Bryan Islip's Blog, page 8
March 30, 2015
MFV Kerry Jane
You may remember that my oldest son Robert had literally run away from school and home, aged fifteen, to enrol himself into a commercial fishing course at Grimsby. You may also remember that he had an initial (traumatic) first trip on the giant trawler Ross Cougar after which he came back home to a job in a metal galvanising plant. But all he really wanted to do was to skipper his own small boat and fish the Solent waters for money. He and his mother worked on me for some time before I gave in. I went to see my long-suffering bank manager and secured the loan to buy a twenty eight foot metal hulled converted lifeboat. Why did I do it when I knew my son was not always entirely 'balanced' in his mind? Head in sand stupidity I guess. Looking for solutions where in all reality there were none.
There is an oyster fishery in the waters around Southampton, between the mainland and the Isle of Wight. In the 70's and early 80's anybody with a suitable boat could go out - from November to, I think, February - to dredge the gravel beds for their high grade 'Belon' oysters. Later on the fishery became a fully licensed closed shop for the benefit of that band of local, well established fishermen, none of whom were overly pleased to see the arrival of my (that is, Robert's) boat or its young crew. I had bought Kerry Jane from a guy in Langstone harbour. Robert and his brother went over there to take her out to sea and bring her round on to her new moorings in the adjacent Portsmouth harbour. I waited dockside, heart in mouth, but had no need to worry. Both young men were very good at boat handling - even a boat as unsuitable / unhandlable as that old Kerry Jane. Looking back, I think it's called being sold a pup! We had a lot of work to do on the boat before the season opened. Amongst other things I had to learn the arts and crafts of steel welding .
The oyster fishery season opens on the stroke of midnight. By then every boat with a winch is milling around in the darkness, in ultra close proximity one to the others over the gravel beds off Calshott, all ready to drop their dredges. Dangerous stuff, much accompanied by bluff, counter-bluff and profanity! I still have two oyster shells at home. The smaller one is the very first oyster dredged up by Robert's Kerry Jane on that first midnight. It cost, I used to say, slightly over ten thousand pounds sterling. The large one is a perfect example of a mature Belon (Atlantic) oyster - much better eating than the gnarled and twisted Pacific oysters that are mostly what you get in British restaurants. I helped crew the boat when I could. Robert would be skippering the boat with Stu on the winches and me sorting out the legally sized oysters from all the undersized ones and the stones and rubble that come up in the wire mesh dredges. It was serious fun whilst it lasted.Great satisfaction when you put into Portsmouth Docks to unload and sell your catch - until you realised that for every bag of oysters you had, some of the real old pro's had two or three. When the oyster season ended I financed the acquisition of trawl and long lining gear. Trawl net for catching plaice and sole, long lines for bass. In spite of all our efforts, for two full years we ran the boat at a loss. Hard times even though full of hope - mostly unrealised. I remain convinced that the pressures of that old Kerry Jane and my need to get some kind of a return from her operations contributed to Robert's increasing mental illness.
When the boys were out in Kerry Jane without me, when I got home I used to go down to the sea front with my binoculars, watching and waiting, hoping and praying. Low points and high points ...Perhaps the former was when the boat's engine gave up the ghost and she had to be towed, in the early hours, into Cowes for repairs. Kerry Jane was never anything but marginally seaworthy. Not good when you understood the risk to the life and limb of my young sons and their friends who would form her crew. And another low when Robert (and/or I?) was taken to court and fined for landing undersized oysters. High point? Definitely when I went to the harbour to see the boys landing a massive catch of long-lined bass. Mother lode at last? No, just another swallow that that never did make a summer.
Because we were 'commercial', for tax reasons I had to form a company. I called it 'KJ Fisheries'. And because a company needs to keep proper accounts I prevailed upon a reluctant Delia to study accounting at night school. To her own surprise she secured her O Level. I further prevailed on her to go on to study for her A Level but all she got was a second O! Never mind, she took the burden of doing the boat's books off me and her knowledge came in very handy when I left Sweetheart to form my own consultancy, and again when we started our micro business in cards etc up here in the Highlands of Scotland.
For a further couple of years, Kerry Jane lay on her moorings without being mechanically sound enoiugh - or her skipper being mentally well enough -to earn her keep. Eventually I called the boat salvagers in Southampton, glad enough to let them tow her away free of charge to be broken up. End of that chapter. As I say, it had not been altogether an unhappy one but I was glad to be rid of the worry of the boat at a time when I had plenty of other worries. Amongst others, the experience had left my son Robert unwell and adrift. Joan and I were by now very, very concerned for him and his future.
In ending my previous bio-blog I said I would be writing about Julie and her snooker ambitions; Stuart / Seth and the dog shows and Robert and the commercial fishing boat. However, this blog being quite long enough, Julie and snooker and Stu and Seth will have to await the next episode! One thing to say though; never a dull moment!
There is an oyster fishery in the waters around Southampton, between the mainland and the Isle of Wight. In the 70's and early 80's anybody with a suitable boat could go out - from November to, I think, February - to dredge the gravel beds for their high grade 'Belon' oysters. Later on the fishery became a fully licensed closed shop for the benefit of that band of local, well established fishermen, none of whom were overly pleased to see the arrival of my (that is, Robert's) boat or its young crew. I had bought Kerry Jane from a guy in Langstone harbour. Robert and his brother went over there to take her out to sea and bring her round on to her new moorings in the adjacent Portsmouth harbour. I waited dockside, heart in mouth, but had no need to worry. Both young men were very good at boat handling - even a boat as unsuitable / unhandlable as that old Kerry Jane. Looking back, I think it's called being sold a pup! We had a lot of work to do on the boat before the season opened. Amongst other things I had to learn the arts and crafts of steel welding .
The oyster fishery season opens on the stroke of midnight. By then every boat with a winch is milling around in the darkness, in ultra close proximity one to the others over the gravel beds off Calshott, all ready to drop their dredges. Dangerous stuff, much accompanied by bluff, counter-bluff and profanity! I still have two oyster shells at home. The smaller one is the very first oyster dredged up by Robert's Kerry Jane on that first midnight. It cost, I used to say, slightly over ten thousand pounds sterling. The large one is a perfect example of a mature Belon (Atlantic) oyster - much better eating than the gnarled and twisted Pacific oysters that are mostly what you get in British restaurants. I helped crew the boat when I could. Robert would be skippering the boat with Stu on the winches and me sorting out the legally sized oysters from all the undersized ones and the stones and rubble that come up in the wire mesh dredges. It was serious fun whilst it lasted.Great satisfaction when you put into Portsmouth Docks to unload and sell your catch - until you realised that for every bag of oysters you had, some of the real old pro's had two or three. When the oyster season ended I financed the acquisition of trawl and long lining gear. Trawl net for catching plaice and sole, long lines for bass. In spite of all our efforts, for two full years we ran the boat at a loss. Hard times even though full of hope - mostly unrealised. I remain convinced that the pressures of that old Kerry Jane and my need to get some kind of a return from her operations contributed to Robert's increasing mental illness.
When the boys were out in Kerry Jane without me, when I got home I used to go down to the sea front with my binoculars, watching and waiting, hoping and praying. Low points and high points ...Perhaps the former was when the boat's engine gave up the ghost and she had to be towed, in the early hours, into Cowes for repairs. Kerry Jane was never anything but marginally seaworthy. Not good when you understood the risk to the life and limb of my young sons and their friends who would form her crew. And another low when Robert (and/or I?) was taken to court and fined for landing undersized oysters. High point? Definitely when I went to the harbour to see the boys landing a massive catch of long-lined bass. Mother lode at last? No, just another swallow that that never did make a summer.
Because we were 'commercial', for tax reasons I had to form a company. I called it 'KJ Fisheries'. And because a company needs to keep proper accounts I prevailed upon a reluctant Delia to study accounting at night school. To her own surprise she secured her O Level. I further prevailed on her to go on to study for her A Level but all she got was a second O! Never mind, she took the burden of doing the boat's books off me and her knowledge came in very handy when I left Sweetheart to form my own consultancy, and again when we started our micro business in cards etc up here in the Highlands of Scotland.
For a further couple of years, Kerry Jane lay on her moorings without being mechanically sound enoiugh - or her skipper being mentally well enough -to earn her keep. Eventually I called the boat salvagers in Southampton, glad enough to let them tow her away free of charge to be broken up. End of that chapter. As I say, it had not been altogether an unhappy one but I was glad to be rid of the worry of the boat at a time when I had plenty of other worries. Amongst others, the experience had left my son Robert unwell and adrift. Joan and I were by now very, very concerned for him and his future.
In ending my previous bio-blog I said I would be writing about Julie and her snooker ambitions; Stuart / Seth and the dog shows and Robert and the commercial fishing boat. However, this blog being quite long enough, Julie and snooker and Stu and Seth will have to await the next episode! One thing to say though; never a dull moment!
March 26, 2015
Invincible Mcdonalds
In 1982 the return of HMS Invincible from the Falklands War afforded me an opportunity to assemble all our major customers for a unique 'entertainment'. Buyers from Kraft Foods, Lyons Maid, Walls, Unigate, Express Dairies amongst a dozen or so others stayed overnight in Gosport prior to making their way in the morning to Camper & Nicolson's Sailing Club premises. The club overlooks the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour. I had hired it for the day. None present - certainly not myself, will ever forget the sight of that great, grey and rust-streaked warship looming out of the early morning Solent mists, slowly entering the harbour surrounded by a massive flotilla of small vessels of every kind and accompanied by a cacophany of hooting from land and sea. Her crew were lined up in traditional Royal Navy fashion along her decks. Whatever you might have felt about the rights and wrongs of Margaret Thatcher's carefully orchestrated campaign, I personally had never felt more proud of my country. And I could tell by the looks and emotion on the faces of my business friends that I was not alone. The moment had struck some kind of a nationalist nerve deep within us all, not least the two ladies alongside me on a business occasion for the first time; Delia and her ex-WREN mother, Wynne.
By then we had recovered the company's sales and profits momentum and I had a full complement of field and office sales staff covering the UK markets in depth. I was also managing fully staffed offices in Stockholm and Paris and was working closely with agents in Northern Ireland, Eire, Switzerland and Norway. In addition I was a frequent visitor to our sister company in Holland, (the company of which I had in the early seventies been appointed caretaker managing director). There was also our subsidiary plant near Bristol, specialising in the manufacture of drinking straws and, after the start-up of Macdonalds in the UK, the paper cups that complemented Gosport's plastic equivalents. Several of the people key to these operations were recruited as a direct result of my own 'previous life' in the by then defunct Lily Cups and Containers of Liverpool.
Macdonalds! Now there was a name to conjure with! One day, over a drink with Henry and Sorretta Shapiro in their Connaught Hotel suite I was told the story that had underpinned some of Maryland Cup's latterday success in the USA. As I recall, a certain fifty something years old L.A. commercial kitchen equipment salesman by the name of Ray Kroc had bought into an L.A. barbeque restaurant by the name of Macdonalds. He had come up with the idea of hamburgers in a hurry and turned the M of Macdonalds into those famous golden arches. Kroc approached Henry for extended credit on the disposable paper food and drinks packaging. Henry then secured preferred shares in the Kroc's company. The rest, as they say, is history. By the time of his death in his eighties Mr Kroc was the wealthiest person in the USA and Henry's shares had multiplied in value many thousands of times over.
It was around this time that Macdonalds commissioned a market research covering the UK. The net answer; don't touch it with a bargepole. Brits will never consent to drink out of paper cups or munch big-time into fast service burgers. Typically, however, Ray Krok said the researchers were wrong. He threw them out and opened up the first franchised UK Mcdonalds store in Tottenham Court Road. Henry and I went there during that first week of operations. Customers were queuing down the road! We sat having our burger lunch with the Chicagoan franchisee - I forget his name. I could hardly believe it when kids came up with requests for the Americans to sign menu cards! A bright prospect for packaging sales had opened up for my company. This was clearly going to be more than a new venture in people feeding. It was going to be a sea-change in the British way of life. Whether you like, love or would leave Mcdonalds and all it stands for, the way and the sheer speed with which they opened up the whole of the UK and European markets was one of the world's foremost example of mass marketing in action.
Back at the ranch house (as the saying goes) things were not getting any easier. I'll be writing next about the three, perhaps unlikely new directions in which our family life was turning: Julie and her snooker ambitions; Stuart / Seth and the dog shows; Robert and the commercial fishing boat I was prevailed to buy for him!
By then we had recovered the company's sales and profits momentum and I had a full complement of field and office sales staff covering the UK markets in depth. I was also managing fully staffed offices in Stockholm and Paris and was working closely with agents in Northern Ireland, Eire, Switzerland and Norway. In addition I was a frequent visitor to our sister company in Holland, (the company of which I had in the early seventies been appointed caretaker managing director). There was also our subsidiary plant near Bristol, specialising in the manufacture of drinking straws and, after the start-up of Macdonalds in the UK, the paper cups that complemented Gosport's plastic equivalents. Several of the people key to these operations were recruited as a direct result of my own 'previous life' in the by then defunct Lily Cups and Containers of Liverpool.
Macdonalds! Now there was a name to conjure with! One day, over a drink with Henry and Sorretta Shapiro in their Connaught Hotel suite I was told the story that had underpinned some of Maryland Cup's latterday success in the USA. As I recall, a certain fifty something years old L.A. commercial kitchen equipment salesman by the name of Ray Kroc had bought into an L.A. barbeque restaurant by the name of Macdonalds. He had come up with the idea of hamburgers in a hurry and turned the M of Macdonalds into those famous golden arches. Kroc approached Henry for extended credit on the disposable paper food and drinks packaging. Henry then secured preferred shares in the Kroc's company. The rest, as they say, is history. By the time of his death in his eighties Mr Kroc was the wealthiest person in the USA and Henry's shares had multiplied in value many thousands of times over.
It was around this time that Macdonalds commissioned a market research covering the UK. The net answer; don't touch it with a bargepole. Brits will never consent to drink out of paper cups or munch big-time into fast service burgers. Typically, however, Ray Krok said the researchers were wrong. He threw them out and opened up the first franchised UK Mcdonalds store in Tottenham Court Road. Henry and I went there during that first week of operations. Customers were queuing down the road! We sat having our burger lunch with the Chicagoan franchisee - I forget his name. I could hardly believe it when kids came up with requests for the Americans to sign menu cards! A bright prospect for packaging sales had opened up for my company. This was clearly going to be more than a new venture in people feeding. It was going to be a sea-change in the British way of life. Whether you like, love or would leave Mcdonalds and all it stands for, the way and the sheer speed with which they opened up the whole of the UK and European markets was one of the world's foremost example of mass marketing in action.
Back at the ranch house (as the saying goes) things were not getting any easier. I'll be writing next about the three, perhaps unlikely new directions in which our family life was turning: Julie and her snooker ambitions; Stuart / Seth and the dog shows; Robert and the commercial fishing boat I was prevailed to buy for him!
March 21, 2015
A dog called Seth
For Christmas 1978 the only present our youngest son Stuart wanted was a dog. I have remarked before how persistent he had become with this. We decided to buy him a really comprehensive dog breed encyclopaedia. His birthday falls on 29th of December. Our challenge to this thirteen year old - study the book and tell us which three kinds of dog you would most like, and why. Back he came with (a) Doberman Pinscher. We eliminated that one, not liking their reputation for fighting and biting, (b) Pyrrenean Mountain Dog. Again eliminated - massive so would need huge quantities of food besides being very, very hairy. (c) This splendid looking short haired animal called a Hungarian Vizsla. We had never heard of it, for that breed was in those days a rarity in the UK. However we told him we'd go with this vizsla selection provided we could find a UK breeder with puppies for sale. It turned out that there were only two Vizsla breeders in the country, one up north and Mrs Gay Gottlieb of St John's Wood in central London. I called Mrs Gottlieb to make an enquiry. She had a litter of puppies 'on the way'. Come up to see them in March?
On that first of January (1979) our first grandchild was born to Kairen and Roger in London, a lovely baby girl to be called Ella. So much excitement for the whole family. Joan in particular took to the idea of grandparenthood especially well. Perhaps baby Ella took her mind somewhat off the insidious multiple schlerosis. So Joan and I were grandparents at the age of forty four. A very strange feeling!
At Sweetheart International the times were definitely a-changing and not for the better. Following the infamous 1979 'winter of discontent' including its government enforced three day factory working week, demand for packaging plateaued and then fell back. I had that difficult choice to make, especially as we were not yet ten years old as a manufacturing company but had already grown sales to some three quarters of a million pounds a month. (a) hold price levels and endure a sales fall or (b) reduce prices and endure (at least, try to endure) a fell in profitability. I chose the former. As we had to lay people off in the factory I took my sales force to shake their hands as they left with their final wage packets. Not easy. None of us would ever forget it but the experience toughened us mentally, made us try even harder to grow sales again and get back into profitability. I would talk at specially convened meetings with all three shifts (yes, the midnight one included!) to try to bring understanding of what it was all about to those employed 'inside' - and of course to receive any ideas the factory and office people - and the rest of the Board had to offer. Overall, as hard as it was, I like to think our business grew into an even more effective unit after than before that great national recession.
One Sunday in March 1979 I drove Joan and Stuart up to London and Gay Gottlieb's ultra expensive residence in St John's Wood. The lady welcomed us into her kitchen. On the way through the big house we couldn't help observing a group of well known figures having themselves a fine old Sunday afternoon drinks party. I recognised Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller amongst the merry throng. When Gay closed the kitchen door and opened the scullery door a veritable stream of voluble, light reddish-brown dogs surged out at us. Mother Russetmantle (kennel name) and eight puppies. When things calmed down we were taken to see their father in his garden cage. Russetmantle Troy had won umpteen show and field trial awards. he was an amazing animal, an outstanding example of the national dog of Hungary and product of a thousand years of strict gundog breeding. Stuart was totally struck dumb. How he wanted a vizsla puppy - and how did his mother and father for that matter. I had an instinct that such an animal could do my family nothing but good in any number of ways. Back in the kitchen Gay enquired as to whether I would be shooting over our vizsla, (should we have one). I shook my head. So you'll want to show him or her? she asked. I looked at my son and he at me and again I shook my head. Oh, I'm very sorry, she said, but these dogs are not just family pets. I'm afraid I've wasted your time. We drove back to Lee-on-Solent in a virtual silence.
Two weeks later the call came. It was Gay Gottlieb; an American puppy buyer had defaulted. Were we still interested? Hastily she added that it would be the runt of the litter, a male called Russetmantle Seth. Unfortunately not suitable for showing or for field work. The next day Seth was ours (Stuart's) at home. Our family life had changed for ever and for the better. Seth was eight weeks old when I carried him out of the car. He and Stu became inseparable over the months ahead and by that July Seth was three parts grown. One day I looked at the breed standard Gottlieb had given us and compared it with Russetmantle Seth. Even to a non-doggie person this was clearly a near perfect specimen of his breed. I made another Sunday appointment with Gay Gottlieb. I shall not forget the look on Gay's face when she opened her front door to the three of us - plus Russetmantle Seth. I'd swear her face went white. She could not take her eyes off the dog. I'll not forget, either, what she then said. I've bred eight hundred hungarian vizslas looking for this one, and now I've given him away. Not exactly given, I wanted to respond, (but didn't) as I paid you four hundred pounds for him! Anyway she took us out to her back garden and asked Stu to walk him up and down. He's perfect, she breathed, just perfect. Stuart, you simply have to learn how to show him!
Like most fourteen years old boys, Stu didn't relish the idea of 'poncing up and down in front of judges' but he was eventually persuaded to attend the local ringcraft lessons. Gay sent me an entry form for the next Championship Dog Show which happened to be in Leeds. I filled it in, in my ignorance entering Stu and Seth in all the vizsla classes, not knowing it was customary to enter a dog in only one of the five age-based classes. Then there was the Open where all of the class winners were adjudged side by side to arrive at the best of gender. (The top dog would compete against the top bitch to arrive at best of breed.) Also unknown by me, it was very rare for a mere boy to be showing a dog at Championship Shows which are a very serious business for breeders and fanciers, certainly not suitable for participation by any amateur youth.
Stu had to have Seth in the ring at Leeds by 09.30, which meant an 04.00 start for the drive north. Even then we were running late. I could not believe the buzz when we got there. More than ten thousand animals entered with all the people and cars this suggests! I dropped Stuart and Seth at the car park gate. By the time I'd found a space, had got Joan into her wheelchair and (eventually) found our way to the appropriate show ring I could hardly see what was going on through the surrounding crowds. I asked a lady if she knew what was actually going on. She said, it's fantastic, that boy's dog has won every class. He's now in with Gay Gottlieb and Show Champion Troy for best of breed.
On that first of January (1979) our first grandchild was born to Kairen and Roger in London, a lovely baby girl to be called Ella. So much excitement for the whole family. Joan in particular took to the idea of grandparenthood especially well. Perhaps baby Ella took her mind somewhat off the insidious multiple schlerosis. So Joan and I were grandparents at the age of forty four. A very strange feeling!
At Sweetheart International the times were definitely a-changing and not for the better. Following the infamous 1979 'winter of discontent' including its government enforced three day factory working week, demand for packaging plateaued and then fell back. I had that difficult choice to make, especially as we were not yet ten years old as a manufacturing company but had already grown sales to some three quarters of a million pounds a month. (a) hold price levels and endure a sales fall or (b) reduce prices and endure (at least, try to endure) a fell in profitability. I chose the former. As we had to lay people off in the factory I took my sales force to shake their hands as they left with their final wage packets. Not easy. None of us would ever forget it but the experience toughened us mentally, made us try even harder to grow sales again and get back into profitability. I would talk at specially convened meetings with all three shifts (yes, the midnight one included!) to try to bring understanding of what it was all about to those employed 'inside' - and of course to receive any ideas the factory and office people - and the rest of the Board had to offer. Overall, as hard as it was, I like to think our business grew into an even more effective unit after than before that great national recession.
One Sunday in March 1979 I drove Joan and Stuart up to London and Gay Gottlieb's ultra expensive residence in St John's Wood. The lady welcomed us into her kitchen. On the way through the big house we couldn't help observing a group of well known figures having themselves a fine old Sunday afternoon drinks party. I recognised Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller amongst the merry throng. When Gay closed the kitchen door and opened the scullery door a veritable stream of voluble, light reddish-brown dogs surged out at us. Mother Russetmantle (kennel name) and eight puppies. When things calmed down we were taken to see their father in his garden cage. Russetmantle Troy had won umpteen show and field trial awards. he was an amazing animal, an outstanding example of the national dog of Hungary and product of a thousand years of strict gundog breeding. Stuart was totally struck dumb. How he wanted a vizsla puppy - and how did his mother and father for that matter. I had an instinct that such an animal could do my family nothing but good in any number of ways. Back in the kitchen Gay enquired as to whether I would be shooting over our vizsla, (should we have one). I shook my head. So you'll want to show him or her? she asked. I looked at my son and he at me and again I shook my head. Oh, I'm very sorry, she said, but these dogs are not just family pets. I'm afraid I've wasted your time. We drove back to Lee-on-Solent in a virtual silence.
Two weeks later the call came. It was Gay Gottlieb; an American puppy buyer had defaulted. Were we still interested? Hastily she added that it would be the runt of the litter, a male called Russetmantle Seth. Unfortunately not suitable for showing or for field work. The next day Seth was ours (Stuart's) at home. Our family life had changed for ever and for the better. Seth was eight weeks old when I carried him out of the car. He and Stu became inseparable over the months ahead and by that July Seth was three parts grown. One day I looked at the breed standard Gottlieb had given us and compared it with Russetmantle Seth. Even to a non-doggie person this was clearly a near perfect specimen of his breed. I made another Sunday appointment with Gay Gottlieb. I shall not forget the look on Gay's face when she opened her front door to the three of us - plus Russetmantle Seth. I'd swear her face went white. She could not take her eyes off the dog. I'll not forget, either, what she then said. I've bred eight hundred hungarian vizslas looking for this one, and now I've given him away. Not exactly given, I wanted to respond, (but didn't) as I paid you four hundred pounds for him! Anyway she took us out to her back garden and asked Stu to walk him up and down. He's perfect, she breathed, just perfect. Stuart, you simply have to learn how to show him!
Like most fourteen years old boys, Stu didn't relish the idea of 'poncing up and down in front of judges' but he was eventually persuaded to attend the local ringcraft lessons. Gay sent me an entry form for the next Championship Dog Show which happened to be in Leeds. I filled it in, in my ignorance entering Stu and Seth in all the vizsla classes, not knowing it was customary to enter a dog in only one of the five age-based classes. Then there was the Open where all of the class winners were adjudged side by side to arrive at the best of gender. (The top dog would compete against the top bitch to arrive at best of breed.) Also unknown by me, it was very rare for a mere boy to be showing a dog at Championship Shows which are a very serious business for breeders and fanciers, certainly not suitable for participation by any amateur youth.
Stu had to have Seth in the ring at Leeds by 09.30, which meant an 04.00 start for the drive north. Even then we were running late. I could not believe the buzz when we got there. More than ten thousand animals entered with all the people and cars this suggests! I dropped Stuart and Seth at the car park gate. By the time I'd found a space, had got Joan into her wheelchair and (eventually) found our way to the appropriate show ring I could hardly see what was going on through the surrounding crowds. I asked a lady if she knew what was actually going on. She said, it's fantastic, that boy's dog has won every class. He's now in with Gay Gottlieb and Show Champion Troy for best of breed.
March 16, 2015
1980 and Delia
In 1980 my life at home was (1) family and housekeeping, (2) nursing, (3) boats and sea fishing, (4) dogs.
My life at work was the (1) the company, (2) my customers (3) my job.(4) my sales and sales administration team.
And, in between these, my life since the early seventies was and had been Delia. A segment small in time but massive in meaning. It is no exaggeration to say that, whether or not she was conscious of it, Delia saved my way of life if not life itself. I do not want here to sound a note of self-excuse for seeking and finding a lover whilst my wife, who I had loved and still loved, was permanently disabled. But I simply cannot conceive of how I might have fared through these deeply troubled times without her and those necessarily brief moments of respite that we were able to share. Dee was, when I first met her, a 28 years old divorcee and mother of two young boys living in rented accommodation close by her place of employment as a barmaid in Gosport'sJolly Roger pub. From the beginning we shared a physical attraction, but we shared much else as well; our love of books, writers and writing for one instance. Who is there amongst us, I wonder, who can understand and chart the origins of their own behaviour, who is there who consistently behaves against their own instinct, exactly in accord with the human definition of what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’?
By 1980 I had begun to scribble lines of poetry on my travels, then had started to take this versification more seriously. In the mid nineties I wrote a very long narrative poem entitled 'A Walk Downtown'. It relates the thoughts of a lonely, somewhat drunken young man walking back to his cold bedsit after a Saturday night out in Dublin ... included in the forty or so verses, this one where he is considering his affair with the wife of a very dangerous friend ...
What purpose has that urge that blots all other things,And drains your mind of all except a certain she?That has you risk what’s safe to find that old glory,That grows, a fresh pink rose in thorny secrecyTo prick you, have you bleed no matter what you give?This agony, it moves from just a thing of glands?‘Forsaking all others’? But a rose that’s not your own,Is a fire by which you, cold and lost, may warm your hands?Questions like your shadow leap ahead across the way.Their answers dancing, swirling in unread shades of grey.
At any rate what started out for me as a brief encounter soon morphed as if by itself into a way of life at once calming and exciting that had overcome any agony of conscience. Dee was my shelter from the storm. And there was born that so mysterious thing that we call 'love' between man and woman; the thing that transcends, uplifts, indeed ennobles our acts of lust. Again in the mid-nineties, whilst staying with an American business friend and his wife in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia, I was asked a question. The enquirer was their daughter, a young, female US Army officer. Over dinner with the family it became obvious that this lady was suffering a severe bout of lost love, or lover, or both. Her question to me went, shockingly simple ... 'What the hell is love?' I said that nobody could answer that other than by illustration of some personal, real-life example, adding that poets, writers and artists had since time began addressed the very same question without finding solutions other than by example. You might, |I told her, Just as well be asking me, what is light? All I do know it that real, unimagined, two way love is heaven rather than hell. Then on the way back to my hotel, three hundred monotonous cross-desert kilometres away I wrote this and e-mailed it that evening to her parents, for their daughter Cindy ...
A Question of Love
“I want to know what love it,” starts the songAnd then goes on, “I want you to tell me,”But the answer may in history only be;With just the question's echo left so someFeel cold the vacuum when replies don’t come.
“Come live with me and be my love,” he wroteWent on; “And we shall all the pleasures prove:”Four hundred years ago that poet's loveHe saw reflected in his lovers eyesThe truth, pure love, now with the poet lies.
But there are many kinds of love; “Ask not,”He said, “What my country does for me, justAsk, my country, that I love, what I mustDo for thee?” Golden words that burn so hot -What greater than for love, to die and rot?
“I love (whatever,)” some car windows sayThus take that truth of brightest human lightDim and de-value it, thus make it trite:Without true love can we the pain defrayOf nothing at the dying of the day?
"And He so loved the world...” It tells of blood,(That Book), and of the life that’s here on earthIt’s only we who’re blessed to know from birthThe joy, the strength of love so fine and good,Able thus to reach and touch the face of God.
“I want to know what love is,” still you ask:And yes, it could be all that you can feel Or need to feel or all of life that’s realOr nought for you or once just now and gone, Or yours to have and hold from this day on.
By 1980 Delia ('Dee') was as much a part of my life as was I of hers. I had no idea where we were going with this so-called 'affair' but I knew she had become that essential balance on my dangerous tightrope between past and future. And, as I shall relate, the time would come when Dee would choose to walk out of the shadows and become, with her boys, a solid and enduring part of all of our lives.
This is another poem I composed, in 1980, for Delia’s St Valentine's Day ...
A sonnet for Delia
My mind's eye sees her as I saw her firstAnd still she thrills me as those years agoWhen Nature's breathless clamour did its worstAnd best when deathless love began to grow. So easily she found my heart, my mind,And calmed me without over-tenderness;She uncomplaining led me from behind,Shared failure's pain, shared joy in my success.This day of Valentine I feel you still,And closer are you, Delia, to me;My crowded mind knows that I ever willAs from my heart and soul I reach for thee.Mysterious love shall be our saving graceThrough time beyond this ever-loving place.
Bryan
March 14, 2015
'74-'79 - the troubled years
The years '74 - '79 were for me a very strange dichotomy: life at home and life at work. This one is about the former.
Home life was itself divided into two parts - or three, actually. Possibly even four if I include all the sea fishing, so important a therapy. The first and most important part was of course Joan's multiple schlerosis, which wasn't showing any signs of stabilising. On the contrary her progression from walking sticks to walking frame to wheel chair was relatively rapid. Soon enough she was unable to carry on with much or any of her domestic housekeeping role, meaning that whoever happened to be home - nurse, me or any of our children - needed to cook, clean and tidy for ourselves and/or the rest. Sounds like chaos? Well, yes. And soon enough somebody always needed to help my lady get dressed, lift her into and out of bed, on and off the toilet, etc. For such a fastidious woman, so justly proud of her appearance this was a source of extreme sadness that too readily merged into bitterness. To make matters worse, that 'somebody' (at home) was all too often our youngest son. Stuart. was never to know what shocks might - and sometimes did - await him on reaching home after school.
Of course it wasn't all so downbeat. In spite of knowing all too well how and why our family unit was beginning to splinter we generally managed to put a good face on things. Joan had always had a dry, very Yorkshire sense of humour and it did not desert her through those painful years. By the way don't ever let anyone tell you (as so many unthinking people told Joan and I) that MS is debilitating but not physically painful. In order to alleviate extreme pain my wife underwent several operations to sever certain pain-producing tendons including those behind her knees. Of course that meant we had to give up on any hope of some new 'cure' being discovered, for she could never, after that, have regained the ability to walk. And the ops may have reduced but certainly did not terminate the pain with which she had to live by night and by day for all her remaining years. She and I became completely fed up with medical professionals telling us; The pain isn't real. It's just your nerves sending out wrong signals. I yearned to tell them, this lady's pain is real, doctors, she isn't bloody wrong! You are wrong! Try some for yourself! But, as carefully polite as ever I kept my own counsel on matters medical.
Whenever my job did not take me away overnight I used to drive home from the office, see to the family's evening meal and then, at Joan's insistence, lift her into the passenger seat of the car. We would talk about the family situation whilst touring the district, often parking by the Solent where we could see the ships' lights and the lights of distant Ryde on the Isle of Wight. I would wind down the windows so that she could smell the weedy brine and listen to the shushing, calming sounds of waves on shingle. The sea did indeed give her great comfort. But often on such occasions she would quietly refer me to the promise I had made on driving back in 1973 from Southampton General Hospital after the MS revelation. The promise that, as I have related, I knew now that I could never keep. Once, parked on a slipway she asked me to release the handbrake. An accident, she said; You'll be able to get out when the car sinks. I won't. Twice she ended up in St Mary's Hospital in Portsmouth having attempted to end things by herself, Stuart having had to call the emergency services. They had a special ward there, seemingly for attempted suicides. Sympathy, as I recall, was well rationed, the implication always being that if someone really wanted to take their own life then they would, thus leaving the medics to concentrate on those grateful ones who actually wanted to carry on living. It was a ghastly place on several levels.
Adding to the pain of all this was the effect on our teenaged children. As I said, our family was beginning to splinter. Karen had put Bay House School well behind her at age seventeen, albeit with good leaving certificates, preferring to find work in the local mental hospital's geriatric ward. But it wasn't long before she left there and left home to enroll as a student nurse at the Middlesex hospital in central London. Then she abandoned that in favour of a brief spell in the Metropolitan Police Force. This in turn ended when my twenty year old daughter was told to confront the deranged wife of one of the infamous Kray brothers down in a subterranean ladies toilet. All the while Karen, now having re-spelt her name Kairen, was with Roger, her boyfriend from school days. They came home to get married in '77; a joyous and for me highly emotional occasion and a marriage that, in North London, has withstood so very well the test of time. We measure our lives to some extent by the lives and the happiness of our children. Standing to deliver my fatherly speech at the wedding reception I spoke of how I had read Tennison and other poets over pre-school breakfast to our ten year old first-born, and had made this rather beautiful baby's first cot out of an orange box and an old curtain. A good lesson in how to embarrass your daughter - if not quite as good as when I had taken her at age fifteen out of the company of her friends (including Roger, I seem to remember,) from a local pub. By the elbow and without the option. It was past ten o clock, you see. Oh, stupid ... In 1979 Kairen and Roger presented us with our first grandchild, Ella.
At the time of Kairen's marriage Julie would have been eighteen. The four years of age difference sometimes felt like much more, for Julie was always the bubbly, extrovert teenager whereas Kairen seemed the more seriously 'grown up' of the sisters. Besides, we all know how great is a gulf of four years to those undergoing their teenage. I may be wrong but perhaps Julie always did feel in the shadow of her big sister, the one who always got good school reports, knew exactly what she was doing, where she was going, etc, and made few if any obvious mistakes. For Julie life really was just a bowl of cherries ready for the eating and she was therefore much more open to the making of said mistakes. I seem to remember that, like Karen, Julie had one main boyfriend in those Lee-on-Solent days. His name was Boyd, a real young smoothy, the one no father could have entrusted with their darling daughter! As you've gathered I didn't particularly take to Boyd, which may not have helped matters. Looking back, how wrong I was!A fine young man emerged, as so often is the case. Julie too left school at sixteen. From then on she lived sometimes home with us and sometimes away with her grandparents in York I remember equating her with that line in the Sound of Music song, How do you solve a problem like Maria? / How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? / How do you find a word that means Maria? / A flibbertigibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown! // Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her / Many a thing she ought to understand / But how do you make her stay / And listen to all you say / How do you keep a wave upon the sand? / Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? / How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
Robert was our main concern as the 70's progressed. His school work - and I do mean work, not just the results of it - went into terminal decline along with his general behaviour. In retrospect it began in '75 on our last holiday in Gairloch. We should have known - or perhaps we knew but could not admit it even to ourselves - that something was fundamentally wrong when he began to imagine all sorts of catastrophies if we took the boat out fishing. Our obsessive fisherboy resolutely refused to board Culash, so we sailed off without him for the day. I can still see the lonely figure awaiting our return, standing still on the end of the harbour pier. I knew this wasn't - couldn't be - any kind of normal teenage angst. Suffice to say Bob's problems eventually involved the law court after a confrontation with another boy, himself locally a well known trouble maker, and then the hospital for Stuart who he, Robert, had shot in the bum with his airgun. The friction between Bob and myself eventually even led to a physical confrontation during which I was forced to accept the humiliation of my eldest son's strength and superior aggression. One day I came home from work to find him missing. The telephone rang. It was fifteen years old Robert informing us that he had now left school, had hitch-hiked the two hundred miles to Grimsby, had enrolled himself into the deep sea fisherman's course and was living in the Seaman's Mission. Taking Stu with me I got into the car and drove up to Grimsby, of course planning to bring Robert home. We arrived there at close to midnight. The Seaman's Mission at Grimsby is not any place for the faint hearted or for those of a nervous disposition. Certainly no place for my introspective fifteen years old son. But no words of mine or his younger brother would change Robert's mind. We drove all the way home mostly in a worried silence (mine, not Stu's). Joan of course was in great distress about this, but to my delight Robert finished his course and immediately got himself signed on as a 'learner deckie' to the immense trawler Ross Cougar. Ten stormy days in the Barents Sea followed during which my son could never take off his 'yellows' and during which a senior member of the crew ran amok with an axe, trying to reach another crewman who had locked himself in the cabin out of harm's way. Something to do with one of their wives, apparently! Anyway, by the end of the decade Robert was back home and working in a local metal working company. We did not know it but the worst was yet to come...
Both Robert and Stuart were physically very strong, fine looking, intelligent boys. But neither of them liked going to school and neither liked school work and neither of them liked the school teachers. And of course the school did not like them in return! Why should it? Yes, without doubt, Robert became something of a role model for Stuart. Looking back, I didn't help matters by spending every spare home-time moment with my sons in our lovely old wooden fishing boat, Culash (by now a fully rigged lug-sailer). There were so many problems on shore but once afloat ... I remember, in the middle of winter one night racing home from London, wheeling Culash on her trailer down to the slipway, then the three of us being out there 'til after midnight on a windy, pitch-black Solent fishing for cod. No way for them to be ready for their next school-day, I see that now. In due course Stu would follow in his brother's footsteps by running away from school and from home, this time to Penzance in Cornwall rather than Grimsby But that's another story. Right now, in 1979, he changed life for the better for all of us, and for me in particular over the next thirty years. How? All my fourteen years old son Stuart wanted that Christmas was a dog. Not just any dog ...
So by 1979 Kairen was in London with husband Rog and had made us proud grandparents, Julie was increasingly home and away, Robert was at home but not behaving in any way normally and Stuart was acting housekeeper - and wanting a dog ....
Home life was itself divided into two parts - or three, actually. Possibly even four if I include all the sea fishing, so important a therapy. The first and most important part was of course Joan's multiple schlerosis, which wasn't showing any signs of stabilising. On the contrary her progression from walking sticks to walking frame to wheel chair was relatively rapid. Soon enough she was unable to carry on with much or any of her domestic housekeeping role, meaning that whoever happened to be home - nurse, me or any of our children - needed to cook, clean and tidy for ourselves and/or the rest. Sounds like chaos? Well, yes. And soon enough somebody always needed to help my lady get dressed, lift her into and out of bed, on and off the toilet, etc. For such a fastidious woman, so justly proud of her appearance this was a source of extreme sadness that too readily merged into bitterness. To make matters worse, that 'somebody' (at home) was all too often our youngest son. Stuart. was never to know what shocks might - and sometimes did - await him on reaching home after school.
Of course it wasn't all so downbeat. In spite of knowing all too well how and why our family unit was beginning to splinter we generally managed to put a good face on things. Joan had always had a dry, very Yorkshire sense of humour and it did not desert her through those painful years. By the way don't ever let anyone tell you (as so many unthinking people told Joan and I) that MS is debilitating but not physically painful. In order to alleviate extreme pain my wife underwent several operations to sever certain pain-producing tendons including those behind her knees. Of course that meant we had to give up on any hope of some new 'cure' being discovered, for she could never, after that, have regained the ability to walk. And the ops may have reduced but certainly did not terminate the pain with which she had to live by night and by day for all her remaining years. She and I became completely fed up with medical professionals telling us; The pain isn't real. It's just your nerves sending out wrong signals. I yearned to tell them, this lady's pain is real, doctors, she isn't bloody wrong! You are wrong! Try some for yourself! But, as carefully polite as ever I kept my own counsel on matters medical.
Whenever my job did not take me away overnight I used to drive home from the office, see to the family's evening meal and then, at Joan's insistence, lift her into the passenger seat of the car. We would talk about the family situation whilst touring the district, often parking by the Solent where we could see the ships' lights and the lights of distant Ryde on the Isle of Wight. I would wind down the windows so that she could smell the weedy brine and listen to the shushing, calming sounds of waves on shingle. The sea did indeed give her great comfort. But often on such occasions she would quietly refer me to the promise I had made on driving back in 1973 from Southampton General Hospital after the MS revelation. The promise that, as I have related, I knew now that I could never keep. Once, parked on a slipway she asked me to release the handbrake. An accident, she said; You'll be able to get out when the car sinks. I won't. Twice she ended up in St Mary's Hospital in Portsmouth having attempted to end things by herself, Stuart having had to call the emergency services. They had a special ward there, seemingly for attempted suicides. Sympathy, as I recall, was well rationed, the implication always being that if someone really wanted to take their own life then they would, thus leaving the medics to concentrate on those grateful ones who actually wanted to carry on living. It was a ghastly place on several levels.
Adding to the pain of all this was the effect on our teenaged children. As I said, our family was beginning to splinter. Karen had put Bay House School well behind her at age seventeen, albeit with good leaving certificates, preferring to find work in the local mental hospital's geriatric ward. But it wasn't long before she left there and left home to enroll as a student nurse at the Middlesex hospital in central London. Then she abandoned that in favour of a brief spell in the Metropolitan Police Force. This in turn ended when my twenty year old daughter was told to confront the deranged wife of one of the infamous Kray brothers down in a subterranean ladies toilet. All the while Karen, now having re-spelt her name Kairen, was with Roger, her boyfriend from school days. They came home to get married in '77; a joyous and for me highly emotional occasion and a marriage that, in North London, has withstood so very well the test of time. We measure our lives to some extent by the lives and the happiness of our children. Standing to deliver my fatherly speech at the wedding reception I spoke of how I had read Tennison and other poets over pre-school breakfast to our ten year old first-born, and had made this rather beautiful baby's first cot out of an orange box and an old curtain. A good lesson in how to embarrass your daughter - if not quite as good as when I had taken her at age fifteen out of the company of her friends (including Roger, I seem to remember,) from a local pub. By the elbow and without the option. It was past ten o clock, you see. Oh, stupid ... In 1979 Kairen and Roger presented us with our first grandchild, Ella.
At the time of Kairen's marriage Julie would have been eighteen. The four years of age difference sometimes felt like much more, for Julie was always the bubbly, extrovert teenager whereas Kairen seemed the more seriously 'grown up' of the sisters. Besides, we all know how great is a gulf of four years to those undergoing their teenage. I may be wrong but perhaps Julie always did feel in the shadow of her big sister, the one who always got good school reports, knew exactly what she was doing, where she was going, etc, and made few if any obvious mistakes. For Julie life really was just a bowl of cherries ready for the eating and she was therefore much more open to the making of said mistakes. I seem to remember that, like Karen, Julie had one main boyfriend in those Lee-on-Solent days. His name was Boyd, a real young smoothy, the one no father could have entrusted with their darling daughter! As you've gathered I didn't particularly take to Boyd, which may not have helped matters. Looking back, how wrong I was!A fine young man emerged, as so often is the case. Julie too left school at sixteen. From then on she lived sometimes home with us and sometimes away with her grandparents in York I remember equating her with that line in the Sound of Music song, How do you solve a problem like Maria? / How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? / How do you find a word that means Maria? / A flibbertigibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown! // Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her / Many a thing she ought to understand / But how do you make her stay / And listen to all you say / How do you keep a wave upon the sand? / Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? / How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
Robert was our main concern as the 70's progressed. His school work - and I do mean work, not just the results of it - went into terminal decline along with his general behaviour. In retrospect it began in '75 on our last holiday in Gairloch. We should have known - or perhaps we knew but could not admit it even to ourselves - that something was fundamentally wrong when he began to imagine all sorts of catastrophies if we took the boat out fishing. Our obsessive fisherboy resolutely refused to board Culash, so we sailed off without him for the day. I can still see the lonely figure awaiting our return, standing still on the end of the harbour pier. I knew this wasn't - couldn't be - any kind of normal teenage angst. Suffice to say Bob's problems eventually involved the law court after a confrontation with another boy, himself locally a well known trouble maker, and then the hospital for Stuart who he, Robert, had shot in the bum with his airgun. The friction between Bob and myself eventually even led to a physical confrontation during which I was forced to accept the humiliation of my eldest son's strength and superior aggression. One day I came home from work to find him missing. The telephone rang. It was fifteen years old Robert informing us that he had now left school, had hitch-hiked the two hundred miles to Grimsby, had enrolled himself into the deep sea fisherman's course and was living in the Seaman's Mission. Taking Stu with me I got into the car and drove up to Grimsby, of course planning to bring Robert home. We arrived there at close to midnight. The Seaman's Mission at Grimsby is not any place for the faint hearted or for those of a nervous disposition. Certainly no place for my introspective fifteen years old son. But no words of mine or his younger brother would change Robert's mind. We drove all the way home mostly in a worried silence (mine, not Stu's). Joan of course was in great distress about this, but to my delight Robert finished his course and immediately got himself signed on as a 'learner deckie' to the immense trawler Ross Cougar. Ten stormy days in the Barents Sea followed during which my son could never take off his 'yellows' and during which a senior member of the crew ran amok with an axe, trying to reach another crewman who had locked himself in the cabin out of harm's way. Something to do with one of their wives, apparently! Anyway, by the end of the decade Robert was back home and working in a local metal working company. We did not know it but the worst was yet to come...
Both Robert and Stuart were physically very strong, fine looking, intelligent boys. But neither of them liked going to school and neither liked school work and neither of them liked the school teachers. And of course the school did not like them in return! Why should it? Yes, without doubt, Robert became something of a role model for Stuart. Looking back, I didn't help matters by spending every spare home-time moment with my sons in our lovely old wooden fishing boat, Culash (by now a fully rigged lug-sailer). There were so many problems on shore but once afloat ... I remember, in the middle of winter one night racing home from London, wheeling Culash on her trailer down to the slipway, then the three of us being out there 'til after midnight on a windy, pitch-black Solent fishing for cod. No way for them to be ready for their next school-day, I see that now. In due course Stu would follow in his brother's footsteps by running away from school and from home, this time to Penzance in Cornwall rather than Grimsby But that's another story. Right now, in 1979, he changed life for the better for all of us, and for me in particular over the next thirty years. How? All my fourteen years old son Stuart wanted that Christmas was a dog. Not just any dog ...
So by 1979 Kairen was in London with husband Rog and had made us proud grandparents, Julie was increasingly home and away, Robert was at home but not behaving in any way normally and Stuart was acting housekeeper - and wanting a dog ....
March 2, 2015
Pleasures and pressures
By the time of our annual holiday in the May of 1973 Joan's multiple schlerosis had become obvious to all, for she had exchanged her walking stick for a zimmer frame. Nevertheless we decided to go back to the Highlands of Scotland, this time even a little further north; to a place called Gairloch. The girls were now of an age not necessarily to want the rigours of a sixteen hour car journey or of being tossed about on the ocean in a small boat for ten days. We trusted them to stay home. (When we returned we found our household had increased by one small kitten, but that's another story!) Joan herself liked the sea fishing and with two increasingly strong young boys along I knew we could get her in and out of boat, car or anything else. We pitched our tent at Big Sand, overlooking the Sound between there and Longa Island. It was in that Sound, that magical holiday, that we had great catches of plaice, dabs and haddock amongst other species, and where Robert caught his British record dab (limanda limanda). Two pounds, twelve ounces and two drams.
I phoned to register the record and was asked to take the fish as quickly as possible to the Glasgow Museum of Natural History for validation. The record stood (and featured in the Guinness Book of Records) for more than twenty five years. It won several prizes including a two week family holiday on the West Coast of Ireland, so that October we towed Culash up to Liverpool, were ferried across to Dublin then drove across Ireland to lovely Trallee. A second great holiday. But on the way back, whilst heading for our ferry on Saturday night the wheel bearing on our boat trailer gave up just off the famous O'Connell Street. 'The Troubles' being at that time in full spate I was more than a little concerned. Nevertheless a fellow dressed up for his night out offered to help. He drove Stuart and I to his home in the suburbs, leaving Robert in charge of my incapacitated wife and incapacitated transport. The man was kindness personified. He botched up a piece of galvanised iron pipe and, with a handful of glutinous grease we were up and running, at least as far as the ferryboat and into a Liverpool garage the next day. Furthermore our benefactor would accept no compensation. Reminds me of when a fellow did me an unsolicited kindness here in the Highlands. Again I offered to pay; Bryan, he told me, Up here you have to learn how to take.
The early 70's were pretty wild years at Sweetheart International. We needed to hit three quarters of a million pounds a month in invoiced sales, and quickly before the owners lost patience. Already Sir Julian had baled out, selling his fifty percent to Malcolm Bates' Spey Investments. Most importantly our sales had to be at prices that (a) produced the necessary gross margins and (b) did not destroy the industry norms. Setting low-ball prices would only serve to prolong the loss-making agony. We all know how easy it is to drop your price and how difficult to increase it. Nevertheless at a board meeting in 1974 Henry Shapiro, tired of pressure from his Board back in the USA instructed us to increase all prices by a substantial - and set - percentage. I gathered together my sales guys, Alex and Ted. They were in agreement that Henry's dictat was impossible, we would lose all our hard won sales. I said it wasn't impossible but in truth had difficulty believing my own message. That evening we got thoroughly drunk, which was by no means a first! Then over the succeeding months, lo and behold we actually did make the price increases and without losing much sales momentum! It was a lesson well learned; sales without profits in a manufacturing company mean precisely zero, other than in the temporary interests of job security.
If anyone thought Sir Julian Salmon a hard taskmaster Mister Malcolm Bates very soon disillusioned them. His Spey Investments were financiers, pure and simple with palatial offices in the City of London. They had latched on to one astonishingly simple moneybag fact concerning the investment of industrial pension funds, especially the giant pot of gold owned by the nation's postal workers - all one hundred and twenty thousand of them plus lord alone knows how many others in retirement. The truly massive fund's senior manager was at that time paid not much more than me! Bates and his bright-boy entourage certainly knew how to woo him!
But, never content simply to invest, like many such genre Spey believed they could and should actually run the manufacturing industry in which they had placed the pensioners' money. God-like in their City towers of ivory, they totally believed themselves better able than their incumbent managers. So one of the first things Bates did was to fire my boss, managing director Alan Watchman, by some way the best managing director I have ever worked under. He called we three remaining directors to his City eyrie and 'interviewed' us one at a time. I was first in. The interview was very short, beginning with his, but a single statement and linked question; 'I've just dismissed Watchman. Do you think I 've done the right thing for the company?' He glared at me across an ocean of polished walnut table. It was obvious that any prevarication would lead straight to the exit door. In spite of my being totally convinced he'd made the wrong move I said in effect, Yes, good move, whilst telling myself the lie was in the best interests of the company (by leaving me in place). In fact it was in the interests primarily of myself and my recently disadvantaged family. Feet of clay? I was and am to this day actually ashamed of that yes response.
Going back a bit in time, when Henry Shapiro and Sir Julian made their joint green field investment in the UK he and his Maryland Cup Board had bought a family owned paper cup manufacturer operating out of the small town of Groenlo in Holland. They re-named it Sweetheart Holland. But (and the following happened before Sir Julian sold out to Spey and therefore before Alan Watchman got himself fired,) Henry had been made aware of certain, let us say doubtful financial practices on the part of Groenlo's Dutch managing director. That is why Alan Watchman and I found ourselves on a Sunday flight out, then knocking on said managing director's door at 08.00 hours Monday morning. The guy had worked there almost man and boy and was something of a popular village luminary to boot. Our meeting with him was short and not at all sweet. At the end of it he was out, dissmissed. Alan Watchman returned to Gosport and I was left in position as stand in managing director. I had a special remit to dig as deeply as possible into the company, its practices and its finances. I was there in Groenlo for a little over a month conducting forensic investigations by interview with the staff and its suppliers and by an in-depth study of the company's historic accounts. In submitting my report to the owners I was all too well aware of how much compensation money my researches had probably saved them. No court of law ever needed to be involved. But when I stood to speak at the appropriate meeting of our Board I made two basic points. First, such 'malpractice' as I had uncovered was not necessarily unusual in Holland. Second, the man had been a very fair long time leader of the company.
For me, this whole business of hiring and firing top managers is ridiculous. It says that either the company had been built on sand in the first place and could never prosper in its present form or that the company had been well founded and therefore the person (Chairman usually) making the appointment was himself incompetent, his judgement suspect. But who fires the Chairman?
Early the next year said Chairman offered me the position of managing director at a substantial paint manufacturer near Leeds. I discussed it in depth with my disabled Yorkshire lass, Joan. We thought about the logistics and of course the children and their education. Seventeen years old Karen had by then left school and obtained student nurse employment in the geriatrics ward of a mental hospital. Julie was happy at school and with all her friends, the boys were not doing so well at their studies and showed little enthusiasm for them but would have hated to leave the sea and all the fishing. They certainly did not need yet another move. And yes, I thought about Delia, the secret part of my life that made bearable all that would have been unbearable.
So I turned down Bates and his henchmen. It was the first of three - possibly four head hunter approaches over the succeeding years, all of them refused. I knew I could never reach the heights at which, according to that Indian party-guy all those years before in Solihull, I could actually change things for the better and for everybody.
I phoned to register the record and was asked to take the fish as quickly as possible to the Glasgow Museum of Natural History for validation. The record stood (and featured in the Guinness Book of Records) for more than twenty five years. It won several prizes including a two week family holiday on the West Coast of Ireland, so that October we towed Culash up to Liverpool, were ferried across to Dublin then drove across Ireland to lovely Trallee. A second great holiday. But on the way back, whilst heading for our ferry on Saturday night the wheel bearing on our boat trailer gave up just off the famous O'Connell Street. 'The Troubles' being at that time in full spate I was more than a little concerned. Nevertheless a fellow dressed up for his night out offered to help. He drove Stuart and I to his home in the suburbs, leaving Robert in charge of my incapacitated wife and incapacitated transport. The man was kindness personified. He botched up a piece of galvanised iron pipe and, with a handful of glutinous grease we were up and running, at least as far as the ferryboat and into a Liverpool garage the next day. Furthermore our benefactor would accept no compensation. Reminds me of when a fellow did me an unsolicited kindness here in the Highlands. Again I offered to pay; Bryan, he told me, Up here you have to learn how to take.
The early 70's were pretty wild years at Sweetheart International. We needed to hit three quarters of a million pounds a month in invoiced sales, and quickly before the owners lost patience. Already Sir Julian had baled out, selling his fifty percent to Malcolm Bates' Spey Investments. Most importantly our sales had to be at prices that (a) produced the necessary gross margins and (b) did not destroy the industry norms. Setting low-ball prices would only serve to prolong the loss-making agony. We all know how easy it is to drop your price and how difficult to increase it. Nevertheless at a board meeting in 1974 Henry Shapiro, tired of pressure from his Board back in the USA instructed us to increase all prices by a substantial - and set - percentage. I gathered together my sales guys, Alex and Ted. They were in agreement that Henry's dictat was impossible, we would lose all our hard won sales. I said it wasn't impossible but in truth had difficulty believing my own message. That evening we got thoroughly drunk, which was by no means a first! Then over the succeeding months, lo and behold we actually did make the price increases and without losing much sales momentum! It was a lesson well learned; sales without profits in a manufacturing company mean precisely zero, other than in the temporary interests of job security.
If anyone thought Sir Julian Salmon a hard taskmaster Mister Malcolm Bates very soon disillusioned them. His Spey Investments were financiers, pure and simple with palatial offices in the City of London. They had latched on to one astonishingly simple moneybag fact concerning the investment of industrial pension funds, especially the giant pot of gold owned by the nation's postal workers - all one hundred and twenty thousand of them plus lord alone knows how many others in retirement. The truly massive fund's senior manager was at that time paid not much more than me! Bates and his bright-boy entourage certainly knew how to woo him!
But, never content simply to invest, like many such genre Spey believed they could and should actually run the manufacturing industry in which they had placed the pensioners' money. God-like in their City towers of ivory, they totally believed themselves better able than their incumbent managers. So one of the first things Bates did was to fire my boss, managing director Alan Watchman, by some way the best managing director I have ever worked under. He called we three remaining directors to his City eyrie and 'interviewed' us one at a time. I was first in. The interview was very short, beginning with his, but a single statement and linked question; 'I've just dismissed Watchman. Do you think I 've done the right thing for the company?' He glared at me across an ocean of polished walnut table. It was obvious that any prevarication would lead straight to the exit door. In spite of my being totally convinced he'd made the wrong move I said in effect, Yes, good move, whilst telling myself the lie was in the best interests of the company (by leaving me in place). In fact it was in the interests primarily of myself and my recently disadvantaged family. Feet of clay? I was and am to this day actually ashamed of that yes response.
Going back a bit in time, when Henry Shapiro and Sir Julian made their joint green field investment in the UK he and his Maryland Cup Board had bought a family owned paper cup manufacturer operating out of the small town of Groenlo in Holland. They re-named it Sweetheart Holland. But (and the following happened before Sir Julian sold out to Spey and therefore before Alan Watchman got himself fired,) Henry had been made aware of certain, let us say doubtful financial practices on the part of Groenlo's Dutch managing director. That is why Alan Watchman and I found ourselves on a Sunday flight out, then knocking on said managing director's door at 08.00 hours Monday morning. The guy had worked there almost man and boy and was something of a popular village luminary to boot. Our meeting with him was short and not at all sweet. At the end of it he was out, dissmissed. Alan Watchman returned to Gosport and I was left in position as stand in managing director. I had a special remit to dig as deeply as possible into the company, its practices and its finances. I was there in Groenlo for a little over a month conducting forensic investigations by interview with the staff and its suppliers and by an in-depth study of the company's historic accounts. In submitting my report to the owners I was all too well aware of how much compensation money my researches had probably saved them. No court of law ever needed to be involved. But when I stood to speak at the appropriate meeting of our Board I made two basic points. First, such 'malpractice' as I had uncovered was not necessarily unusual in Holland. Second, the man had been a very fair long time leader of the company.
For me, this whole business of hiring and firing top managers is ridiculous. It says that either the company had been built on sand in the first place and could never prosper in its present form or that the company had been well founded and therefore the person (Chairman usually) making the appointment was himself incompetent, his judgement suspect. But who fires the Chairman?
Early the next year said Chairman offered me the position of managing director at a substantial paint manufacturer near Leeds. I discussed it in depth with my disabled Yorkshire lass, Joan. We thought about the logistics and of course the children and their education. Seventeen years old Karen had by then left school and obtained student nurse employment in the geriatrics ward of a mental hospital. Julie was happy at school and with all her friends, the boys were not doing so well at their studies and showed little enthusiasm for them but would have hated to leave the sea and all the fishing. They certainly did not need yet another move. And yes, I thought about Delia, the secret part of my life that made bearable all that would have been unbearable.
So I turned down Bates and his henchmen. It was the first of three - possibly four head hunter approaches over the succeeding years, all of them refused. I knew I could never reach the heights at which, according to that Indian party-guy all those years before in Solihull, I could actually change things for the better and for everybody.
February 27, 2015
Glimpses of damnation and salvation.
1973 was a year of massive shocks for me and mine. What I am going to write here is very difficult. If any family member does not wish to read on I would most surely understand. (This is not to say that I've engaged in any blog-associated family correspondence but I am aware that it is being read, at least by some.)
Those who have followed this bio-blog from the beginning will remember that, in 1957, Joan had become temporarily, inexplicably blind. She was given many tests at Cambridge's prestigious Addenbrooke hospital but whilst there her sight had - equally inexplicably - returned in full. As I say, the medical staff had no explanation, or so they told us, so she left hospital and we carried on with our lives, forgetting all about it. In addition to Karen, as the years rolled by and our prosperity increased.we brought Julie, Robert and Stuart to join us in our mostly happy little world.
However, even before moving south from Lancashire I had known that something was becoming really amiss. There was - at times but not all the time - an unpredictability about Joan's behavior. For instance, one night I arrived home quite late to find all the children fast asleep but no sign of her. I had the bedroom telephone in my hand to call police, hospitals etc when she burst out of the wardrobe, quite frighteningly wild-eyed. And then, soon after the move to Lee she started to walk with a slight limp - again, for no apparent reason and without any kind of pain. After many visits to our local doctor Joan was referred to Southampton General. I should have known that some kind of a bombshell was about to burst over her, over me and over our whole family life, for she had been referred to the neurology department. A quarter of an hour after walking into the consultant's office we walked out in a stunned silence, knowing now that her problem was MS (multiple schlerosis); that it had been diagnosed or at least suspected back in Addenbrookes and that there was no cure as such. It would, said the consultant, possibly / probably regress in irregular stages through the need for a walking frame then a wheelchair and then ... nobody could tell.
Our discussion in the car whilst driving home was strangely calm and collected, at least from Joan's side. All she wanted to talk about was how difficult and then unbearable would or could become the lives of our children. They were at the time aged about seventeen, (Karen) fourteen, (Julie) eleven (Robert) and eight (Stuart). She asked me to stop the car somewhere. I did so. Again and again she insisted I make her a solemn promise to the effect that, if and when her illness reached a certain stage I would help her to terminate things. I made her that promise, refusing to believe that such a stage could or would ever be reached. (An ostrich with head in sand comes now to mind. And when that time came I did not / could not keep my promise. Joan never truly forgave me for that.)
But as they say, what cannot be cured must be endured, and that is what we tried our best to do; with as much good grace and making as few concessions to MS as we possibly could. Of course Joan had to give up her thoughts of gainful employment. Soon enough she would need the help of a walking frame. At least on the surface our daughters and sons took the situation in their stride but I was of course never to know what actually went on deep down. As for me, on the one hand to all appearances to the outside world I seemed to 'have it made' but on the other I knew how finely balanced was our wellbeing. I had all the usual indebtedness to service and although I was earning a top salary everything would collapse should I lose my job - or be forced to give up work altogether in order to look after my wife, our family and our home. This had to be a real possibility when the MS reached a point where, in effect, twenty four hour nursing would become essential.
We (Sweetheart International) had invited our local Member of Parliament Peter Viggers, (yes, he of the duckhouse fiasco!) to join the Board in a non-executive capacity. I spoke to Viggers in private, asking if there was any system of financial support or live-in nursing for cases such as my own. He came back to me later, having, he said, spoken with 'The Minister'. The answer was a brick wall; 'no, sorrry'. I was on my own.
Well, not altogether and not for long. I spotted this rather lovely young lady walking along the harbourside road with her two little boys, holding one with each of her hands. I recognised her as the divorcee barmaid in a local pub, The Jolly Roger. Her name was Delia Perry. One day she would be Delia Islip.
Those who have followed this bio-blog from the beginning will remember that, in 1957, Joan had become temporarily, inexplicably blind. She was given many tests at Cambridge's prestigious Addenbrooke hospital but whilst there her sight had - equally inexplicably - returned in full. As I say, the medical staff had no explanation, or so they told us, so she left hospital and we carried on with our lives, forgetting all about it. In addition to Karen, as the years rolled by and our prosperity increased.we brought Julie, Robert and Stuart to join us in our mostly happy little world.
However, even before moving south from Lancashire I had known that something was becoming really amiss. There was - at times but not all the time - an unpredictability about Joan's behavior. For instance, one night I arrived home quite late to find all the children fast asleep but no sign of her. I had the bedroom telephone in my hand to call police, hospitals etc when she burst out of the wardrobe, quite frighteningly wild-eyed. And then, soon after the move to Lee she started to walk with a slight limp - again, for no apparent reason and without any kind of pain. After many visits to our local doctor Joan was referred to Southampton General. I should have known that some kind of a bombshell was about to burst over her, over me and over our whole family life, for she had been referred to the neurology department. A quarter of an hour after walking into the consultant's office we walked out in a stunned silence, knowing now that her problem was MS (multiple schlerosis); that it had been diagnosed or at least suspected back in Addenbrookes and that there was no cure as such. It would, said the consultant, possibly / probably regress in irregular stages through the need for a walking frame then a wheelchair and then ... nobody could tell.
Our discussion in the car whilst driving home was strangely calm and collected, at least from Joan's side. All she wanted to talk about was how difficult and then unbearable would or could become the lives of our children. They were at the time aged about seventeen, (Karen) fourteen, (Julie) eleven (Robert) and eight (Stuart). She asked me to stop the car somewhere. I did so. Again and again she insisted I make her a solemn promise to the effect that, if and when her illness reached a certain stage I would help her to terminate things. I made her that promise, refusing to believe that such a stage could or would ever be reached. (An ostrich with head in sand comes now to mind. And when that time came I did not / could not keep my promise. Joan never truly forgave me for that.)
But as they say, what cannot be cured must be endured, and that is what we tried our best to do; with as much good grace and making as few concessions to MS as we possibly could. Of course Joan had to give up her thoughts of gainful employment. Soon enough she would need the help of a walking frame. At least on the surface our daughters and sons took the situation in their stride but I was of course never to know what actually went on deep down. As for me, on the one hand to all appearances to the outside world I seemed to 'have it made' but on the other I knew how finely balanced was our wellbeing. I had all the usual indebtedness to service and although I was earning a top salary everything would collapse should I lose my job - or be forced to give up work altogether in order to look after my wife, our family and our home. This had to be a real possibility when the MS reached a point where, in effect, twenty four hour nursing would become essential.
We (Sweetheart International) had invited our local Member of Parliament Peter Viggers, (yes, he of the duckhouse fiasco!) to join the Board in a non-executive capacity. I spoke to Viggers in private, asking if there was any system of financial support or live-in nursing for cases such as my own. He came back to me later, having, he said, spoken with 'The Minister'. The answer was a brick wall; 'no, sorrry'. I was on my own.
Well, not altogether and not for long. I spotted this rather lovely young lady walking along the harbourside road with her two little boys, holding one with each of her hands. I recognised her as the divorcee barmaid in a local pub, The Jolly Roger. Her name was Delia Perry. One day she would be Delia Islip.
A first glimpse of hell, damnation and salvation.
1973 was a year of massive shocks for me and mine. What I am going to write here is very difficult. If any family member does not wish to read on I would most surely understand. (This is not to say that I've engaged in any blog-associated family correspondence but I am aware that it is being read, at least by some.)
Those who have followed this bio-blog from the beginning will remember that, in 1957, Joan had become temporarily, inexplicably blind. She was given many tests at Cambridge's prestigious Addenbrooke hospital but whilst there her sight had - equally inexplicably - returned in full. As I say, the medical staff had no explanation, or so they told us, so she left hospital and we carried on with our lives forgetting all about it. In addition to Karen, as the years rolled by and our prosperity increased.we brought Julie, Robert and Stuart to join us in our mostly happy little world.
However, even before moving south from Lancashire I had known that something was becoming really amiss. There was - at times but not all the time - an unpredictability about Joan's behavior. For instance, one night I arrived home quite late to find all the children fast asleep but no sign of her. I had the bedroom telephone in my hand to call police, hospitals etc when she burst out of the wardrobe, quite frighteningly wild-eyed. And then, soon after the move to Lee she started to walk with a slight limp - again, for no apparent reason and without any kind of pain. After many visits to our local doctor Joan was referred to Southampton General. I should have known that some kind of a bombshell was about to burst over her, over me and over our whole family life, for she had been referred to the neurology department. A quarter of an hour after walking into the consultant's office we walked out in a stunned silence, knowing now that her problem was MS (multiple schlerosis); that it had been diagnosed or at least suspected back in Addenbrookes and that there was no cure as such. It would, said the consultant, possibly / probably regress in irregular stages through the need for a walking frame then a wheelchair and then ... nobody could tell.
Our discussion in the car whilst driving home was strangely calm and collected, at least from Joan's side. All she wanted to talk about was how difficult and then unbearable would or could become the lives of our children. They were at the time aged about seventeen, (Karen) fourteen, (Julie) eleven (Robert) and eight (Stuart). She asked me to stop the car somewhere. I did so. Again and again she insisted I make her a solemn promise to the effect that, if and when her illness reached a certain stage I would help her to terminate things. I made her that promise, refusing to believe that such a stage could or would ever be reached. (An ostrich with head in sand comes now to mind. And when that time came I did not / could not keep my promise. Joan never truly forgave me for that.)
But as they say, what cannot be cured must be endured, and that is what we tried our best to do; with as much good grace and making as few concessions to MS as we possibly could. Of course Joan had to give up her thoughts of gainful employment. Soon enough she would need the help of a walking frame. At least on the surface our daughters and sons took the situation in their stride but I was of course never to know what actually went on deep down. As for me, on the one hand to all appearances to the outside world I seemed to 'have it made' but on the other I knew how finely balanced was our wellbeing. I had all the usual indebtedness to service and although I was earning a top salary everything would collapse should I lose my job - or be forced to give up work altogether in order to look after my wife, our family and our home. This had to be a real possibility when the MS reached a point where, in effect, twenty four hour nursing would become essential.
We (Sweetheart International) had invited our local Member of Parliament Peter Viggers, (yes, he of the duckhouse fiasco!) to join the Board in a non-executive capacity. I spoke to Viggers in private, asking if there was any system of financial support or live-in nursing for cases such as my own. He came back to me later, having, he said, spoken with 'The Minister'. The answer was a brick wall; 'no, sorrry'. I was on my own.
Well, not altogether and not for long. I spotted this rather lovely young lady walking along the harbourside road with her two little boys, holding one with each of her hands. I recognised her as the divorcee barmaid in a local pub, The Jolly Roger. Her name was Delia Perry. One day she would be Delia Islip.
Those who have followed this bio-blog from the beginning will remember that, in 1957, Joan had become temporarily, inexplicably blind. She was given many tests at Cambridge's prestigious Addenbrooke hospital but whilst there her sight had - equally inexplicably - returned in full. As I say, the medical staff had no explanation, or so they told us, so she left hospital and we carried on with our lives forgetting all about it. In addition to Karen, as the years rolled by and our prosperity increased.we brought Julie, Robert and Stuart to join us in our mostly happy little world.
However, even before moving south from Lancashire I had known that something was becoming really amiss. There was - at times but not all the time - an unpredictability about Joan's behavior. For instance, one night I arrived home quite late to find all the children fast asleep but no sign of her. I had the bedroom telephone in my hand to call police, hospitals etc when she burst out of the wardrobe, quite frighteningly wild-eyed. And then, soon after the move to Lee she started to walk with a slight limp - again, for no apparent reason and without any kind of pain. After many visits to our local doctor Joan was referred to Southampton General. I should have known that some kind of a bombshell was about to burst over her, over me and over our whole family life, for she had been referred to the neurology department. A quarter of an hour after walking into the consultant's office we walked out in a stunned silence, knowing now that her problem was MS (multiple schlerosis); that it had been diagnosed or at least suspected back in Addenbrookes and that there was no cure as such. It would, said the consultant, possibly / probably regress in irregular stages through the need for a walking frame then a wheelchair and then ... nobody could tell.
Our discussion in the car whilst driving home was strangely calm and collected, at least from Joan's side. All she wanted to talk about was how difficult and then unbearable would or could become the lives of our children. They were at the time aged about seventeen, (Karen) fourteen, (Julie) eleven (Robert) and eight (Stuart). She asked me to stop the car somewhere. I did so. Again and again she insisted I make her a solemn promise to the effect that, if and when her illness reached a certain stage I would help her to terminate things. I made her that promise, refusing to believe that such a stage could or would ever be reached. (An ostrich with head in sand comes now to mind. And when that time came I did not / could not keep my promise. Joan never truly forgave me for that.)
But as they say, what cannot be cured must be endured, and that is what we tried our best to do; with as much good grace and making as few concessions to MS as we possibly could. Of course Joan had to give up her thoughts of gainful employment. Soon enough she would need the help of a walking frame. At least on the surface our daughters and sons took the situation in their stride but I was of course never to know what actually went on deep down. As for me, on the one hand to all appearances to the outside world I seemed to 'have it made' but on the other I knew how finely balanced was our wellbeing. I had all the usual indebtedness to service and although I was earning a top salary everything would collapse should I lose my job - or be forced to give up work altogether in order to look after my wife, our family and our home. This had to be a real possibility when the MS reached a point where, in effect, twenty four hour nursing would become essential.
We (Sweetheart International) had invited our local Member of Parliament Peter Viggers, (yes, he of the duckhouse fiasco!) to join the Board in a non-executive capacity. I spoke to Viggers in private, asking if there was any system of financial support or live-in nursing for cases such as my own. He came back to me later, having, he said, spoken with 'The Minister'. The answer was a brick wall; 'no, sorrry'. I was on my own.
Well, not altogether and not for long. I spotted this rather lovely young lady walking along the harbourside road with her two little boys, holding one with each of her hands. I recognised her as the divorcee barmaid in a local pub, The Jolly Roger. Her name was Delia Perry. One day she would be Delia Islip.
February 25, 2015
Lift off: new frontiers
1971: Sweetheart had lift off. After that initial Lyons Maid order came another from Walls Ice Cream and yet another from Ross Foods. The old saying - you wait ages for a bus to come along then three arrive one behind the other. Then we got our first order for many millions of printed yogurt cups from Unigate in Frome (or was it Devizes?). Printing on curved surfaces; another new technology so more specialised, highly skilled incomers. Of course as our range increased the company's orders for costly product tooling were flowing across to the States faster than UK customer orders were coming in. In other words money out more than money in. No problem; we would soon enough be reversing that trend, or so I had to constantly reassure the Board. By that time I had been promoted from sales manager to sales director. I still have the letter from Chairman Sir Julian Salmon.
The major part of our monthly Board meetings consisted of my report on our sales and our prospects in the markets. I had spent ten thousand pounds on our first exhibition. A lot of money then, but it had succeeded in putting the company fair and square in front of all the major dairies, most of whom I then invited to come see our new operation in Gosport. In addition my 'lieutenants' Ted and Alex were beavering about, making themselves and Sweetheart known to the buyers and our competition - who were spending overmuch time and energy talking down this brash newcomer called Sweetheart. Much entertaining in between all the serious stuff. In those days relationships and the build-up of trust between industrial sellers and buyers were absolutely key. These days I am told that buying and selling is more about bids and offers on-line. How very dull. Is that, I wonder, a nett gain to anybody?
The girls were doing well at their schools, especially sixteen year old Karen who had been quick to make her mark at Bay House and had many friends amongst the boys and girls youth of Lee-on-Solent and Gosport. She was quite irritated when she heard they referred to her as 'the princess'. Julie was also popular, a bubbly and beautiful little girl, like her sister with a love of animals but especially the horses or ponies which she learned to ride at nearby Charque Farm. One Saturday our whole family went to watch her in her first gymkhana. She really looked the picture as she rode up to that first jump, then the horse stopped and our little lady didn't! Tearfully unhurt but mortified.Yes, pride does come before a fall!
The boys at their new schools were a different kettle of fish. Literally. Perhaps they had inherited too much of my love of fishing and my old disdain for conventional education, I don't know. Joan and I knew they were both bright enough, it was just that they seemed to prefer adventure (sometimes misadventure) to competitive school work. Robert especially was a worry. The other day I read through some of the eleven.year old's school reports. Dark shadows were already evident. Fishing dominated the lives of my sons - and my own life outside of my career.
Living close by the sea and Lee's yacht club slipway it wasn't long before I gave in to the boys entreaties and bought an old boat from which to fish the Solent. 'Culash' we named her, which is phonetic gaelic for 'little fly'. Culash was no ordinary boat. She was really out of time and out of place; a very traditional seventeen foot larch on oak clinker built double-ender. I had one of the engineers at work make me a trailer which we promptly hitched to the back of my company Zodiac and journeyed seven hundred miles north for a holiday in Applecross. Our first taste of the Highlands of Scotland, and what a taste. When we arrived at the foot of Belach na Ba (the pass of the cattle) even daredevil Stuart wanted to get out and walk up. No way. But how I got that car and boat assembly around those then unguarded one in four S-bends, sheer drop-off to our left, I shall never know. These days I service a couple of customers in Applecross, going up that pass in so doing. I never fail to think back to that first ascent. One of my fifty six landscapes features Applecross bay, and the card carries this verse. Each of my paintings have an associated verse, hence 'Pictures and Poems' as a trade name.
a'Chromraich (Applecross)
Breathtaking, truly,
when you climb the twisting heights
of Belach na Ba (Pass of the Cattle)
first see the drop down into Applecross
look over the sea to Raasay, Skye
and think of Saint Maelrubha,
Irish monk, coming here by oar and sail
thirteen hundred turning years ago
with holy messages for Pict and Gael
'a'Chromraich' the Gaels called this place
'The Sanctuary' to me and you
and that is what it is, Applecross,
this lovely shelter from the storm,
from life's hard race
a race from where to where who knows?
who knows of where went
St Maelrubha's saving grace?
The major part of our monthly Board meetings consisted of my report on our sales and our prospects in the markets. I had spent ten thousand pounds on our first exhibition. A lot of money then, but it had succeeded in putting the company fair and square in front of all the major dairies, most of whom I then invited to come see our new operation in Gosport. In addition my 'lieutenants' Ted and Alex were beavering about, making themselves and Sweetheart known to the buyers and our competition - who were spending overmuch time and energy talking down this brash newcomer called Sweetheart. Much entertaining in between all the serious stuff. In those days relationships and the build-up of trust between industrial sellers and buyers were absolutely key. These days I am told that buying and selling is more about bids and offers on-line. How very dull. Is that, I wonder, a nett gain to anybody?
The girls were doing well at their schools, especially sixteen year old Karen who had been quick to make her mark at Bay House and had many friends amongst the boys and girls youth of Lee-on-Solent and Gosport. She was quite irritated when she heard they referred to her as 'the princess'. Julie was also popular, a bubbly and beautiful little girl, like her sister with a love of animals but especially the horses or ponies which she learned to ride at nearby Charque Farm. One Saturday our whole family went to watch her in her first gymkhana. She really looked the picture as she rode up to that first jump, then the horse stopped and our little lady didn't! Tearfully unhurt but mortified.Yes, pride does come before a fall!
The boys at their new schools were a different kettle of fish. Literally. Perhaps they had inherited too much of my love of fishing and my old disdain for conventional education, I don't know. Joan and I knew they were both bright enough, it was just that they seemed to prefer adventure (sometimes misadventure) to competitive school work. Robert especially was a worry. The other day I read through some of the eleven.year old's school reports. Dark shadows were already evident. Fishing dominated the lives of my sons - and my own life outside of my career.
Living close by the sea and Lee's yacht club slipway it wasn't long before I gave in to the boys entreaties and bought an old boat from which to fish the Solent. 'Culash' we named her, which is phonetic gaelic for 'little fly'. Culash was no ordinary boat. She was really out of time and out of place; a very traditional seventeen foot larch on oak clinker built double-ender. I had one of the engineers at work make me a trailer which we promptly hitched to the back of my company Zodiac and journeyed seven hundred miles north for a holiday in Applecross. Our first taste of the Highlands of Scotland, and what a taste. When we arrived at the foot of Belach na Ba (the pass of the cattle) even daredevil Stuart wanted to get out and walk up. No way. But how I got that car and boat assembly around those then unguarded one in four S-bends, sheer drop-off to our left, I shall never know. These days I service a couple of customers in Applecross, going up that pass in so doing. I never fail to think back to that first ascent. One of my fifty six landscapes features Applecross bay, and the card carries this verse. Each of my paintings have an associated verse, hence 'Pictures and Poems' as a trade name.
a'Chromraich (Applecross)
Breathtaking, truly,
when you climb the twisting heights
of Belach na Ba (Pass of the Cattle)
first see the drop down into Applecross
look over the sea to Raasay, Skye
and think of Saint Maelrubha,
Irish monk, coming here by oar and sail
thirteen hundred turning years ago
with holy messages for Pict and Gael
'a'Chromraich' the Gaels called this place
'The Sanctuary' to me and you
and that is what it is, Applecross,
this lovely shelter from the storm,
from life's hard race
a race from where to where who knows?
who knows of where went
St Maelrubha's saving grace?
February 23, 2015
Climbing the foothills.
Our house in Formby had sold as quickly as the Lee-on Solent house had been purchased with the aide of the Bristol & West Building Society, but unfortunately the lawyers hadn't kept up. When I moved my family - including our Burmese cat - south from Lancashire to Hampshire we had to take up temporary residence in the Bellevue Hotel while awaiting completion. After a few days of this and with the imminent arrival of our furniture van I borrowed the keys to 45 Raynes Road from the estate agent and without further ado we all moved in. Word quickly spread back to the seller, the solicitor and the agent; much consternation all around! However, possession really proved to be nine tenths of the law. It's amazing how our nation's legal machinery can grind into fast forward when it sees no reasonable option!
So, within three weeks of first seeing Raynes Road we were fully ensconced in our new home and all the children had 'signed up' at their new schools. Karen would then have been fifteen, Julie twelve, Robert nine and Stuart six years old. Joan was talking about getting some sort of part time job. As with many women who've been a number of years out of circulation bringing up their families, and even though she was an extremely capable woman she was nervous about the prospect. However what she lacked in confidence she made up for in good old Yorkshire grit. It wouldn't be long before she was doing the rounds of housing estates selling freezer meals on commission. How was I feeling about that? Not very good, I'm afraid. Not entirely supportive. I saw no need for her to work other than at the arduous task of running our household and the lives of all who lived in it. Also we had decided that our new abode should be seriously upgraded. As I was away for much of the time I thought the work would need close supervision. Upgraded? For a start we wanted an open fireplace and that entailed running a chimney flue up from the living room right through the middle of our chalet bungalow then chimneyed out through the roof. Then there was the little matter of the derelict swimming pool at the bottom of the garden. And so on ... As I've indicated I had to give way on the issue of Joan's employment but circumstances would soon enough cruelly conspire to scupper her ambitions.
Meanwhile we were moving into our new offices at 26 High Street, Fareham. Mine was the second best / biggest office after Alan's, the managing direcor's, on account of I would be the one entertaining our visiting customers. That wasn't bad, considering we hadn't yet acquired any! Nevertheless I interviewed and hired a secretary, Irene Smith, and began the task of planning our first trade exhibition at London's Alexander Palace; also, finding and recruiting a pair of salesmen, one for the north of the UK and the other for the south. Enter Alex Matthewson and Ted Pool, respectively. Both were a few years my junior and both would be with me and Sweetheart International for the next seventeen years. They were top class industrial salesmen (and company men). They were also my friends and I still correspond on occasion with Alex and with Ted's widow, Jane. Straight away I sent them to follow in my footsteps at Sweetheart U.S.'s Baltimore College of Product Knowledge. After a while I phoned the boss there to ask how they were doing. There was a pause then, not without humour I trust; Hey Bryan, is this your idea of revenge for our GI invasion? Lively lads they certainly were.
I had begun making field sales contacts, some of whom I knew from my past at Lily Cups and some who'd never heard of me or this weird sounding new Sweetheart Plastics potential supplier of packaging. That's when I and my colleagues suffered our first major shock. It transpired that Henry Shapiro, before investing his money with Sir Julian, had met in the States with the UK's Walls Ice Cream head buyer, Vic Jones. He (Henry) had assured me that an order for millions of our initial product - the fluted mousse cup - was just awaiting my first visit to their immense Gloucester ice cream factory. When I arrived, unfortunately I was informed to the contrary. There was no such order for us!
(*********** To try to explain the commercial situation I've just written and and have now eliminated a complete summary of the history of Sweetheart and the world's cups and containers industries. It is marginally relevant and a truly fascinating story but one for another time and probably another voice.)
So, at our first Board meeting I was confronted with having to tell Henry Shapiro and the rest that, if their venture had been based on a great big Walls Ice Cream order, forget it. Vic Jones has told me there had been no such agreement, verbal or otherwise. Some misunderstanding! We had a factory and an office, skeleton staffing, heavy machinery on its way over the Atlantic complete with said mousse cup tooling, and no orders. To their eternal credit neither Henry nor Sir Julian walked away, switching off the lights and closing the door behind them. These multi-millionaire businessman, both of them now long departed, were made of sterner stuff. After something of a pregnant silence, Henry said, OK, so so how you going to tackle it? I made one of the best presentations of my life, including a complete digest of the UK dairy and ice cream industries and the parts of its weak underbelly that I thought we could profitably exploit.
Henry always hosted dinner for the management and Board at one of the better local restaurants when he came to the UK, then south out of his home from home at London's Connaught Hotel. That first occasion the food was deemed excellent. Expensive wine flowed freely as he told us about his father Joe Shapiro, a Russian Jew emigre arriving in the States during the 1930's, penniless and without a word of English either spoken or written. He obtained a job making ice wafer cream cones by cooking the mix on flatplates before rolling them by hand. For years he saved every penny whilst designing a machine to do the job much faster and with no hand blisters! Rather than sell his invention he rented a tiny factory and the rest, as they say, is (typically American) history. After he'd finished Henry looked around the table. You guys have it easy, he said. It's all out there for us. Go get it. He also said something else that I can never forget. It may well be the fundamental secret of American business success over the rest of the world. Remember this, he told us; everything inside this company's office and factory creates nothing but costs. It's your job to manage those costs, but all profit comes from outside; from the customers paying our invoices.
Two months after switching on that first extrusion - thermoforming line we had forty - yes, forty million unsold 4 ounce fluted mousse containers FM100 stacked up in a specially leased warehouse. For me that was a time of nightmares as that damned great machine churned out the buggers at the rate of half to one million a 24 hour day. And then at last we secured our first sale - to Lyons Maid in Liverpool.
We were finally up and, if not exactly running, at least staggering forward.
So, within three weeks of first seeing Raynes Road we were fully ensconced in our new home and all the children had 'signed up' at their new schools. Karen would then have been fifteen, Julie twelve, Robert nine and Stuart six years old. Joan was talking about getting some sort of part time job. As with many women who've been a number of years out of circulation bringing up their families, and even though she was an extremely capable woman she was nervous about the prospect. However what she lacked in confidence she made up for in good old Yorkshire grit. It wouldn't be long before she was doing the rounds of housing estates selling freezer meals on commission. How was I feeling about that? Not very good, I'm afraid. Not entirely supportive. I saw no need for her to work other than at the arduous task of running our household and the lives of all who lived in it. Also we had decided that our new abode should be seriously upgraded. As I was away for much of the time I thought the work would need close supervision. Upgraded? For a start we wanted an open fireplace and that entailed running a chimney flue up from the living room right through the middle of our chalet bungalow then chimneyed out through the roof. Then there was the little matter of the derelict swimming pool at the bottom of the garden. And so on ... As I've indicated I had to give way on the issue of Joan's employment but circumstances would soon enough cruelly conspire to scupper her ambitions.
Meanwhile we were moving into our new offices at 26 High Street, Fareham. Mine was the second best / biggest office after Alan's, the managing direcor's, on account of I would be the one entertaining our visiting customers. That wasn't bad, considering we hadn't yet acquired any! Nevertheless I interviewed and hired a secretary, Irene Smith, and began the task of planning our first trade exhibition at London's Alexander Palace; also, finding and recruiting a pair of salesmen, one for the north of the UK and the other for the south. Enter Alex Matthewson and Ted Pool, respectively. Both were a few years my junior and both would be with me and Sweetheart International for the next seventeen years. They were top class industrial salesmen (and company men). They were also my friends and I still correspond on occasion with Alex and with Ted's widow, Jane. Straight away I sent them to follow in my footsteps at Sweetheart U.S.'s Baltimore College of Product Knowledge. After a while I phoned the boss there to ask how they were doing. There was a pause then, not without humour I trust; Hey Bryan, is this your idea of revenge for our GI invasion? Lively lads they certainly were.
I had begun making field sales contacts, some of whom I knew from my past at Lily Cups and some who'd never heard of me or this weird sounding new Sweetheart Plastics potential supplier of packaging. That's when I and my colleagues suffered our first major shock. It transpired that Henry Shapiro, before investing his money with Sir Julian, had met in the States with the UK's Walls Ice Cream head buyer, Vic Jones. He (Henry) had assured me that an order for millions of our initial product - the fluted mousse cup - was just awaiting my first visit to their immense Gloucester ice cream factory. When I arrived, unfortunately I was informed to the contrary. There was no such order for us!
(*********** To try to explain the commercial situation I've just written and and have now eliminated a complete summary of the history of Sweetheart and the world's cups and containers industries. It is marginally relevant and a truly fascinating story but one for another time and probably another voice.)
So, at our first Board meeting I was confronted with having to tell Henry Shapiro and the rest that, if their venture had been based on a great big Walls Ice Cream order, forget it. Vic Jones has told me there had been no such agreement, verbal or otherwise. Some misunderstanding! We had a factory and an office, skeleton staffing, heavy machinery on its way over the Atlantic complete with said mousse cup tooling, and no orders. To their eternal credit neither Henry nor Sir Julian walked away, switching off the lights and closing the door behind them. These multi-millionaire businessman, both of them now long departed, were made of sterner stuff. After something of a pregnant silence, Henry said, OK, so so how you going to tackle it? I made one of the best presentations of my life, including a complete digest of the UK dairy and ice cream industries and the parts of its weak underbelly that I thought we could profitably exploit.
Henry always hosted dinner for the management and Board at one of the better local restaurants when he came to the UK, then south out of his home from home at London's Connaught Hotel. That first occasion the food was deemed excellent. Expensive wine flowed freely as he told us about his father Joe Shapiro, a Russian Jew emigre arriving in the States during the 1930's, penniless and without a word of English either spoken or written. He obtained a job making ice wafer cream cones by cooking the mix on flatplates before rolling them by hand. For years he saved every penny whilst designing a machine to do the job much faster and with no hand blisters! Rather than sell his invention he rented a tiny factory and the rest, as they say, is (typically American) history. After he'd finished Henry looked around the table. You guys have it easy, he said. It's all out there for us. Go get it. He also said something else that I can never forget. It may well be the fundamental secret of American business success over the rest of the world. Remember this, he told us; everything inside this company's office and factory creates nothing but costs. It's your job to manage those costs, but all profit comes from outside; from the customers paying our invoices.
Two months after switching on that first extrusion - thermoforming line we had forty - yes, forty million unsold 4 ounce fluted mousse containers FM100 stacked up in a specially leased warehouse. For me that was a time of nightmares as that damned great machine churned out the buggers at the rate of half to one million a 24 hour day. And then at last we secured our first sale - to Lyons Maid in Liverpool.
We were finally up and, if not exactly running, at least staggering forward.
