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The cancellation of Lincoln Christmas Market reminded me of a story my Accountant gave me many years ago. To put you in the picture as to my Accountant's mind worked I will just say this. He once told me that he could not save me any money at all as I was single. However if I had a house full of kids he could save me lots. I remarked that if I had a houseful of kids, I would not be in business.
Not to the story. He always called to see me on Boxing Day every year. This Boxing Day, I guess it would be around 1983, he came in and we were having a drink of coffee when he said to me that I was in the wrong trade. I asked him to explain more. He then said something like this. " You know the new Lincoln Market?"I said yes although I did not know of it's existence. He went on" This man who is a one man band went there to sell the Father Christmas hats. I guess you have seen them, they are all the rage." I must admit that they were seen in abundance so I said I had seen them. He then went on to say " He bought them at 25p each and sold them at 50p each and made £5000 profit." I asked him in how many days did he take to sell them. He retorted, that this was in a day. I immediately said to him " Never on your life, it is impossible to take that sort of money being a one man band especially as the Market was only open for about 5 hours and I think at the time was only a 2 day Market" He told me that he was only there for a day, I then started to work things out. I told him that to make £5000 he would have to sell 10,000 hats. he readily agreed. I then suggested to him that to make things easier to work out, I would say that he worked for 5 hours a day for 2 days making a sale of 1000 hats on an average in 1 hour. I reminded him that this would mean about 1 hat every 4 seconds maximum. I suggested to him that he could not give the change to the customers in such a short time as everyone would not have a 50p piece handy. I then reminded him that this was for 5 hours continuous serving, not taking into consideration as to how the hats would be packed. I presumed in boxes of 144. This would mean over 30 boxes to be stored and of course opened when more were needed. I told him it just was not possible to do as a one man unit, and this was giving extra time to what he had been told. Anyway after about 2 minutes of silence, he looked at me and then said, " You are right, if you put it that way it is definitely not possible." I then said to him ,"What other way can one put it?" He then said to me that on reflection it was a silly thing he had been told and told me to forget it.
I mentioned this to my best pal, he told me that most Accountants worked on figures and not logic. Just put a lot of figures in front of them and they will work out all sorts of permutations he told me. He also told me that there are 3 necessary evils in this world. Estate Agents, Solicitors and Accountants. I just said to him, I wonder if I was the biggest fool for employing him. Unfortunately, all Accounts had to be presented to the local Tax office by an Accountant. At that time, most towns in England had a local Income Tax office. The nearest one to me was about 20 miles away. Anyway I didn't try to sell any Father Christmas hats. More soon.