Alex Wilson is smiling again after winning excellence award
by Iain Lundy, from the Evening Times Online
TWO years ago Alex Wilson had it made. He had a successful job, owned houses in England and France and was a partner in a luxury apartment business in Brazil.
The engineer drove plush cars, swam in his private pool, played tennis on his own court and had plans to build a golf course. But in January 2007 his world collapsed.
Cancer - which he had suffered 10 years previously - returned and he lost his job, his business partners deserted him and his marriage broke down.
Alex, 54, from Motherwell, was forced to return to Lanarkshire penniless and with no home to go to.
He contemplated suicide but, after almost two years in the doldrums, he is again on the straight and narrow and says his is a classic tale of "riches to rags to riches".
He has managed to turn his life back around thanks to the support he received in his home town, particularly a scheme run by Motherwell College, which has helped him relaunch a new career.
After completing his engineering apprenticeship in the old Lanarkshire steelworks, Alex went to work in England for British Aerospace and began to enjoy the good life.
He said: "I had worked hard and along with some friends I bought some holiday apartments in Brazil. They were full all year round and the income was brilliant."
But things started to go wrong when his stomach cancer came back and he was treated in France.
"My partners obviously thought I was not going to last. They got together and effectively wrote me out of the business. I had cashed in 85% of my pension to put it into the business, so all that was gone.
Alex then stopped working and his third marriage ended in divorce.
He said: "I had a couple of T-shirts, two pairs of jeans and a jacket to my name. There was only one thing I could do and that was go back to my home land.
"North Lanarkshire Council was brilliant. I arrived in the morning and by mid-afternoon it had set me up with a flat in Shotts and given me some money.
"I am not a Catholic but the local priest, Father Lamb, came round that night with three bags of shopping."
Through the JobCentre, Alex was put in touch with the "Support Employment" football project run by Motherwell College, Motherwell FC and Careers Scotland.
He has now been presented with Careers Scotland's Over-20 Excellence Award at a ceremony at Glasgow Science Centre.
He added: "A year ago I just wanted to die. I don't think like that any more. "
This summer Alex hopes to graduate from the college in Swedish massage and reflexology - and use his new skills to work again.
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