Autobiography

to stop it happening. But it proved to be the
best piece of fortune I could have had. I have
long lived by the mottos ‘It is what it is’ and
‘if it’s to be, it is up to me’, so I picked
myself up and set about looking for a
replacement store. I went to the local estate
agent and told him what I required.
I swore I would never take a lease again
(although I now have hundreds around the
country) and I went out and bought, with the
money I had made from my bookshop, four
stores with a substantial deposit on each. The
first one I looked at was perfect for what I
wanted, then up came another, then another,
and another. Two of the stores I still have
today, one in Wardour Street and the other in
Brewer Street. Both are now Ann Summers
shops and have an estimated collective value
of £8 million. The other two stores were four
doors apart in Tottenham Court Road and ten
years later it was the sale of these shops that
was, without doubt, the major breakthrough
for the Gold Brothers.
I was originally offered £2.3 million for our two
shops in Tottenham Court Road by the
investment arm of BICC bank, who wanted to
develop the site, and it was a fantastic moment
for us. Ironically, years later the bank
collapsed spectacularly.
I gulped and instinctively wanted to take the
cheque from the bank’s representative there
and then before he changed his mind, or I
woke up. But then I realised that no one would
come in and offer that sort of money unless
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