What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography by Alan Sugar

taking the mickey out of me. 'You're Miss Mayer's favourite,' they'd say. 'Miss Mayer's son.' But they respected the fact that I was one of them. I hadn't snitched or dropped them in it for the big cock-up first time around. Within a couple of days, I had them sorted out, and I was sitting at my desk with my feet up.
    After about two weeks, we'd done the whole lot again. I guess the printouts must have made some sense this time because Miss Mayer told me that I'd done a good job - I suppose the data suited what they wanted to see. However, there were no tips or bonuses going - let's face it, this was the government.
    *

    Eight quid a week was all well and good, but it wasn't enough for me to keep up with my mates. I saw the job at the Ministry as something of an investment, so that one day I would end up not having to worry about income. In the meantime, I needed to supplement my earnings. I'd kept my job at the chemist's shop plus a few other ventures, and it was a rather weird situation - I was earning less from my career than I was from my sidelines!
    It was working with Mr Allen that once again prompted a new business venture. I'd become something of an expert in cosmetics and toiletries, as a result of selling them. Some of the girls at the youth club I went to in Stamford Hill were very impressed at my knowledge of Rimmel Coty, Yardley, Lancome, Helena Rubinstein and Chanel, not to mention the full colour range of L'Oreal hair dyes. Yes, it was Walthamstow, but believe it or not they had the clientele for that stuff.
    Thinking about the Cream of Cactus advertising campaign at school had sparked my interest in the cosmetics industry. I must have driven Mr Allen nuts, I was so inquisitive. At that time, a 'Flaming Red' Rimmel lipstick would sell for 1s 6d, but the Lancome equivalent was 4s 6d - three times the price!
    'Tell me, Mr Allen, these look the same to me - why is one 1s 6d and the other 4s 6d?'
    Advertising,' he said. 'They're both made of the same stuff. There is no technical justification, apart from a flasher wind-up case.'
    As well as absorbing how people would buy stuff based on the prestige of the brand and the advertising, I was fascinated by what the cosmetic products were actually made of. Take hair lacquer, for example. It was effectively industrial alcohol with something called shellac dissolved into it, the theory being that as soon as it was sprayed onto a warmish surface, the alcohol would evaporate, leaving the shellac to hold the hair in place - quite simple, when you think about it.
    A bit of trivia. Ladies may sometimes wonder why they get that cold sensation when the hair lacquer touches their neck. This is because the heat from the body evaporates the alcohol, giving the cooling effect. The same principle applies in an old army trick I once heard about: apparently, in Africa during the war, soldiers put their bottles of beer in a bowl of petrol and left it exposed in the baking sun. As the petrol evaporated, the effect was to take the heat out of the beer. Earth-shattering stuff, right?
    I called a meeting with my friends Steve Pomeroy and Geoff Salt and told them that cosmetics was a bit of a mug's game, and that perhaps we should start a little business making shampoo and hair lacquer. Steve's family's business was lemonade, so they knew where to buy bottles and labels. I could source the ingredients to make the hair lacquer and the shampoo - a soap detergent with a little bit of perfume in it.
    Having convinced the two lads we should enter into business, we slung fifty quid each into the pot and formed a brand name - Galste - made up of our three names: Geoff, Alan and Steve.
    I found a fellow by the name of Sidney Summers in Tottenham who was a wholesale supplier to hairdressing salons. From him, we bought gallon drums of shampoo, hair lacquer and some green, gooey setting lotion. Then we designed a small label that Steve had printed and we set up a bottling plant in the basement of Steve's