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Our Background

Where we Come From

After finishing his 'A' levels Charles entered medical school but after 2 years decided that he didn't have the vocation to be a truly great doctor. Instead he took his business degree at Manchester University and then trained at one of 'the big 5' accountancy firms in London. A few years of auditing and business accounting left him with a desire for a greater challenge and so he entered the world of finance, rapidly moving up the ladder to become the youngest vice president of a blue chip fortune 500 company.

After taking her degree Allison held a variety of jobs, moving up the managerial scale in recruiting and personnel. She left work after the birth of our first child and then spent 10 years with our two boys, 'holding the fort' whilst Charles travelled extensively becaues of his job.

The years from 1992 - 2002 were gruelling in some ways and exhilerating in others. We had the chance to move to Belgium where our second son was born and then went on to live in Munich, Paris, Cheshire and Princeton (USA). In some ways life was very hard - Charles was working long hours and was often away for days at a time and when he did come home, he was exhausted. At home it could get very lonely with just 2 children for company but we are both resourceful and our main aim, whenever and wherever we moved, was to take advantage of our opportunities and enjoy the life we had.

And life was good! We lived in beautiful houses, had nice cars, went on lovely holidays and didn't have to worry about money. The children went to good schools and on the surface anybody would have thought that we were living the perfect life.

WRONG! Beneath the surface Charles was becoming more and more disenchanted with his profession. 'Politics' was taking the place of good business practice and he felt that his integrity was being put into jeopardy each and every day. We were also beginning to question how much longer we could carry on subjecting our children to this nomadic existence. Our eldset son was already in his 5th primary school (in 5 different countries) and we needed to ensure that both he and his brother would have the stability they needed in secondary school. We also wanted them to have the chance to make life-long friends, rather than annual acquaintances.

The Cross Roads

2002 was the year that we finally decided that we needed to change. Everybody comes to various cross roads at different stages in their lives and we were lucky enough to recognise this as a major one. We decided that our personal ethics and integrity plus the needs of our sons were more important than having a high powered job with a fancy title. It was a terrifying decision to make but we decided to return to Britain and start a new life for ourselves. We wanted stability in the foreseeable future, time together as a family and a couple, and the chance to design a future for ourselves. We wanted to take responsibility for own destinies and have the freedom to do what we wanted, when we wanted. We also wanted to work at home together so that Charles didn't have to continue missing out on his sons' childhood.

As soon as we returned to the UK Allison went out to work so that we had some money coming in each month and Charles set up his own management consultancy which became very successful but we were still at the mercy of others - management consultancy pays very well but the next job is never certain. Our change in direction was not fulfilling our wish for financial freedom in the future and so we started looking at other options - Option B in our minds at that time. In 2004 we found this amazing business opportunity and have never looked back. Option B has become Option A!

You can find out more about how our life has changed by clicking on "Our lives Today"