Founder of Goodwins of London dry-cleaners Elaine Goodwin on hitting the glass ceiling, dogs and living in the moment

Losing everything: I was born during the war, in 1943, in Stanmore, Middlesex, which was in those days a small village just outside London. I remember that we had ration books and my mother used to swap our sweet coupons for orange juice. My father’s office was bombed, and they lost everything, and for a while we were evacuated to the north of England because it wasn’t considered safe in the south.

I’m the youngest of four, two sisters and a brother. We had a nice house. My mother was keen on the garden and we grew all our own vegetables and made our dresses and she cut our hair. I longed for a bought dress because everything was home-made in our house. My parents weren’t well off, they were comfortably off, and they spent their money on education, so all four of us went to private schools. I went to a day girls’ school, Heathfield School, in Harrow. I was very happy there until disaster struck when I was 16.

My father imported silks from China, porcelain from Japan and toys from Germany and the war had affected his business. He sold the company to some Americans. It turned out they didn’t really want him, they wanted a particular line he had a licence for and after a couple of years they didn’t renew his contract. So I had to leave school because my parents didn’t have any money. It was a terrible shock.

Coming to America: I had an idea I wanted to be a journalist and my mother suggested I do a secretarial course. I began a two-year course at Regent Street Polytechnic but left after a year because I had to make some money. I applied for a job as a secretary at Crawford’s Advertising, in High Holborn, in the art department and got it. I worked there for a couple of years and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I was very close to my brother, Graham, who was 13 years older than me. He was the advertising director at The Sunday Times in New York. I was itching to go to New York. My then-boyfriend’s sister, Patsy, worked at Air Canada and she suggested I work there, too, because after a year you got a free ticket to America via Toronto. I got a job in the personnel department and went to visit New York.

Perks of the job: Patsy had been on an interline tour, which was like a package holiday that airlines offered to staff on other airlines. Thai Airways had just launched and was offering a free flight from London to Bangkok via Copenhagen and then US$10 a leg on any Thai flight anywhere in Asia and US$10 a night in any Hilton. I booked the tour with a colleague in November 1968.

After three nights in Bangkok, we arrived in Hong Kong and were booked in for three nights at the Hilton and then three weeks at the YWCA. The Hilton overlooked the Hong Kong Cricket Club, which is now Statue Square. It was the first five-star hotel in Hong Kong and the centre of the social universe.