He got worse with each passing year. Dad told him that when Freddie died he was given a decent burial but a few days later Philip found him in the dustbin.
Freddie looked sad and Philip thought ... rather you than me Freddie.
although by age 9 he no longer believed in God. Lisa was the only reason for staying, the two were inseparable til age 14 when she had to be taken out of school and Carol came along..
cutting the stamps off Dr Duckworth’s mail was Philip’s next adventure. He received all kinds of fascinating letters from around the world... Tunisia, South Africa, America, Brazil... big contracts, scientific papers, theses, cheques, job applications... all with the stamps soaked off and envelopes re-sealed. No one ever noticed til whole mail bags temporarily went missing. A lone schoolboy couldn’t cope with the volumes.
Mailing lists, a bank account, approval books, soaking stamps, licking stamps, all summer long, soon they had a thriving enterprise, a taxi waiting each day to take them from school. That was the sweltering summer of ’76.
Carol was knocked down and killed before the year was out but the business continued. He went to see Carol off, paid her father £3,250 for her half of the stamps.
The winter churchyard was cold and damp and as the hearse passed he
thought ... rather you than me baby.
but the façade soon gave
way to inconsolable
desolation
a month later he crashed into the abyss forever.
during the boom years of the late ‘70’s then the early ‘80’s crunch, buying and selling among dealers in gloomy Soho strip clubs, a whirlwind romance with Juliet, then a one-way ticket to America with £600,000 to start a new life away from austere Thatcherite Britain.
Stamp dealing followed the same principles, doors to the main dealers swung open, unlimited credit with every auction house.
Richard Wolffers, Robert Siegel and Howard Stuewe, along with others were friends and mentors. All the great rarities passed through; the Pictorial, Pan American and Jenny inverts, the Special Printings and 90c grills… Michael Dell sold out to Philip to fund his computer venture; the price was less than a month’s takings but his biggest deal up to that time. Good call Michael!
Friend and pinochle partner, Tony Salerno, had a memorable take...
His other investments led to RICO indictments and a 170 year sentence. He ought to have diversified out of concrete and into stamps before the US attorneys' office lowered the boom.
His other investments led to RICO indictments and a 170 year sentence. He ought to have diversified out of concrete and into stamps before the US attorneys' office lowered the boom.
where reports came in that he was being detained by the Stasi along with 2 female accomplices for smuggling Russians over to West Germany.
British citizenship delayed his meeting with a firing squad but the others fared less well. In November 1989 he walked through the Berlin wall to freedom before slipping out of sight once more.
after his British bank informs MI6 of large wire transfers from Moscow.
Several years earlier he had met his former nemesis from the Dresden days. Zdravstvite anglichanin (Hello Englishman)... It was Vladimir Putin.
Philip went on to be quite useful to his associates and travelled between Moscow and London for an extended period, benefiting from business, the culture and a stream of beautiful women.
One day in 1998 as the financial storm clouds were looming, he received a tip-off from Elena, daughter of the Sberbank boss, advising him to leave Russia immediately.
Drawing back the curtain in his St Petersburg hotel room he realized the warning had come too late. Three figures already stood across the street, barely illuminated by the glow of a flickering street lamp.
It was several hours before the inevitable knock on the door, followed by the turn of the key. The brightness of the corridor illuminated the thugs, but dressed in black, Philip was invisible to them.
He slashed and stabbed in a desperate attempt to save himself. There was mayhem but within miraculous seconds all was quiet again except for some gurgling and breathless gasps.
Rather them than me... were his only thoughts as he fled.
Hastening along the corridor, his single obstacle was a startled concierge expostulating for the return of the key. The force of the iron key tag bouncing off her head knocked her senseless. Out into the cold morning air, an overnight train to Moscow, one last passionate night before he bid farewell to Elena and their daughter and boarded a flight to Sochi, slipping quietly over the border to Ukraine, from there to Odessa and on to Turkey.
with just the clothes he stood in and minus Rb66,000,000,000, few options were apparent. The Russians needed assurances, the only assistance from the security services was a safe house and temporary identity.
This allowed Philip to drop out of sight for a while and earn a living as a stripper in the north of England.
Elena's father eventually straightened out the Russians. Satisfied the situation was safe, a small deposit was made to his Coutts account and his intoxicating 18 month life as a performer was over.
Philip becomes a major dealer in rare US stamps and several other areas of philately with stock valued around $20,000,000
He now divides his time between Moscow, London and Bristol where he plays tennis and dances tango with his women.
to their rehabilitated anglichanin during a visit to Sochi, but in declining, Philip thought of Diocletian's response on being recalled to Rome:-
"If you could show the cabbage I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he wouldn't dare suggest I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed."