The building was magnificent, with an older wing that was the original Victorian school, its roof with inset rooflights set on beautiful curved wooden arched beams, and a curved gallery of cast iron railings on the first floor overlooking the hardwood parquet flooring below. The new wing had classrooms with gallery corridors set around a courtyard, and the whole property was vast, with laboratories, and rooms equipped with sinks for art classes and the like, large kitchens, two gymnasia and sufficient outside space for five-a-side football pitches, basketball or volleyball etc. In other words all the facilities you might expect in a large secondary school, with the one problem as far as Glasgow was concerned that with a shrinking population there were not enough children to fill it. In addition to the existing facilities, there was a large annexe not fifty yards away being used as a community centre but due to become available in the near future. Transport facilities were excellent, as it was close to a main bus route and not a hundred metres from an Underground station. And immediately behind the building was a public park with swings and children's play equipment. Perfect. 

The first problem, however, was that time was of the essence, as the building already had a date set for its demolition, and if a transfer of ownership could not be made before then there would be no more building left to own. Now, despite all the 'Young Tiger Economy' stuff being written about Malaysia at the time, and the obvious speed of development in the country, and despite the wide range of business ventures with which ABIM was associated, the transition from 'come up with suggestions' to 'this need to be done immediately' was clearly not an easy one to bridge, and my attempts at communication seemed to mostly disappear into some kind of third world manana land. So I sent lots of faxes and rarely got a reply. But eventually a group of people flew over to Glasgow and stayed in our house while they discussed what needed to be done, and after having taken photos and had more discussion they flew back to Malaysia again. 

And again there was silence, and all the while I knew that as long as the building was not being used it was wide open to vandalism and weather damage. So I sent a lot more faxes (rarely receiving replies) and made international phone calls at inconvenient times only to be told that everything was going ahead full speed and not to worry about a thing. And eventually more people arrived, and I arranged a meeting with the City Council, and it was agreed that ABIM would buy the building for £99,000 (to build it commercially from scratch would have cost many millions), and things seemed to finally be moving along. They seemed to have sorted out the finances (one of the visitors had arrived with a briefcase full of banknotes 'in case they needed cash'), and I felt it was fairly safe to move ahead.

So I introduced them to our lawyer, who agreed to take them on and handle the transaction, and I asked a favour of a number of friends and professional people I had worked with previously, an architect, surveyor, quantity surveyor etc., and because of the urgency of the project they all agreed to go ahead without formal written contracts, accepting my word that at the end of the day ABIM would indeed pay their fees (well, let's face it, one of the visitors to my house was on the board of the Malaysian National Bank). So my original sketch plans were drawn up properly for planning and building control permission, the surveyor checked out the crucial things that needed fixing (a leaking roof and asbestos in the basement), a schedule of works was drawn up, and all the stuff necessary to begin work on the building. All the various trades were organised, and contracts drawn up to await signatures, until everything was ready to go, with the builders set to move in and start work on the 4th of July (an easy date to remember).

I had people ready to move in and rent the workshops, people ready to set out football pitches, and people ready to fill the gallery of the old school with Islamic artwork for public exhibition. Everything was moving ahead on schedule at full speed - except for one thing. All this time, I had been desperately trying to get ABIM to set up a company in Glasgow with a bank account to deal with the finances of the whole thing, and whereas it was always just about to be done, and put into immediate effect, for some reason or another it never was. And my faxes became more and more desperate, although that didn't seem to communicate any urgent need to reply, and my phone calls were always answered with equanimity and confident reassurance that the matter was in hand and would probably be resolved by tomorrow. And no one ever came up with any reason why it shouldn't happen, they had bought the building, there was no trouble with the politics, or finding the funds, or anything else I could suggest. And still the Company and its Bank account weren't set up, and July came ever nearer.

As the last few weeks before the deadline ticked away, my communications began to take on a new air of desperation concerning the endless replies of 'OK brother - it will be there brother - no problem brother', and as we reached the final week before building was due to start the desperation had already started to turn into despair. Until finally, when they told me with a few days to go 'You just sign the contracts, brother - Tell them to go ahead - The money will be there soon.' I had to let it go. They were asking me to sign contracts worth nearly a million pounds on my own recognisances, trusting them to sort it out and see I was alright later. So I told them that if they hadn't got their end of it together by the time the builders were due to move in, they would have to sort it out for themselves. 'No problem. It will be sorted out tomorrow at the latest.' And when the final day came for the contracts to be signed, for work to start immediately, I went to find some of the Malaysian post-grads who had been involved from the beginning, and who could act as translators for me if phone communications got too difficult. Whereupon I found out that all the Malaysian students had vanished. No one was home! I later found that they had all gone to their annual gathering (in Birmingham that year I think), where the ABIM bigwigs would be meeting them, having flown over for the event as usual.

I put the keys of the building in an envelope, and put it through the letterbox of one of the students most closely involved, cancelled all the building work, and went and sat in a corner in shock. It had happened again. No-one phoned me. No-one faxed me. No-one from ABIM even sent me a letter.

A few weeks later, the lawyer they had appointed (our family lawyer) phoned me to say that someone had seen the empty building and made enquiries as to whether it was for sale, and ABIM had agreed to sell it for £20,000 pounds more than they had paid for it a few months previously. She also pointed out that as the money would be going out of the country, if there were any outstanding debts to do with the venture they should contact her immediately, and she would hold back sending the money abroad until their invoices were paid. So I contacted the various professionals and they all submitted their bills, and I put in a token invoice (I think for £1,000) in the hope of at least recovering some of my expenses incurred over what was the best part of a year spent working full-time on the project. And in the end, the lawyer and the architect and the surveyor and the like all got paid, and ABIM ended up making about £15,000 on the sale of the property, and the purchaser still got a spectacularly good deal, and there was only one person whose invoice ABIM refused to pay - and that was me.

The building is now a commercial home for old people.