The Entertainer
2004 Richard joins the team and takes the act to new levels!
I had just missed out on qualifying for the Olympic Games in Athens. I remember how low I felt. My left hamstring was injured and my 4 years of hard work had now been nullified by a freak injury only days before the trials. I remember sitting in my Renault Espace. It was July in Loughborough and hot. All the students had gone home for summer holidays and as ever Loughborough was a ghost town. I had the renovation of my 3rd house, 91 Shelthorpe Road to keep my mind active but nothing could take me from this pit of depression which seemed impossible to pull myself out of. To make matters worse I was penniless. I had put everything into making the games and I had ran out of cash and credit entirely. I had four tenants moving into this house in a week and had to get it in a reasonable state for them.
I worked day and night to get the place ready and in fact I had already started work on it before the trials which I have no doubt had led to the injury through fatigue. The tenants who included my girlfriend at the time and her sister both helped as did the other two lads to get it up to scratch. I realised that the girls would need more storage and I needed more money so one day I put my John Travolta suit on with my Michael Jackson outfit underneath and headed off to the streets to raise some cash to finish the job. As I was quietly leaving the driveway so that no one could see, Richard one of the tenants came outside and tapped on the window. He looked a cross between amused, shocked and amazed when I told him embarrassingly that I wasn’t the wealthy landlord he might have previously thought I was and that I was off to raise some cash to pay for the wardrobes in the girls rooms. He said, “you’re not going to believe this but wait there and don’t move.” He came back downstairs in about 3 minutes flat wearing a John Travolta suit! He explained how he had played Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever in his school play and was studying drama for his degree. The coincidence was uncanny but one which would change both of our lives. I asked him what he was doing that summer and he went on to explain that he was raking bunkers at a golf course. It did not take me long to convince him to give up that job and join me for the summer on the road. My girlfriend Bryony and her identical twin Kathryn who were tenants with Richard in the house, also decided to join the disco bus that summer as they needed some cash also.
It was nice having Bryony there as it meant I could take my mind and body to levels of total exhaustion during the day raising funds but she was there in the evenings to relax with. Although living out of tents and vans was not always the most relaxed environment and it tested the stamina of all of us.
On our first day in Coventry we made £403, which was excellent. It was a very difficult pitch and Richard and the girls were very nervous but had our first day under our belt and the rest would get easier. In that first week we churned out a record of 47 shows each lasting 20-25 minutes and each requiring different skills to stop the crowds, hold their concentration and then get them to pay. I always found it very difficult at the start of each busking tour, each year. I was tired from a summer and winter of athletics and in most cases I had just missed out on qualifying for a major championship by only fractions. Some sceptics used to think I did it on purpose as I could make more being the nearly man than had I actually qualified. Just for the record I can assure I would have given anything to compete at a major Games for my country and not have to dance on the streets. As the days rolled on and the repertoire became ingrained the act got easier and we could fit more in per day. At the end of this week though I had overdone it and took ill. We took a few days off. I had ulcers in my mouth from the stress. I can still remember lying feeling under the weather in a hotel room one night with the buzzing of the battery charger in the background as we charged our 12 volt car batteries for the next day’s shows.
I have particularly fond memories of our days on the south coast in Swanage campsite and busking in Poole. The girls would often dive in the sea after a long day of standing on their feet with the collecting buckets. What started as a swim for them would always turn into some fierce competition. I had met Bryony at Loughborough and had fallen in love, she was like a soul mate and her twin Kathryn was never far away. The three of us were like pees in a pod we would spend all day and night with each other. If we weren’t laughing we were debating or fighting. It was a love hate situation. The bond between identical twins is an impossible one to compete with and I had to realise I would always be second best. It was difficult and often very upsetting but back then the good outweighed the bad. They were simply adorable to be around and the novelty of having two beautiful identical twins on your arm at all times I guess wasn’t bad either! They were British record holders for the steeplechase and I had met Bryony at Loughborough University. I think we enjoyed each other’s company as I was very much in my own world and they were in theirs we saw a lot of ourselves in each other; totally obsessive with huge work ethics and incredibly competitive.
Each day was run like a business, the girls would be up as early as 5.30am to do their religious 30-40 minute run before breakfast and They would shower and get ready in their identical Great Britain Tracksuit and we would set off in the people carrier. We would always need to get to the pitch early to avoid another entertainer getting there first. Sometimes this would mean getting to the pitch at 6.30 and sitting knowing we couldn’t perform until 11.00. We would drive onto the pitch and empty the props, the busking box, the generator and outfits as well as signed photos of the girls and myself in our GBR athletics kits for additional revenue. We would set our stall out and then someone would go and park the van and come back. We would go and buy McDonalds Breakfasts. Sausage and Egg McMuffin with hash brown and white coffees. I’d always have two sweet and sour dips too. We would load up with calories and caffeine and get ready for another physical onslaught.
My moods were often the dictator of the overall mood and my moods were dictated by however my bipolar brain chemistry had done on the overnight sleep raffle! Some days I would be on fire and other days I was difficult to be around. I would always try and be as professional as possible once the music started but off stage I could be very difficult to be around. My nervous system was charged to the hilt and my mind wired scanning the audience for reactions to each millisecond timing of delivery on each line on movement like a computer which became increasingly difficult to turn off the more shows I did. I would know instantly when I had missed the delivery of a joke down to split seconds and beat myself up inside making mental notes to alter it in 20 minutes for the next show.
The heat would often blaze down and I would be wearing 3 layers of clothing, which I would peel off after each dance. I would start with Justin Timberlake in white combat bottoms, hoody and white Nike air force ones then take off the outfit and put on my black shoes into John Travolta. I would then introduce Richard and we would do the Village people with the masks and then to finish I would do Billie Jean in the full Jacko outfit and Trilby or Latex mask. Often Rich would join in for a Night Fever due also. I would stop the music just before Billie Jean only when I knew I had them in the palm of my hand and that is when I would deliver the money speech. I would then give the best dance I could and take a bow with Richard and the girls who assisted in collecting around the back of the circle of audience for the ones who liked to watch for 20 minutes then sneak off. They were very good at that. Richard was very much playing the role as my friend helping out and this role worked well but inhibited us both in finding out what Richard was really capable of as a performer, that would come before the summer was out.
Once we had called it a day usually some wear between 8 and 15 shows we would pack everything into the box and Richard would go and get the car. We would load up and I can remember the satisfying feeling of my body vibrating still when I had taken it to the limit as I sat in what seemed to be the most comfortable seat in the world whilst Richard drove back to the campsite. After a shower sometimes amazingly it would feel like I was fresh as a daisy but then within an hour it would hit me. My body would lose weight quite rapidly and atrophy from the body of an athlete to that of a dancer. To prevent this I would take a cocktail of athletic nutritional supplements to aid recovery and allow me to be in a peak state each day. The girls would make sure the photos were laminated and signed and boxed ready for the next day and Richard would make sure costumes were all intact. Sometimes we would be all in the tent doing various things. Richard on the lap top keeping accounts whilst I would be writing a press release to the next city in advance to generate as much exposure to use in the future to help raise sponsorship for the next athletics season.
We would all count the days takings which on a good day could take up to an hour. This would have to be bagged and either changed at the bank for notes to store it in the safety deposit box inside the van or paid into the bank to pay off our various overdrafts we all had at the time. We would all eat together. One night we treated ourselves after a great day in Bournemouth and we all went out and got drunk and feasted on the local cuisine in Swanage and staggered back up the hill to the tents laughing about the days or weeks anecdotes which usually involved the twins. The previous day to that Bryony had been stung on the tongue by a wasp and I had been rushed to the scene to suck out the poison! She then grabbed a lucozade bottle and took a swig only to realise it was engine oil not orange juice! I did try and tell her! Each day there were adventures as we always pushed on to overcome the many and inevitable obstacles the streets would present to us. It was character forging at its best.
I remember watching the fireworks on Swanage Beach eating pie and chips and it had made me so happy, the girls had an ingrained habit of not eating hardly anything due to their commitment as athletes and they were painfully thin at times. It made me so happy to see them relaxed and, even if it was only in small portions. I had always worried about their eating habits and it was often the cause of many arguments, sometimes it was best just to say nothing. It’s funny the stupid things you remember. It was a sad story though because they had both been tipped to be in the Olympics in 2012 and their under eating had led to them developing osteoporosis or low bone density in their lower backs. They both never ran competitively again after that summer. Sometimes I wish I had met them a year or two before maybe I could have helped more. I did what I could though, some mornings I would spike there porridge with sugar and other ingredients and tell them it was just sweetener or I would tell them things had less calories in to trick them into eating them but as I soon learned for most anorexics it is a science it has to come from them you can’t change people unless they have reached the point where they want to change themselves. Back then they had not.
I remember watching the fireworks and dreaming about the next summer of athletics and how things would be different. I owed to all the people on the street who had been aware of my situation and my goals and had helped me. I would use their words of encouragement to raise me in some of the toughest sessions in the cruel depths of winter in Loughborough. I would hear their voices from the previous summer and I would fantasise about bringing back a medal and thanking everyone who had helped me. With this website I now get the chance finally to do just that.
That summer we danced to over 500 YMCAs and Billie Jeans. Our highlight came when we were spotted by a talent scout whilst knocking out the shapes on the streets of Portsmouth. A man asked us to come long that night to the Southsea Talent contest. We were supposed to have entered but he said he could get us in. We decided we would try. We had never had a gig or entered a competition together at all so it was very exciting. We ended up winning out heat and made it through to the semi final 2 weeks later. In the semi final our music failed us when two of the tracks, that had been downloaded from the internet would not play on their system. So there was I doing MJ to a silent audience. There was no way the judges could allow us to take first after that had happened so we qualified in the second spot behind a very talented ventriloquist called Donna. We knew we would have to go back and work hard if we were to win the overall title. We fine tuned our moves around the south coast for another week and made sure the music was perfect and on the night we did it we took first places and £1000 at the contest to wrap up an incredible summer. It was so special to us as we had never considered the act to be capable of winning contest to us it was simply a means to an end.
It was the first time the show had won anything and Richard and I had formed a great bond. We had raised a colossal £55 000 with £9300 of that coming in the last week! After the girls had been paid and Richard had been paid and with all expenses covered I had enough to make sure I could train for a full year at a world class level without having to work and because of that summer, 2005 was the greatest athletic season I had. I finished 3rd in the Commonwealth trials moved ever closer to world class in the 400m hurdles.
One thing I realised was that I did not need the money in one lump I simply needed it in small amounts throughout the year to keep me going. What would I do with this chunk of cash? I started to look for somewhere I could park the bulk of it in order to grow the interest whilst I drew down money as and when required to pay for massage, nutrition, travelling etc.
I had already invested borrowed money into student properties for the previous 2 years and had 3 working very well bringing in £300- £400 income on top of the loan payments. Also with the ability back then to leverage the debt to 85% of the value of the property, I had been able to release all of the money I had used to buy and refurbish the property and pay off my purchase debts meaning the income was not a return on investment but an infinite return! Which is the Holy Grail in any investment. I had first borrowed money to get into property in order to try and minimise the amount of dancing needed each summer. It was a risk but one I was prepared to take and the margins of security when renting a property on a room-by-room basis were enough for me to take the leap into becoming a landlord 2 summers previously.
I knew if I had to dance each summer as hard as that my time in the sport would be limited and I would exhaust myself. I already had my sights set on Beijing 2008 and knew I needed to find something which would give me massive returns on my hard earned capital so that I could live off of the interest and not have to dip into the capital too much. This way I could set up a slush fund for after athletics but also have a residual income to keep me in the sport. What I found was the alchemy of student residential multi lets. I had developed the ability to buy a rundown home and turn it into a high performing asset. I was not the only person doing this there were many landlords in Loughborough doing this and I could see that it was very possible.
I went on to replicate the model of buying and renovating with the pot of capital then releasing the equity and going again on the next property. Between 2002 and 2007 I bought 44 properties in this way and set up a passive investment scheme for investors to enjoy the fruits of what I had found.
That pot of cash raised that summer not only allowed me to train at the highest level as the people on the streets had wanted me to but by being smart I had also set up an income stream and an equity pot which would mean I would have to dance less and less to the point where in 2006 I actually had enough income to never have to dance again. Little did I know at the time that only 5 years on I would set up a fund which would be the first of its kind and would make me one of the only people in a recession to launch a fund but also one of the youngest ever people to do so, all this from a pot of cash raised in 2002 and a sound business model.
So the summer was over and Richard and I now had a couple of agents who had scouted us at the South Sea Talent show and we dared to dream about possibly one day touring the world with our show and entertaining many people, if not as street entertainers then possibly as a full time professional act.
Click here to read more about Liam Collins the Entertainer and the history behind where he is now.
