Category: Quakerism

CategoriesEducationQuakerismTravelBusiness

Buying a Language School in Spain

Posted on May 23, 2023by Andrew Gray

It’s 8:30pm, on Sunday 21 May 2023. I’m sitting, alone, on a bench in Puerto De La Cruz, North Tenerife. The photo above is my current view. I landed just a few hours earlier.

By this time tomorrow, when this blog has been emailed to my subscribers, following a meeting with a Spanish notary, which will be interpreted by my translator (whom I’m yet to meet), I’ll be the owner of this premium English language school, here in this town – a town that I barely know.

Whilst pondering my unusual predicament, a white transit van, fitted with loudspeakers, crawls past me, electioneering. I love this place! The van is promoting the coalition candidate, I think.

Despite what Brits might think about Tenerife, I haven’t heard anyone speak English for some time. In a nearby rock pool two small boys are looking for treasure. This town is both familiar and unfamiliar. I wish that my family was here with me.

The scale of my impending obligation gives me pause for reflection. The academy, formed by a highly capable English couple 15 years ago, currently educates 90 students. My first task is to ensure that the high levels of tuition are maintained.

But what do I know about education? Not so much. Although my mum was a teacher, and my dad runs children’s nurseries. My in-laws were both teachers. And I used to work as a classroom assistant in Salford (before choosing law). And my awesome wife taught English in Greece. And I have trained hundreds of doctors, and represented dozens of teachers. But does any of this qualify me for this role? Only time will tell. Certainly, I don’t have any formal teaching qualifications.

Not too long ago, I was on other the side of the fence – selling my main business (although I had previously sold two other businesses). When it’s been your baby, I know that the founders will want to ensure that I don’t trash their legacy. That’s how I felt, for sure. If, for them, they felt like I did, the moment of sale is a time of melancholy. A time for pause. A time for freedom – freedom from obligation. I extracted no pleasure, no pride, from selling. For me, it was necessary – necessary laced with monumental sadness.

At times like this, I follow the Quaker instruction to “live adventurously”. I wonder what the Spanish is for that expression. My Spanish is too immature to translate it.

This purchase is six months in the making. It feels like the right thing to do. Logically, it makes sense, too. I do hope that this bold purchase works for me, for my family, for the founders, and for the students and for the teachers. Please wish this venture, luck.

CategoriesLegalHealthQuakerismBusiness

Leaving my own law firm after a decade

Posted on September 20, 2022by Andrew Gray

(Due to poor health, three of my colleagues at Truth Legal are buying my shares in a Management Buy-Out. A few days ago, I gave a speech at our 10th birthday party in Hotel Du Vin, Harrogate. Below, is my speech, though, I have omitted all the personal comments that I made about my wonderful team, as well as removing the never-ending list of “thank-yous”. For posterity, I record here what I said that night. As with other speeches, I write down what I will say, just in case I get lost. Another time, when I have processed it, I will write more about this monumental decision.)

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10th party truth legal

Welcome, everybody, welcome to the Truth Legal 10th birthday celebration!

 

Somehow, we made it!

 

Wow, I’m honored that you all came here today to celebrate with us. Thank you.

 

I hope that you all have an excellent and useful evening, and that you drink the bar dry.

 

For those who don’t know me, I’m Andrew Gray. I’m the founder of TL and its my job this evening to explain how we got here and to say a gazillion heartfelt thank yous.

 

How did we get here?

I’m going to explain how we did it, and I’m going to introduce you all to our team, most of whom are here today. After all, a law firm is really just a collection of people.

 

When I left my last law firm, Thompsons, where I used to work with Navya, Sarah, Catherine, David and Julie, Hardev, Shabana, Joel and Sarah, I was either going to be at stay at home dad, or was going to set up a law firm.

 

Crazily, I was only four years qualified and my wife and I had two kids under 2, the youngest of whom just didn’t sleep. And still doesn’t sleep. It must have been the option to sleep in an office which made me set up.

 

I shall let you into a secret: as you would imagine, I calculated the costs of setting up a law firm and working out how far we could last on our meagre saving and on Julia’s maternity pay. I then added up all family outgoings. Although it would be a scrape, as Personal Injury law firms aren’t paid for a few years, I thought we’d get by. So, I handed in my notice.

 

A few weeks later, I realized that I had forgotten to take into account our mortgage payments.

 

So, TL only came into being because I can’t budget or count.

 

Why Truth Legal?

 

Because I am a Quaker. If you don’t know Quakers, think of Rowntree, Llloyds, Barclays, Cadburys and Waterhouse, Judi Dench. Essentially, we believe in equality, sustainability, peace, simplicity and Truth – hence Truth Legal.

 

For me, a law firm had to be about something more than just making money. I wanted a law firm that would take a stand. Be unpopular, if needed. Do the right thing.

 

And I believed it then and still today, that there’s no point in living in a democracy if you can’t use the laws enacted by our representatives, because you can’t afford a lawyer.  Access to law should be akin to access to the NHS.

 

(Here came lengthy thank yous to all the staff individually and to our friends, clients and suppliers)

 

Finally, before we talk about what happens next, let me tell you about our MD, Georgina Parkin. When she was a trainee solicitor, she took a new phone enquiry. She said that the caller was a “Secretary” and that the secretary was making the call with “a member”. When I pushed her, she said that the Secretary was a typist who does a variety of rolls in an office. The caller was a “General Secretary” of a Trade Union!!

 

Despite that blip, Georgina has been the safest pair of hands. She qualified quickly; became a director; then perhaps the youngest Law Society President; became our MD; became a mum; and then an equity partner. That’s a meteoric rise and we wouldn’t be where we are today without Georgina.

 

The Future

Initiated by me, because I am not able to work as I once did and I don’t want people generating profit for me, I am pleased to tell you all that we have agreed a Management Buy Out. Georgina, Louis and Navya will be buying my shares and I will become a consultant of the firm.

 

My wife asked me to not to quote Boris Johnson who finished with “Hasta La Vista Baby”.

 

So, I’ll finish with:

 

“In heaven there is no beer, that’s why we drink it here”

 

CategoriesLegalQuakerismThought of The Day

In Sickness and Health, in New Earswick             

Posted on October 24, 2021by Andrew Gray

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of one of my best friends. The ceremony was in York, with the wedding reception at the New Earswick Folk Hall, to the north of York.

With my dysautonomia running wild, my recollection of the ceremony is hazy. I do recall that whilst holding hands with my wife (as we tend to do during a wedding – and only during a wedding!), I think that the vicar read the usual “in sickness and in health” line. For the umpteenth time, I felt immeasurable gratitude to my awesome wife for the way that she has looked after me during my “in sickness”, this year, whilst keeping the family running and holding down a demanding job.

Saying my marriage vows, all those years ago, I don’t recall paying much attention to the precise words: thankfully, though, my wife has honoured them. It hasn’t been easy for her, but, somehow, in sickness we have become stronger.

All of this reminded me of the law concerning the value of personal injury claims. How so, you will ask?

Because when valuing a serious injury claim, in which the injured person’s life expectancy and marriage prospects are impacted, occasionally a lawyer must consider whether the value of the claim has changed as a result of the injury. To quantify any losses, lawyers look to statistical information provided by actuaries. European statistics reveal that married men live on average 1.7 years longer than unmarried men, whereas married women live 1.4 years fewer! Yesterday’s marriage appears to be a good statistical bargain for my groom friend.

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I lived and studied in York – 2002-2004. My wife and I met in York, and we were engaged there, too, next to the River Ouse.

Although Quakerism is synonymous with York, during my time in this wonderful city, I didn’t encounter Quakerism. Only in 2007, whilst reading the book – Utopian Dreams by Tobias Jones – which explored international communes, did I learn about Quakerism, thanks to the author’s time in New Earswick with Quakers.

Although saddened to miss the wedding reception (noise is too much), I very much enjoyed sitting in the car, in a car park, for four hours, in my finest suit, watching the comings and goings around the Quaker Meeting House and Folk Hall.  What a fine place New Earswick is! Friendly, no-nonsense, communal, child-friendly and purposefully planned.

Created by the Rowntrees as a model village primarily for the workers at their chocolate factory, New Earswick is akin to Bourneville and Saltaire. Foolishly, this was my first time in New Earswick, but it won’t be my last. My wife and I would like to retire here, in sickness and in health.

CategoriesQuakerismHarrogateThought of The Day

Living Adventurously, in Settle

Posted on October 6, 2021by Andrew Gray

Typing this blog on my phone, in Settle Quaker Meeting House, North Yorkshire, I can hear an English language lesson taking place, one on one, in the room above. The student, I imagine, a recent newcomer to this country. I’m not eavesdropping: you cannot help but hear it.

Quaker Meeting House Settle

By some distance, this is my favourite Meeting House: simple, wooden, in a central location, and surrounded by an enchanting garden, together with a Quaker burial ground. Founded in 1678 during the usual period of Quaker persecution, it’s one of the oldest Meeting Houses.

Quaker burial ground

Interestingly, the founder of Birkbeck College came from here, George Birkbeck. He had previously founded the Mechanics’ Institute, which were adult education centres, focussed on the working man.

Soon, I will be launching a radical, consensus-building, democratic tool called Pol.is, to be hosted by the newly formed: The Crowd Wisdom Project. On this project, I work with a talented tech whizz, who lives in Ghana. He designed this website for me. Coincidentally, as I sit here, on the poster, before me, is a list of some of the Quaker Meetings around the world. One of them is in Accra, Ghana!

Quaker Post

I’ve never felt more like a Quaker: sitting peacefully, alone, at the beginning of this movement. It’s tranquil, here, yet still international, even in this sleepy Dales town.