2001 began with promise and anticipation. Nobody---me least of all---could know what an incredibly transformational year it would prove to be. Not just for me, but for millions of people around the world. But as January turned to February, my main concern was making sure the Fly of the Month Club launch in America went as smoothly as possible.
Launch date was set for April. I knew it was too early. I'd told Treacle it was too early, but they and Clinton outnumbered me in voting rights, so April it was. I'd done my best to scale up the fly-tying operation---Steve Barrow was doing a great job, and we'd hired an Afrikaans lady named Menita Hennop to handle the basic factory management. At first she seemed super-competent. Little did I know.
I was commuting back and forth to Lydenburg like a madman. John Cartwright and his sidekick, Ian Campbell, were working around the clock to get the website ready, and it was complicated stuff for 2001. Through Rudolph, we had connections at First National Bank and access to cutting-edge technology. But nobody had really done a South African e-commerce website targeting the American market before. We were pioneers---or idiots. Possibly both.
Terry was working half-days at Willowbrook and De Waal. She and Kim had moved the shop to Greenside. Sue Green had offered them a chance to buy into the business as partners, and I happily signed surety for Terry. It was her baby, and I supported it.
But it hurt that she didn't see what we were building with Fishy Pete's. We were taking on the American market---six million fly fishermen---with this incredible concept, backed by amazing quality and state-of-the-art delivery via a website in the States. I really felt it could be huge. Massive, even.
She didn't share that vision. I never made her feel bad about it, but the disconnect gnawed at me.
Launch night arrived. We'd run a lot of print advertising---I can't quite remember which ad ran first, it wasn't the big Southern Living one, that was coming later in the month---but John had rigged the website so any order would send me an SMS. I remember lying awake at one in the morning when the phone started pinging. Then a couple of minutes later, another ping. Then ping, ping, ping. Orders coming in.
It was an amazing feeling.
Terry came over and hugged me. "Congratulations," she said. It was sweet, but it didn't feel like a shared moment. She was congratulating me on my achievement, not celebrating our family's success. Because for me, it was always about all five of us.
The orders didn't flood in---they came slower than we'd hoped. The system for shipping through Atlanta to Bill Rogers was working, but not brilliantly. And I was beginning to suspect Bill Rogers was pretty fucking useless. His eight-thousand-dollar monthly salary was really starting to irritate me.
Then Bill suggested we attend a consumer show in Las Vegas in July. Rudolph agreed immediately. "You and Clinton definitely need to go. I'll come too, but Treacle will pay my way---I won't charge it to Fishy Pete's."
So off we flew to Las Vegas in July 2001.
It was hot as hell but exciting. Orders were coming in steadily---not huge numbers, but encouraging. I knew we just needed more promotion, more consumer shows, getting the word out about this amazing subscription service. A gift that kept giving: high-quality, innovative flies with eco-bodies. I was convinced it would be massively successful.
We arrived in Las Vegas to discover Bill Rogers had booked us into a fishing trade show. Everyone there was selling to fishing shops---completely the wrong model. We needed consumers, not retailers. I was livid.
I expressed this to Rudolph. "Yeah, the guy doesn't know what he's doing," he agreed.
"No," I said. "He's fucking useless."
The final straw came when Bill booked us tickets to a show on the Strip. He was absolutely certain of his directions---and led us twenty minutes in the wrong direction. By the time he eventually admitted his error, the show had started. Rudolph completely lost his cool and stormed back to the hotel.
The next morning, we went to Bill's room and Rudolph fired him. I remember Bill was wearing a Fishy Pete's cap, and Rudolph snatched it off his head as we left. Brutal.
As you can imagine, Bill wasn't happy, but by then I'd already lined up my niece Natasha in Atlanta to replace him. She was highly competent, highly intelligent, and engaged to a fabulous guy named Stephen Boyd. We flew to Atlanta, met with her, and she became our U.S. operations manager.
Back home, we started shipping through Atlanta. It was going well---smooth, even. But we were battling to keep up with orders.
Then complaints started appearing on the website. People hadn't received their shipments. I checked with Steve Barrow in Lydenburg---he assured me everything had been dispatched.
The wheels were starting to come off.
Later that month, the Southern Living advert hit---the one with Angie in it, the little girl giving a gift to her granddad. Orders came in thick and fast. Exciting---and terrifying. I had a sinking feeling that logistics were failing in Lydenburg.
I drove down to investigate.
My God, what a fucking disaster.
Menita wasn't just incompetent---she was hiding parcels that should have been shipped under her desk and in the back of the factory. She'd also created fictitious employees on the payroll, collecting their cash pay packets herself. Straight-up fraud.
Steve Barrow wasn't to blame---he was so involved in the fly-tying side that he hadn't noticed. But it was my naivety. I'd been so distracted by what was happening at home that I'd missed what was happening right under my nose. I fired her on the spot and stayed in Lydenburg until I'd trained up a replacement.
Terry was spending more and more time with Dave and Kim. More partying. I'd beg her to just come home before the kids woke up. Things were falling apart in my marriage, but not overtly enough for me to do anything about it. And I had this enormous responsibility---making the American venture work while everything else crumbled.
I was back on antidepressants. Taking benzos to sleep and drinking too much wine in the evenings. My emotional state was terrible.
It was not a happy time.
But unfortunately, it was about to get a whole lot worse.