters that are excitable all the time as they think that is what a wedding entails.

Girls, listen, weddings are not like that. It was make-believe. Weddings involve booking the rugby club and doing a yard of ale in front of all your friends and relatives and also the first team as they have had a home game that day.

My three sons also think that that was what a wedding entails and I worry that they in turn worry that their future partners will be expecting something like that.

Don’t panic lads, you are still at liberty to try and do what I nearly did: throw a surprise wedding for your loved one at, you guessed it, the rugby club. Thankfully, I think, the surprise got out in my case and I was talked out of it - big mistake.

It’s not easy to describe Andy and Patricia’s three-day event, but the folks that were there will NEVER ever forget it. They have continued their generosity to this day and if I could, I would spend a lot more time with them and somehow pay them back? I’d learn magic tricks, juggling or something.

Of course, I will be able to change all that when this and my future books take off, but for the time being its work, work and then what was it again, oh yes: work.

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But for all that, I don’t seem to be half as busy as Andy is now he is ‘retired’. He tears around the world having this meeting and then that flight, then this dinner then another flight and I don’t exactly think that they seem to be relaxing in any way at all during their retirement. They somehow seem scared to slow down.

I have to say that, despite all the amazing lavish trips we have had together, the spontaneous off the cuff nights have also been very memorable, and one sticks in the mind when we spent £43 on a night out in Bangor! And when I say we, this was somehow my turn to pick up the bill. Andy had some lame excuse about forgetting his wallet, and he promised to pay me back.

You can’t beat unplanned beers and banter.

So that’s Andy and Patricia, sneaking into this book, which is mostly about older folk, by virtue of their impact on the book and by my fear of not including them.

Actually, my fear of Patricia.

I would batter Andy in a fight but me against her – it would be a bookies’ nightmare, or actually not, as the favourite would win, and that favourite would not be me.

I can say that here as she won’t bother to read this far, as she will be off on a charity do or some madcap business idea or travelling to Germany for a beer.

“Sit still woman, will you and read a book!”

Finally, I may need to tell you about Andy P’s sporting prowess?

Non-existent.

Only kidding, as he is a very fine cricketer indeed and good mostly at ball sports such as golf, squash and so on. An amazing throwing arm too.

We had a competition amongst the EY cricket team once at Neston to see who could throw a cricket ball the furthest and he won. I really, really wanted to win and if there was no limit on how many throws you could have, I would still be there to this day, around the clock, trying to beat the distance he whipped the hapless ball that night.

Little bugger. The ball was too light for me and that’s why I couldn’t get a grip on it.

So, thanks for the memories, Andy Pritchard and where’s my £21.50?

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