Sloitly On The Huh

Tag: Suffolk

  • Surviving Liquidation – What Life Looks Like On The Other Side

    Surviving Liquidation – What Life Looks Like On The Other Side

    This one matters.

    In truth, I started this blog off with a post about my beloved L322 because it was easy. Easy to be superlative about a machine with a soul, to write pleasantries and whimsical metaphors…

    But the reason I started writing here at all is to share some of my journey with you. To help you. And, because I think I need to write it.

    Most insolvency articles have all the emotional depth of a teaspoon. They’re as cold and clinical as a side-effects leaflet in a packet of paracetamol. Lists of obligations written by the vultures in suits, circling the wounded animal limping towards the mirage in the desert…

    In the midst of insolvency, I couldn’t find a single blog, website, forum, post or page telling me about what my life would be like once the business that had been my identity throughout my childhood and the first twelve years of my working life, was gone. So, here I am. Five years hence, writing for you – if you are sitting in your van at 6am outside your works doors, with a paper cup of cold coffee, searching for something – anything – that resembles a glimmer of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

    I was absolutely convinced that my life was over. That was that. I remember the feeling of shame, hurt, literal grief viscerally. The sense that every future conversation, every introduction would begin with “and this is the boy who went bust…”. The embarrassment. The guilt. Wondering if every time I set foot in my favourite pub, the hum would turn to silence broken by whispers as eyes followed me around the room…

    But it was more than that. I was grieving not just for me, for my identity that was tied so closely to a business I’d taken over from my own father, and worked in and around since the age of twelve. I’d grown it through deeply personal connections to staff, colleagues, suppliers and customers alike… The physical effects of stress on the body are profound – every muscle and sinew hurt, my throat had a permanent lump in it. The feeling of utter, utter uselessness was absolutely consuming. It was that feeling which nearly killed me. I recall vividly feeling like a phantom at my own meeting, in a room full of well meaning people discussing strategies for salvaging the business in some form or other when I knew in my heart, it was broken. I was broken. Truth is, I didn’t have the stones for it any more.

    The smell of the empty office on a Monday morning. The empty sheds with ghosts of a life, once a busy workshop with beautiful cars and bustling with talented engineers and personalities, now giving way to silence.

    I close my eyes and recall driving to some cliff tops in the twilight. Parking up and gazing out to sea. I looked down and wondered for a while whether the cliff was high enough to jump from, or whether I’d be better off wading out to sea and letting the strong currents take me. I must have been there for two, maybe three hours…

    You’d think the children, my wife, my family would have saved me. How selfish of me, to take my own life from them. But what people who have never been there fail to understand is, in that moment, you don’t feel you are taking anything from them. I’m so useless, what good am I anyway?

    My old workshops. Now derelict, devoid of the life and energy that occupied them once. We didn’t half do some stuff there…

    But.

    There. In the deepest, darkest hole I have ever been in the depths of despair, came a glimmer of light.

    This one train of thought saved me, and it’s crucial to hang on to it in that moment.

    You do matter. I mattered. What I needed, was evidence to support that fact – and I found it. It was subtle, but vital. The evidence is this:

    People gave me time. Why would they do that if I wasn’t worth something, to someone, somewhere?

    That voice came from somewhere in my psyche, and I clung on to the message like a life raft in the middle of an ocean. What did it mean?

    It meant that my friends spoke to me. My mum was always pleased to hear from me. Smaller still, people in the street appreciated me when I held the door for them. There were people around me who took me to car shows, motorcycle shows, race meets. Spoke to me when they didn’t have to. However small the interaction, whoever they were, they inferred some value on my life through the smallest of interactions, without ever realising it.

    So that, was my first building block. I turned the car around and drove home, and climbed back into bed next to my beautiful wife, in my house with my beautiful family. No-one knew I was gone.

    It was hard. Horrendous, from there on in. I haven’t fully recovered from it yet, clearly. But, there was a palpable lightness about me that no-one could take, and the feeling of being free from the stress of running an ailing business and the crescendo of liquidation when it did come, was equally all consuming in a positive way. Life is good now, and has been for some time.

    Here are some pieces of advice for you, such as I might be bold enough to subject you to it:

    1. Beware of anyone in a suit, metaphorically or otherwise. iPad, electronic pencil, spreadsheet – they’re not there for you, they make their living from you. The biggest support I had came from a family member, and two men in Hawaiian shirts, in offices plastered in CoolArt and model cars.
    2. Surround yourself with people who don’t care about your business. The business might be the biggest thing in your world for a while, but you are the biggest thing in someone else’s. Let them carry you for a while.
    3. Get out of your industry. Change the scene. You are not your profession. Cut yourself some slack and do something that just puts bread on the table. I drove coaches for a couple of years, dabbled in cars only on my own terms, and loved every second of it.
    4. The intensity dies away quite quickly, and is replaced by a feeling of peace you cannot imagine right now. But it does.
    5. Nothing is ever as bad as you imagine it will be. No meeting insurmountable, no piece of paper you cannot fill in.
    6. It happens to more people than you think. The number of people who came out of the woodwork and supported me with stories of their own was surprising, and most welcome. I never knew. Which leads me on to…
    7. … You do not in fact, walk around with ‘failure’ tattoo’d on your forehead. Nobody is judging you. Seriously.
    8. If anyone does judge you, it’s usually the ones who never tried.
    9. And, it’s up to you whether you react to it.
    10. You have learned so much more than you will ever be able to put on a CV. These lessons are gold. You won’t forget them.
    11. You’ll know the look in someone’s eyes when they are carrying the burden you have also shouldered. You will buy them a beer.
    12. There is life after everything.

    Good luck.

    You’re going to be alright.

  • A Love Letter to My L322

    A Love Letter to My L322

    Talking about my L322… Because everyone seems to be talking about the L322 these days…

    I don’t think everyone is talking about the L322 because it’s the ‘best car ever made’. Because it isn’t. Not by any measure. The next model on is probably a better drive, more economical, more powerful, more capable.

    Everyone is talking about the L322 because it was the ‘best car ever made’ twenty four years ago (as of 2026). And everyone is talking about it because of the elapsed time and richly deserved reputation for complexity, it’s become cheap enough for public school influencers in tweed caps and jackets to purchase a little slice of upper class Britain, and the kind of grubby farmer-esque image that looks well on the lawns of Goodwood estate. Endorsed by Clarkson, Harry Metcalfe and the like – it’s likely the most accessible ticket up the social class ladder you can buy.

    They’ve also become accessible to grubby oiks like me, whose life seems to be held together with baler twine and cable ties, lurching from one disaster to the next. Highly stressed work, a non-existent life-balance, family, children, home-brew race cars, illnesses and health complications in my nearest and dearest testing every fibre I have to breaking point on a daily basis. Why wouldn’t I throw a flawed, temperamental and frankly old daily driver into the mix?

    The Best Car… In The World?

    Wind the clock back two years (have I really had it that long?) and I was still in the VW Scirocco Mk2 that I was running daily. An indulgence really – the toy I’d bought to keep me out of trouble after selling my Superstox (more on that later…). A great car, one of my favourites – we had a lot of fun together. Not quite hardy enough to cope with daily use in truth, not quite big enough to fit the family in, no capacity for towing (towing Superstox…) I sold it, released my stake money and asked a question – what is the best car I could buy for under £5k?

    I’d shortlisted a few. Did I want a van? Maybe. BMW E60? Definitely. Disco TD5? Yes… Mercedes E Class? A bit soul-less. The L322 had always felt out of reach to me. In my mind, they were still a new car, and I was still a ten year old straining to peer over the scraper seals of one a local property developer had, in absolute awe of the acres of leather and wood…

    Dad had a P38. My grandfather had a P38. In the end, I’d had about three of them – I had a love-hate relationship with all of them. Great when they worked – which was never – and painful when they didn’t. The L322 felt like five generations hence from the P38, and out of reach from someone like me.

    I searched on eBay, expecting to find only wrecks within reach… But no. From a dealer (Heel and Toe Cars – Coggeshall based, great guys to deal with) MY TD6 was for sale, within reach and a deal was struck. The very best example I could find was mine for comfortably under £5k. 84k miles, and the tow bar was still wrapped in factory cellophane… I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t, really.

    There are ropey ones around for almost no money at all now, but this car was and is exceptional.

    It hasn’t always rewarded me as much as you’d hope – but probably has as much as you’d expect. We had a difficult honeymoon period, with air suspension issues (Chinese reproduction compressor caused most problems here) that dogged me for some considerable time whilst I learned the suspension system enough to fix it. It actually blew up one air suspension spring, but had the decency to do so on my driveway at least.

    The fuel pump stopped pumping some time later, and scariest of all the lower front ball joint nut came undone – presumably as someone historically didn’t tighten it up enough.

    The stereo system really dates the interior, and I’ve got used to the missing pixels now. It’s a sod to change for a modern replacement, I haven’t had the time to suss out how yet – which is a shame.

    And it’s slow. The TD6 is fine when you’re rolling but honestly getting there? Another 50bhp would do it the world of good. Except that it wouldn’t, because the gearbox would appear to be made of the same kind of cheese McDonalds use in their burgers, so putting more power through it would dump me at the side of the road one day, categorically, with an expensive and complex job to do.

    Old Meets New(er)

    And yet.

    At the risk of sounding like my yuppie would-be car journalist nemeses (nemesi?) there is something about a Range Rover that no other car gives you. The JLR marketing squit called the driving position the ‘command position’, and I may vomit at that, but it bluddy well feels like it. All of them do – from the classics to the current models. And it’s so smooth, so easy to drive… I’ve had less relaxing deep tissue massages than the drive of this thing.

    I genuinely relish the opportunity to do a long distance road trip in it. You should see my little face light up when I’ve got the opportunity to point north or south, set the cruise control, let the suspension drop to motorway height and just… Go.

    Theres no other car I can think of that’s quite so versatile either. I’ve taken the whole family out for trips. I’ve delivered three engines all at the same time and collected about 18 tyres from Lincolnshire without breaking a sweat. I’ve towed, recovered, waded in rivers, rescued lesser cars from floods, and done it all in a car that would still look at home with some celebrity in the back pulling up to a red carpet even now.

    I think it’s handsome too, and I also think my pre-facelift front end is the best of the lot.

    I love it. I look back at it every time I park up. It’s the first car I’ve had for about fifteen years I make a conscious effort to keep clean and serviced. I’m glad I can take care of the expensive mechanical stuff myself – I wouldn’t want garage rate bills – but it’s worth taking care of.

    £5k to feel like landed gentry every time you drive anywhere? The preppy twits are right – it’s a steal. Oh yah, ya know…