I quote from my reply to Stephen
Denkin:<br><br>Taken together, the new clause and new condition form
an unreasonable and in<br>my view, unethical
collusive attempt between Peter Jamieson and yourself,
to<br>restrain me from pursuing my legitimate business
activities outside North<br>America. I cannot accept the
addition of the proposed clause. I therefore<br>note and
acknowledge your formal notice of termination, and further
note and<br>acknowledge that our distribution
agreement will terminate on 10th August,<br>2000. <br><br>
I found it completely unacceptable that they should
try to tie my hands<br>while planning their own
private offshoot from the Alice Starmore range. I<br>can
only speculate as to their mindset. In my opinion, one
possibility is<br>that they thought I had put so much work
into establishing the yarn range<br>that I was
irrevocably shackled to it, and would never dare to stand up
to<br>them, thus allowing them to treat me as they pleased in
order to keep me in<br>my place. In which case they
were completely mistaken: I am not prepared to<br>play
the meek little woman. The other possibility is that
they actively<br>wanted me out, having figured that I
had done enough work to allow them to<br>coast along
nicely. Whatever the motivation, my relationship with
Jamieson<br>Spinning (Shetland) Ltd has now terminated completely. A
six month<br>contractual notice period is currently
running in my distribution agreement<br>with Unicorn, and
my relationship with them will terminate on 10th
August<br>2000.<br><br>So where does this situation leave me and the yarn
range? The short and<br>simple answer is - very much up
in the air. At this moment, my daughter and<br>I
have a small but very lovely children's book just out.
I also have the<br>book to celebrate my silver
anniversary as a professional designer, "25<br>YEARS",
written, checked, beautifully photographed and ready to go
to press<br>for delivery in Fall of this year. I
hope there is enough yarn out there to<br>make the
projects in the children's book, but as I have seen no
inventory<br>figures for ten months, I cannot be sure. However, the
book fortunately does<br>include full information to
enable accurate yarn substitutions. There is<br>little
point in publishing "25 YEARS" with its 25 designs, so
I am not<br>sending it to press and this book will
not be released. I naturally have<br>regrets for the
work, not to mention the photoshoot and many other
expenses<br>that I have put into this book, but freedom of the
spirit has to take<br>precedence over the
pocket.<br><br>As to the former Alice Starmore(TM) yarn range. The
manufacturers of the Bainin<br>and Dunedin have apparently
ceased trading and so these yarns would have<br>needed
to be replaced anyway. The Fleet is alive and well,
and I am anxious<br>to develop an alternative means
of distribution. I can only assume that<br>Jamieson
Spinning (Shetland) Ltd will continue to produce the
Shetland yarn<br>and that Unicorn may well hope to get
some continued mileage out of it,<br>although they are
contractually obliged to cease trading in it after
10th<br>August. I will certainly never use it again, and neither
will I republish<br>the books that I produced during
the distribution period of Broad Bay and<br>Unicorn.