if we got a job at Myer, we were doing exceptionally well. She believed we should never get above ourselves. (As I mentioned earlier, years later, when Boost started to get off the ground, she couldn't get her head around her granddaughter running the business. Gran was convinced that the part-time bookkeeper was the person I worked for – because who would listen to Janine?)
Meeting the rich and famous was great fun and a significant learning experience, especially about people. Most people who came on the yacht were lovely, like David Bowie; others thought they were superior to the rest of the human race.
On board, we had guests whose attitude ranged from ‘show us where the fridge is and leave us alone', to those who would send a boiled egg back because it was too hot. We once had a group of Americans on board and their kids were obnoxious. They thought they were better than everyone and treated all the staff like dirt. On the flip side, we had one of the wealthiest men in Kuwait as a guest, and his son was a lovely young man. The father asked me to type up a list of expenses for his son who was off to college in the United States. I was expecting to read that his son was allowed a fortune. To my surprise, his expenses were moderate. In fact, for the son to survive, he would have to get a part-time job.
Finding the resilient problem-solver within
When Janine's husband Jeff reflects on what characteristics Janine showed early on, the biggest one is being a great problem-solver. According to Jeff, ‘She travelled around the world with tuppence in the bank, she was a mum at 25 and she didn't whinge – she just got on with it. She is a real can-doer.
‘There is no doubt we were attracted to each other through our drive to succeed at whatever we were passionate about. Early in my life, I was passionate about assets, so I bought my first house at 19. Janine was passionate about travel, so she circumnavigated the world on a rock star's boat (slight exaggeration but within the realm of reality!)'.
After two years and a great deal of fun and hard work, I left the Deneb Star. I was seeing the engineer on the yacht at the time and we both left to work on another yacht with him as captain (this yacht was anchored in Monaco). We purchased a property in Valbonne, a lovely village just outside of Antibes, paying way too much for the house because we had no idea what we were doing – and it didn't help that my French was far from perfect. A few months later, I found out that I was pregnant. Sadly, I realised that I wasn't in love with this engineer; I knew that he was not my future. Although the pregnancy was not planned, I gave it a couple of years to see if I could learn to love him. But he just was not ‘the one', so we discussed it and I told him that it was time for my son and me to leave. It was as amicable a separation as you could possibly want. We had a beautiful friendship and he is a lovely man; he was just not my man.
In 1993, I turned to the first love of my life, my two-year-old son, Samuel, took his hand in mine and headed back to Australia. It took me 35 hours of travel and I had nothing but the clothes in our suitcases. Financially, the house we had purchased was not worth what we paid for it, leaving me without a cent to my name. My dear friends in France lent me the money to return to Australia. I felt like a failure – I was 27 years old and going home to live with my parents until I got myself back on my feet.
Landing back in Oz with a thud
Back in Australia after my travels, and feeling like a failure, it seemed the party was well and truly over. Finding a secure job and supporting my son was now my biggest priority, even if I had to finesse my CV a little to come up with relevant skills. Sink or swim? I swam like crazy.
During my time on David Bowie's boat, I met a film producer named David Puttnam (referred to now as Lord David Puttnam; two of the many films he produced were Chariots of Fire and Midnight Express). At the time he was a director on the board of Village Roadshow. He told me that he knew Graham Burke at Village and that if I ever needed a job to contact him and he would set up an interview with Graham. Little did I know that Mr Burke was the CEO!
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