“But we have never once thought we should not have done this.”Hitting their most recent sales target gave them the excuse to buy a dog – something they had always wanted but which their former busy lives in York had made impossible.”We now have time to go for bike-rides and skiing day trips,” says John. “We indulge our passion for wine and food, wear casual clothesand usually get up when we want.”Now we look after people with the sort of high-stress jobs we used to have.”Gourmet Trading can be found on 0033 (0)63 280 0474LATER-LIFE CRISIS: JOHN AND ANN TENNANT’We found VSO was so enriching, we want to do it again’John and Ann Tennant had always planned to work in a developing country before they got married. It’s freezing in winter.”We rarely eat out or buy new clothes. But we haven’t suffered and it’s a treat when we do go out to a bar, or to the opera in Bordeaux. Normally we plan one of these treats when we meet a sales target.”We have thought at times that we cannot go on living like this,” confesses John. We had to live in a friend’s camper van for a while, which was hell as we’re really not camper van people.”But eventually we bought a house, although it had no inside loo or shower and still has no heating apart from open fires.

We started planning, and I resigned from my job in July 2002 to spend more time on researching.”Six months later, Sian resigned and they sold their house for £250,000, leaving £180,000 after paying the £70,000 mortgage. It has now all gone on setting up the business, buying a fleet of sports cars and somewhere to live.They have bookings months in advance for tours, which start at £430 per person for three nights including the car and Michelin-starred meal.”The business is going really well but we still have to live frugally. “Sian had bought me a row of vines in Burgundy as a birthday present so we drove down there in my sports car for four days,” John recalls.”We ate in fantastic restaurants and toured round with the roof down on the car. It was the best ever holiday, and when we told people about it in the UK so many wondered how they could do that.”So our idea for a gourmet touring holiday company – where clients hire a sports car to tour a customised programme of French vineyards and restaurants – eventually became reality. His wife, Sian, now 36, was a research scientist, also for Nestl?who travelled the world for her job.

Together, they earned well over £100,000.They seemed to have it all, but the death at the age of 30 of a close friend prompted a review of their lives.The couple started casting around for ideas, and struck gold on a holiday in France. But I’ve always done everything for other people, now this is for me. My niece says I’m too old for this, but I still have lots of energy. I can show people if they will give me a chance.”I want to be financially independent and to be judged on my work, not on who I am from now on.”I wish I’d done it 20 years ago, but at least this way I have also been able to invest my life in my children first.” QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS: JOHN AND SIAN MEARS’We’ve never thought we did the wrong thing’Until a couple of years ago, John and Sian Mears were young high-flyers living in a Georgian house in York, with cash to spend on holidays, TVR sports cars, expensive meals out and designer clothes.John, now 34, was a manager of two Nestl?hocolate factories and was on the fast-track to a seat on the board. The course is well-known for its demanding technical aspects and focus on architectural design and seemed perfect for Brigitte – if expensive at £17,500 for a year plus another £2,000 for equipment and printing costs.”I had never held a pencil or done a drawing before in my life. There followed a period of soul-searching and a trip abroad on her own, first to Fiji and later to New Zealand.”My daughter gave me the green light to go away as I might always have thought I must stick around for my family,” she says.”So I went off backpacking, with no make-up or fancy clothes, just a pair of flip flops. It was a highly gruelling, intensive year, and I’ve been literally working 24 hours a day, but I’m doing something I enjoy so I don’t mind.”I just hope that now it translates into a career, and I’m already talking to one well-known artist who wants me to help him with architectural drawings.”But what I would really like to do is to become a project manager for overseas architectural projects.”At my age, I have to be realistic.

But finally I was doing what I had always wanted to do, something I had suppressed for so long,” she says.”I even won a prize at our exhibition at the Commonwealth Centre and now I’ve completed it I’m just so happy. I stayed away for seven weeks in the end, discovering myself.”I loved the fact that away from home when I met people I was appreciated for what I was, not who I was.”When she came back, Brigitte decided that it was “now or never” and after discussing her plans with her family, enrolled at the Inchbald School of Design in London for a post-graduate course in interior design. Yet she still found the time and determination to work as a medical representative for a range of drugs companies, including Glaxo, extolling the virtues of their various pills and potions to doctors and hospitals despite having no medical or chemistry qualifications. “I was very good at it, winning prizes for the highest sales,” she laughs.But it was clearly not her real forte. A willowy blonde, who still speaks with a strong European accent, she has also played the odd, small part in various well-known movies such as Tomorrow Never Dies and Sliding Doors.Acting was not for her either, however, and Brigitte, now 47 and with her children entering adulthood, applied for a range of other jobs but was consistently turned down for being either “too mature or not specialised enough”. At 24, she had two children within 11 months, with her third following a few years later.Her husband, a highly successful businessman, has always travelled extensively, and so she was frequently alone dealing with the various crises of raising children, such as illnesses and accidents.The family are clearly comfortably off, living in a prestigious part of London.