AKA “Basic Training” 
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I used a firm called Gannons, who are in Holborn. They are smallish but specialise in employment law. In this field they are as good as the big guns but a lot cheaper. I got an hour’s time from Alex Kleanthous, a partner, for £300 plus VAT (paid on arrival by debit card!), and he had read all the shit I sent him, prepared a view, and fielded a few questions over the following few months. It was money well spent.
Edit: When you see a lawyer, don’t just rock up with a long rambling story. Write out a few pages that explain everything, get someone else to read it first and comment, and send this plus whatever documentation you can find (correspondence, employment contract etc) in advance of the meeting. Then it might be useful.
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This
Thanks Adam, I may use them if my other avenues don’t come through this afternoon.
Check the legal cover on your car insurance… unlikely but you never know
Oi ! You can’t just go indiscriminately throwing around thoughtful and useful information like that on this site. Just where the fuck do you think you are ?
Worked for me.
Sometimes I even had something on it. 
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Saw this and thought of Ritchie. Hope things are looking positive for you now.
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Have only just seen this…
To be honest, the last week or so I’ve not coped so well, I could feel the lockdown coming and I really don’t need it. My notice period is really dragging and I’m left with the really complex stuff to do which has had multiple hold ups. I’ve found myself looking too far forward and too far back.
Kilgour, the tailor’s shop mentioned at the top of the article above was where I really started to make it as a craftsman and I had a key part of the growth of the business. 15 years ago, I was a director of the company, had a huge book of clients, 2 apprentices. I cut the entire (very successful) ready to wear collection. I traveled the world doing what I loved. We were so busy there and the client list was a who’s who list of the slebs of the time. Movie stars, rockers, comedians, politicians and the usual cranks, cripples, crooks and cunts, like any other tailor. Only thing is, we had more of them. We were absolutely killing every other firm on the street.
Anyhow, Kerri had triplets, one of them died and I couldnt really work for the 18 months surrounding the birth. I handed most of my customer base to the other cutters in the place. I concentrated on the RTW. The investors sold out in 2008 to the wrong people and they ruined it within months. Just ridiculous. I and the business never recovered. I shouldn’t be in the position I am now. Other guys I worked with hung on to the clients and will be fine even if the shops they work for get in serious trouble.
The tailoring trade will not die but Savile Row has been on a knife edge for ages. I really think that it is impossible these days with the rents. Kilgour was a monster 15 years ago and now it is gone. The others are clinging on, just, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do move out somewhere cheaper. There are redundancies happening in every company down the street and a few of those guys are going to start on their own like me.
In the last couple of days I’ve not felt so bad. I will be ok if I manage to make ends meet for the next year or so. I love working at home and I think it will be a huge relief to get out of my current situation. It’s easy to look at all that and feel sorry for myself but also, the last 8 years have been brilliant too. I have really become a tailor in that time, joining the cutting side and the making side, pretty much the only place I could have done that. For 7 of the last 8 years I have been the only guy on the street actually working as a tailor and although I have disappeared from a PR point of view I have also got a phone full of pics of things I have made and a reputation at least sealed with my peers in the trade. A mate of mine has a friend interested in some gear, so I sent him some things to send on. He was amazed at my work, which was nice, I need a bit of an ego trip right now! 
So, as well as the doom of the current situation, I also feel quite seriously ambitious. As long as I can turn a quid in the meantime, hopefully I have enough of a working life left to control my destiny, income, and fuck it, become known as the finest tailor out there. All that is quite exciting!
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You’re on a forum called the Abbatoir, everyone eats steak and it’s music focussed - Lady Gaga has to be a client
Good luck 
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I’ve got one thing sewn up (
) at least. We’ll be the only tailor’s shop world wide with a multi-way horn system in it, i think.
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Not everyone.
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Like the style of that, a lot.
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I think we will shift it all around and put the speakers where they were, basically where im taking the pic from, theyll be out of the shop window then.
Before half term, I was listening to loads of music whilst working which was great. I had been through quite a long period of not getting on with it at all. I think it was my job, the stress of it was interfering with everything. 
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Work can do that.
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Yeah… Whatever I played felt wrong somehow and I’m talking about a couple of years. Most music bugged the shit out of me if I was working and I didnt really enjoy it at other times either. The feeling seems to have gone away a bit which is a good thing. A couple of weeks ago I was working whilst playing all manner of stuff, for days on end. It was bloody brilliant!
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Mate, this on its own shows that you have made the right decision. I don’t doubt you’ll smash it work wise.
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Yes, since the original lockdown I have realised how stressed I was and for what? It really was going to make me ill. Obviously, being skint will have its own stresses but anything is better than that.
Believe me, being skint is far easier than work related stress. Take it from someone who is in exactly the same boat.
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