The former wife of England footballer, Paul Merson, opens her heart about her own experience of hitting rock bottom and tells others she can help turn their lives around, as she did hers

A FEW years ago Lorraine Fletcher’s life was one of money and priviledge, but the heartbreak and subsequent emotional turmoil she went through when her marriage failed has given her the experience to help the many others who are leading miserable lives today.
“I’ve been there, you are not unique in your problems, but it’s only the people who seek help who get back on the road to leading an amazing life.”

Lorraine met Paul at a local youth club in Northolt, Middlesex, when she was 15. They became childhood sweethearts and she followed him throughout his professional footballing career, going to all his home games and to international tournaments.

She admitted the lifestyle was truly amazing and money was no object.

“I wouldn’t even have to look at the price tags in shops, we had brand new houses, everything. It was a completely different world,” she said.

But she added: “At the end of the day it’s knowing how to deal with the money, especially at a young age. So many people don’t – including footballers and their partners. I knew I didn’t, I ask myself why I didn’t handle it better, look after it properly. I didn’t have to worry about my own career as I didn’t need to, didn’t have to have that responsibility. But I know for a fact money doesn’t make you happy. Don’t get me wrong, it makes life a hell of a lot easier, but life is about finding your inner happiness and using it to help you deal with life’s troubles and money is an added extra. I didn’t have the inner happiness or confidence to deal with what happened to my marriage.”

A Few years into their marriage, Lorraine began to realise that Paul had had gambling problems for some time but she had been in denial about the extent of the issues.

“I loved Paul and wanted to make my marriage work. For me, everything was about Paul and our boys. I thought it would never be my Paul. But I gradually found out his tricks and about his lies. He became a Jekyll and Hyde character and it destroyed our marriage. Towards the end the bad was outweighing the good. I hadn’t had the strength to pull the boys away from their father before, but it came to the point when I knew he had to move out,” she said.

Lorraine stayed in the family home for the next two years and is very honest about the state of her life at that time.

“I was in a total mess for two years. I couldn’t talk to anyone because with the split and Paul’s problems the media was hounding me, I couldn’t trust anyone. I even had to go undercover to France for a while. So I tried to deal with it all by myself and the pain got so bad. It got to the point where I would drop the kids off at school, come back and open a bottle of wine or some beers. I’d fall asleep on the sofa and get up just in time to pick the kids up.

And because of the money I didn’t have to deal with it, although I knew what was happening to me and I knew I had to do something about it. I just didn’t have the strength and had no idea what to do.”

Lorraine booked herself into The Priory in Enfield, but after spending a few hours walking around and lying on her bed, she realised she had to go and find the solution herself – and that was her turning point.

She found out about Anthony Robbins, a personal development coach who has worked with big names all over the world and bought his CDs.

“If Paul took the kids away on holiday I would be scared to be alone in the house, so I spent the next six months listening to his CDs and then went to one of his weekend seminars. I knew I needed more of his help, so I went to America to do a 10 day life mastery course he was running. There were so many different people there it was an amazing experience and completely empowering – something I had been missing all that time. I immersed myself in this kind of thinking and that was when I knew I was on the path to recovery,” said Lorraine.

Lorraine, now 43, used the techniques she learnt to quite literally change her life. She re-trained as a beauty therapist and opened her own salon with her business partner. She has been running it successfully for the last five years, offering employment opportunities and has also happily re-married.

But after a while she realised she could use her experience to help other people. She knows that especially in the current climate there are a lot of people suffering, even people with great jobs and in supposedly affluent areas.

Feedback on her happy state of mind and newfound positivity came from friends and staff at her business.

She said: “People were telling me that I was motivating, gave people energy and lifted them up. It finally sank in I could maybe give something back. I thought, “I’ve been there, I know, why not?”

Lorraine has not done any formal training and has found from people’s testimonials that she hasn’t had to, as experience can speak volumes. From initial word of mouth and then via her website, www.liveanamazinglife.co.uk she began running a sideline business as what she descibes as a ‘success coach’.

“I used to worry for the sake of worrying – do you know how many people do that? Do you know how many people are going down the same road I did? I went from having everything to nearly losing it all – blowing money on nothing and doing nothing with my life as a result. I started from scratch and changed it around and I know I can do it for other people,” she added.

“Ninety per cent of this world is dysfunctional and it’s everywhere but it’s about not playing the blame game, it’s doing it for yourself by finding help. If you play the blame game you will remain a victim.

We get one crack of the whip, whatever you have been given or whatever you have and I want to look back and say I’ve had an amazing life – I don’t think there are many people out there who wouldn’t want to do the same.”

Army cutbacks, north Africa, al-Qaeda and deficits

So the Government is to cut thousands of army jobs when we are facing a supposed further ten years fighting al-Qaeda and similar groups?

And this comes with the news today that borrowing has increased. I don’t get it, to be honest.

Our priorities are surely to protect ourselves from terrorist attacks and with the best armed forces in the world, our support – and money – should be behind them all the way.

Oh and we’re going to get out of Afghanistan too – leaving the ground open for further 9/11s and 7/7s?

With police numbers also being cut, let’s hope we can deal with further terrorist activity at home as well as abroad.

Former city high-flyer pens thriller for today’s economic and moral times

A FIRST time author has written a thriller examining the struggle between individuals’ morality and big business.

Rose Edmunds, 49, left her high-flying job as a partner at Deloitte in 2007, after a career of 20 years working in professional services for the likes of Arthur Anderson and Grant Thornton.

She had always harboured a desire to write, so decided to leave the corporate world and fulfil this dream.

“I left Deloitte on a high. I was staff partner in a group of more than 100 in London and my last act was to tell people their promotions and bonuses. I felt like Santa Claus. If I’d left a year later it would have been a very different story,” she said.

Never Say Sorry tells the story of Claudia Knight, a young journalist hungry for her first big scoop. She receives a tip-off that pharma giant, BEP, has suppressed a natural cancer cure, but when her source becomes the victim of a hit-and-run, his proof disappears.

She crosses paths with corporate financier, Hugo Fleming, who’s broke and whose promotion hinges on the successful completion of BEP’s bid to take over bio-software company IDD.  They both end up looking for the missing proof, taking them around the world and plunging them into a world of mysterious hedge funds, secret insider trading and unexplained killings.

Rose explained her reason for writing such a story: “It’s a thriller with a strong ethical theme. I’ve always been intrigued by the moral ambiguities of the business world – making money and principled behaviour are often unhappy bedfellows, as people are increasingly realising.

“In the aftermath of the worst financial crisis in living memory, and when finite resources threaten the very raison d’être of capitalism, I felt there has never been a better time to focus on the conflict between individual and corporate morality.

“You could day it’s an entertaining way of educating people about the possible dangers of the profit-seeking motives of big business to society and individuals.

She added: “Leaving a successful career to write books might sound like a mad mid-life moment. Partly it was down to the influence of some of my more colourful clients – there is nothing like advising entrepreneurs on tax to make you feel like a plodding bean counter. But mostly, I had a strong desire to tell stories and to illustrate what has been a unique period of history.”

What a PR stunt that was today from old Rupe…..for years, not months, the family of Millie Dowler have suffered her untimely death, the trial of her demented killer, the breaking of the phone hacking…and now…old Rupe most graciously says MEET ME to her grieving family, after several days of this actually having to have happened, he says: MEET ME.

What about, WILL YOU PLEASE meet with me, cos, know what, I have a hell of a lot to make up for?
The arrogant 80-year-old should be facing jail, not an ineffective, and voluntary, committee meeting.

Since when has the well-respected art of great British journalism descended into a total debacle like this?
Greedy Editors acting under the demands of the owners are obviously having to scrape the barrel for ‘good’ stories.

This is totally unacceptable behaviour and it is NOT journalism.
The NOTW should be shut down as an example to all so-called ‘editors’ and ‘reporters’ – let alone ‘journalists’ who think they are viable workers in this profession.
Shame on you all for dragging the best of us into your own twisted version of journalism.