Special Editorial Note:
I take up this life-story in June 2002, after a break of some five
years - weblogging has now become part of my life, and know that the
disciplines of this new literary genre are to be honoured - let me
bring you up to date...
1969 - 1974
Baptism in Business
My decision was to leave the Bar, and "go into business". I had only a
hazy idea of what that meant, but I knew that in the society I observed about
me, the institutions of the corporate sector were dominant. I could
not look to my friends for help, because they were all in the legal world, and
would never have understood my motives. I scoured the appointments-columns
for possible cross-over points between the two worlds.
But there seemed to be none. "Company
lawyers" were clearly assigned to the lower ranks of corporations, and paid
accordingly. My earnings-prospects at the Bar were dramatically
better than those on offer in the Press. Most positions were geared to the
skills of solicitors, although by that time it was becoming more common for
barristers to operate as legal advisers as well. But one thing was clear:
they were all in lower-status positions, and poorly paid. It was the
accountancy profession that ruled the roost, when it came to providing
professional support services for the corporate sector.
Gradually, it dawned on me that the better
vacancies lay in general management. Managing Directors were
highly-paid, and seemed to have much more interesting, open-ended jobs. So
I started to present myself as a General Manager, and apply only for general
management positions. I almost ended up as the General Manager of a "new
town" being promoted by the Commonwealth Development Corporation, just outside
Bangkok..
Then, one day on the way into the Temple, I saw
an FT advertisement which said simply -
WANTED: TRAINEE MANAGING DIRECTORS
It was from Bovis. The search was for Managing
Directors of regional housebuilding companies, within the Bovis Housing
Division. Under the influence of Frank Sanderson, a gifted and ambitious
estate agent from Sidcup, Bovis was awakening from its slumbers as a
strait-laced construction company working for Marks and Spencer. Frank
Sanderson, having subjected me to a gruelling series of three interviews, took
me on.
The old boy net helped, I must confess.
Frank Sanderson could not initially believe that I wanted to
exchange the Bar for the building-site, and doubted my motives. My friend
and fellow Barrister Anthony Lester came to the rescue: he gave me a reference
to Neville Vincent, the great radical who was a Director of Bovis and a member
of one of its two owning familes (which were the Vincents and the Josephs -
Yes, Sir Keith Joseph, of later Thatcherite fame). Neville had been a
founding member of Justice, with Peter Benenson, and was a great
liberal spirit. One of Neville's hidden generosities was the stipend he
regularly paid to Winnie Mandela, during all the years of Nelson Mandela's
imprisonment. Once I had met personally with Neville, and he had
understood the strange provenance of my Job Application, I was given the job
with Bovis.
I joined Bovis in Spring 1969, just as Frank
Sanderson was preparing to move from his beloved Housing Division to the Chief
Executive's role within the company. We were both based at Audley House,
near Victoria Station, and it was from there that I travelled Southern England,
in my voyage of discovery through the housebuilding industry.
I loved it.
Housebuilding is the ultimate challenge - the commercial challenge is so wide
and deep, site-finding, site-purchase, deciding what to build, getting planning
consent, getting the houses built and selling them - there are few businesses
which challenge the intellect and intelligence on such a grand scale.
My friends simply did not understand my move.
It was seen by my barrister friends as a maverick betrayal of them and their way
of life. Indeed, few of those friendships survived, because of the
implicit slight of my change of direction. On the political front,
I continued with my active pursuit of Party preferment in Hackney, even though
other Party members were bewildered by my changing hats - from one middle-class
occupation to another.
I had failed to secure election in 1968, when I
stood in the Dalston Ward for Hackney Borough Council in the infamous Rivers
of Blood election, following Enoch Powell's River Tiber speech. I was
made a member of the controlling Labour Group, representing the Hackney Central
CLP, and got to know the ways of the Labour leadership. Astoundingly, we
were in Opposition: in 1968, having always dominated the 60 Hackney Council
seats, Labour was beaten into an ignominious minority of 29 - that was the
effect of the racist backlash, in Hackney. They were ugly times.
Tory Central Office had to draft in a experienced Tory operator to act as Leader
of the Council - the name escapes me, but he had virtually no supporting talent
among the motley crew unexpectedly elected for the Tories and Liberals.
It was not until 1971 that I was elected to the
Council, representing the Victoria Ward, in which I lived. I served on the
Housing Management Committee and the Amenities Committee, both minor positions
as I worked my way up the Party hierarchy. It was on the Housing
Management Committee (I remember avoiding the separate Housing Development
Committee, just avoid the accusations of conflict-of-interest which I would
surely otherwise have had, as a residential developer by trade.
And it was in 1971, on 9 March, that Katharine
was born - in the London Hospital in Whitechapel Road, within the sound of Bow
Bells. I was 36, and Elizabeth 34 - old parents, at least for those
days. To this day, Katharine (whose names are Katharine Sian) likes to
think of herself as a Welsh Cockney.
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