Graham Kerner RIP

I hadn't seen or spoken to Graham in over 20 years but when I read the email last night that Graham had passed away from bowel cancer, an incredible sadness washed over me and I blinked back the tears as I tried to sleep.

Graham Kerner was my first proper boss, way back in the late 80s. I had a part-time job in the Crown and Greyhound in Dulwich Village and six months after starting there, the management changed and we got Graham and his then partner Barbara Haigh as the new management team. The old managers (I can't remember their names) were round and cuddly, the new team were not. Graham reminded me of a proper East End wide boy, I don't know if he came from the East End, maybe Bermondsey, and I'd never met a proper East End wide boy but in my mind, that's what Graham was. He looked like Burt Reynolds and seemed like such a grown-up, although he was 34 which I think is very young now. Barbara was a former Playboy Bunny, statuesque and imposing and suddenly at the age of 17, they were my bosses. I was petrified of them at first although they did bring a West End glamour to what had been a very quaint pub in the heart of Dulwich Village.

As I worked in the restaurant, I worked more closely with Barbara as Graham ran the bar. I worked the daytime shift on Saturdays and Sundays and made endless rounds of sandwiches for the punters. Barbara started a Sunday roast and before long, word had spread that the best roast in London could be found at the "Dog" and we'd have a queue forming long before the doors opened at midday. At the tender age of 17, I found myself tasked with making sure everything in the restaurant was ready for service as Barbara would be busy cooking up a storm in the kitchen upstairs, coming down just before midday, knives sharpened and ready to carve up huge joints of meat. I would be stationed right next to her, taking the plates from her and adding vegetables and roast potatoes. It was non-stop for three hours and I kept an eye on things, making sure we didn't run out of anything during service.

The year after Barbara and Graham started running the Dog, I took my A levels and failed miserably. Apart from failing my driving test the previous year, I'd never failed at anything and as my academic disaster was completely my own fault, I experienced what it was like to mess things up and know it was down to you. I hated that feeling and vowed never to go there again. But although academically I was floundering, I was a good employee at the Dog and in the world of work seemed to do okay. I know it's not much, a part-time job to see you through your A level years, but I learnt a lot about how to operate in the work environment, about being professional and reliable and responsible - all things that are essential if you want to succeed in life. Barbara took me under her wing (I'd stopped being scared of her quite quickly) and taught me loads about working in a restaurant and how to do things properly. Apparently Playboy had incredibly high standards and these stayed with Barbara after she left so I lucked out and got some excellent training. Even at home, I still clear plates the way Barbara taught me, a plate in your left hand to scrape leftovers onto, the forks facing forwards, the knives all tucked under the forks and the rest of the plates piled up on your left arm.

The year of the disastrous A levels, I started saving for a car. I'd passed my driving test second time round and my dad had said he'd buy me a small car as he'd done the same for my older sister a few years earlier. The only problem was that my dad wanted to get a non-descript Nissan and I wanted a Volkswagen Beetle. My dad said he wouldn't get me a Beetle and I didn't want the Nissan so I decided to buy the Beetle myself. It was the days before bank cards and if I wanted money, I'd cash a cheque at the bank or sometimes at the Dog. As my cheque book was the only way to get hold of money and I needed to save for the car, I had my cheque book locked in the safe at the Dog with Barbara and Graham under strict instructions not to give me the cheque book until I was ready to buy the car.

The following year, a few weeks shy of my 19th birthday, I asked for the cheque book as I was just about to buy a car. I'd found a bright red VW Beetle 1303S, registration CBO 601L and had promptly fallen in love with it and decided it had to be mine. Cheque book reclaimed I purchased my first car and drove to the Dog bursting with pride! I think Barbara and Graham was equally proud of this achivement and they said something to me that still rings in my ears today. They told me that I would achieve anything I set my mind to, anything at all. I don't know what they saw in me but they saw something, maybe some potential and they said those words that really did change my life. Up til then, I'd spent most of my life in the shadow of my brainy, beautiful, sporty, musical older sister, the one who was going to become a doctor, the one who was going to make my dad's dream come true. As she'd taken up the post of the golden child, there wasn't much left for me apart from ugly duckling rebel and this role I seemed to fulfil without even trying very hard.

I'd been unhappy about the crappy comprehensive I got sent to at the age of 11 and forced my parents to let me going on a sporting holiday for a week in the summer holidays after the first year. I spent a week riding and playing squash and although I was happy to let the squash slide (I think accidently whacking my best friend Claire in the face with the squash racquet might have had something to do with this...), I was hooked on the riding and insisted on carrying on riding at Dulwich Riding School once I was back. Within the Pakistani community I'm sure this was frowned upon, it's not a very Pakistani thing to do but I carried on. This soon turned into working at the riding school as a working pupil and even when word reached my grandmother in Pakistan (via an aunt who'd decided it was disgraceful the amount of time I spent outside of the home) and an angry letter came from my Grandmother to my dad, insisting I gave up riding, I still persisted.

Even though I was the rebel in the family I felt like I was a nobody and a nothing. In your teenage years, it's mainly about academic success and the things I enjoyed and excelled at were frowned upon, things seen to embarrass the family, not things to be proud of. But saying that, my family were great and supportive and would come to any shows I entered - there was a big crowd of them present at the show where my horse reared up as soon as we got into the ring, fell backwards, I fell off and the horse galloped off, defying anyone to catch him again.

Anyway, after failing my A levels I felt horrendous and had no idea what was going to become of my life. The one thing I realised very quickly with the failure was that no-one was going to pick me up and sort things out for me. If I ended up in the gutter, it was up to me to get myself out and make something of my life. So long as there was a doctor in the family, it felt a bit like it didn't really matter what happened to the other three. I felt like I could be brilliant too, just like my older sister but it wasn't going to be academic brilliance and I didn't know that any other kind of brilliance existed. Somewhere deep down inside, I thought I could have a special life, an amazing life, a life that I'd look back on and be proud of but when you feel like a nothing and a nobody, that feeling of what you might be gets tucked away somewhere very deep inside.

So, when Barbara and Graham said those words to me, told me that I would achive anything I set my mind to, something inside of me came alive. I wasn't entirely sure what they could see but belived that they could see something, even if I couldn't and decided to take their word for it. If they belived it, then I could believe it too! I think it was Graham who suggested I look at doing hotel and catering at university, not the original Psychology I'd applied for. Once again, not the best career choice for a muslim Pakistani girl, my mum made me feel like working in the hotel and catering industry was just one notch up from being a lady of the night, it wasn't work to be proud of, it wasn't work to impress your social circle with but I still went ahead and did it. I applied to the University of Brighton and although I still didn't have the grades they wanted, I'd decided that's where I wanted to go and that's where I would go. By that time, I was working full-time in a restaurant (had a year out before university) but would still do the Sunday lunchtime shift at the Dog, so attached I was to the place and the people. The manager at the new restaurant had said I wouldn't get into Brighton because of my grades but Barbara and Graham's belief in me had ignited a fairly fierce belief in myself and I proved him wrong. I might not have had the grades but I wowed them with the interview and go an unconditional offer.

I went off to the University of Brighton in September 1989, all my worldly possessions packed in my bright red Beetle. By this time both Barbara and Graham had moved on from the Dog, moved on personally as a couple and gone their separate ways to run different pubs. Just before I went to university would have been the last time I saw Graham but I kept in touch with Barbara and she would fill him in on what I was up to.

Now when I look back over the last 20 years, I'm amazed by what I've done and achieved. Sometimes I look at my CV and think "you failed your A levels, you should never have done the things you have done". I've lived and worked overseas, most notably 3 years teaching English in Japan. I've got a Masters in International Relations and spent 3 years working at the Foreign Office where I helped to organise a massive press conference for Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, amongst other things. I got the top communications consultancy to create a job for me when I wrote them a spec letter, I've worked with Presidents and politicians, I've had the balls to set up my own business in something I'd never done before but believed I could. The last 20 years, although at times random and seemingly unconnected, were all triggered by two people's belief in me and their words of wisdom and encouragement that I could do anything I set my heart on. Funnily enough, I never went into the world of hospitality after university but my time at Brighton set off it's own chain of events, I got to live and work overseas, make some friends who will be with me for my lifetime and fall truly, madly, deeply in love for the first time whilst on a work placement overseas.

Graham, I know you're no longer with us but from your place as a twinkling star in the sky, I hope you can see this and see just how much difference your words, your belief, your encouragement made to my life, particularly at a time when I wasn't sure I'd amount to much at all. Maybe somewhere deep down inside I might have believed a miracle was possible but it was buried too far away for it to resonate at all. You and Barbara made me believe anything was possible and I took your words and ran with it - your words still ring in my ears today. I wish I'd been able to tell you all of this while you were still alive but I know what I'm like, I'd never have been able to express it without getting choked with emotion but at least I can write it. Thank you to both you and Barbara for being undoubtedly the best bosses I've ever worked for, thank you for everything you taught me but most of all, thank you for your words. They may only have been a few words but they changed a life and for that I will be eternally grateful. We may not have been in touch over the last 20 years but I have always carried you and Barbara in my heart, you've always been there on the adventures and I have never forgetten, will never forget the profound impact you both had on my life in my gangly late teenage years!