Edwin Horne & Woodbridge Park Edwin

Horne came to see me asking if I could help him (Edwin had done a lot of work for my grandfather, he had his own construction company, but ended up bankrupt when he was cheated on a very large project).

I agreed to form a new property development company, Jacey Homes Ltd with him. I designed our logo and stationery, then together with my wealthy neighbour Mr Wood, who agreed to finance us for our first project, we built a cul-de-sac road with ten four-bedroom homes.
 

www.jncohen.net/Woodbridge
 

They were in a good village location close to the motorways, but because of the recession we had great difficulties selling them, even though they were high quality buildings offered at an extremely competitive price.

They did all sell in the end and as each house sold, we split the profit, there was a good profit margin to be shared, but unfortunately Mr Wood passed away, just before the last sale went through.
 

Mrs Wood turned out to be a very different type of person and she reneged on our deal, leaving us without our share due for that last house. Not a very large sum involved, and we were far too busy with our next project to consider starting legal proceedings. jncohen.net/homes

Hong Kong & Phuket For our 25th wedding anniversary we went to Hong Kong and Phuket, this was an expensive holiday as I decided we should do it in style, I booked us in for a week at the famous Hong Kong hotel 'The Mandarin' and it really was a fabulous hotel.

Luckily, around the same time that I was wondering what to do for our 25th, Bob Hall informed me that one of our snuff bottles, which had an Imperial seal on the base, was suddenly worth what seemed a fortune at the time, even though the general opinion was that the mark had been added much later!