Nicholas de Jongh

• I HAVE read Nic de Jongh’s excellent article on my business, Soho Gyms, and its demise, (A fitting tribute to Soho Gyms, November 8). He was a friend and loyal member from the start.

Any change is tinged with sadness for me as much as for him but is full of hope for the future. There is no good way of selling a business to satisfy everyone – one cannot be a Luddite.

At 71 it was time for me to retire. He suggests I could have done something for our loyal members. The sale was completed in just six weeks. We couldn’t be sure we had a deal until the last moment and at that point we no longer owned the company.

Nic is no businessman, so he cannot be expected to appreciate the dilemmas facing an owner in these circumstances. We could hardly inform members until we were sure the sale had gone through. Imagine the damage to the business had the sale aborted.

With 10 gyms we had about 18,000 members and could hardly throw a party for so many. It would have been invidious to select only Holborn members. We had loyal members in all our clubs.

The management team received bonuses or share options realising in excess of £70,000 for some and tens of thousands for others.

As well as my business activities I have started two AIDS charities; Crusaid now absorbed into THT and AIDS ARK still going strong. Nic is kind enough to acknowledge this but then accuses me of lacking generosity.

I believe I have demonstrated all the generosity of both spirit and hard cash that could reasonably be expected of anyone. As for me being a “shadowy figure”, I tell all in my autobiography, No Make Up – Straight Tales from a Queer Life.

I forgive the jibe; Nic’s criticism has always had a sharp slap at the end. I hope that Nic will read my book and that he finds a new gay-friendly gym. I think they all are these days.

JEREMY NORMAN
Address supplied