This book attempts to capture the changing world I have experienced throughout my life from my first schooling at the age three in Abadan, Persia and up to the current time. I really wanted to capture for my grandchildren what life was like for me growing up and living in a fastchanging world.
But as I began to collect my stories and experiences, I realised that the book was not just about me. In fact, it was really about all the people in my life who had made a positive difference to me. I call them the ripple generators. We all have them. This book is as much about them as it is about me.
The Ripple Effect
The Ripple Effect
John Richardson
John Richardson
The Ripple Effect
Written and published in the UK by John Richardson
All rights to the content of the book belong to the publisher and cannot be reproduced or copied without permission of John Richardson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the written consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Photos from John Richardson archives, friends and family.
Formatted, printed and bound by www.beamreachuk.co.uk.
The Ripple Effect
John Richardson
To Mum
The biggest ripple generator I ever met With Much Love, John
Introduction
Reflection is a luxury that few of us have in our busy lives. Reflection gives us the opportunity to collect insights to the wonder of it all.
We remember the highlights and are grateful. We are thankful to those who have spent time with us and have made a difference. We remember the low times and reflect on our mistakes and the pain it caused to others and ourselves. Sometimes, however briefly, we falsely assume that things are all bad and we don’t see the good things either in the past or more importantly the opportunities yet to come.
As we go forward, we should do so with optimism and hope. Imagine a large lake – it could be a sea, an ocean. We all have the power and ability to throw a large – or small pebble – into that lake. On big stretches of water, we can never know where the ripples we start will finally land. Sometimes the ripples are reflected by far distant objects or people. Sometimes the ripples will be amplified – sometimes not. But those ripples will reach somewhere and have an impact. Good ripples will generate a good impact in some way, of that, I’m sure.
My story is about those people who I know who have created ripples for me and have had a positive impact on my life. Writing this all down is my way of paying respect to those people. It encourages me to try and create my own ripples for others.
But there is another underlying driving force to this book. The catalyst was the birth of my grandson Frank in 2014. On Father’s Day 2014 when he was just some six weeks old, I was presented with a present “from Frank” - a blank book with lots of questions about me and my life. I particularly wanted to capture how much the world has changed since I was born. And of course, it still is changing. I’d been talking about writing it all down for some time but it took Frank’s present and my son Matthew and his wife Claire’s initiative to prompt me into action.
It took me six more years to really get going.
Even at the age of 80 I’m continually amazed by it all. I’m so grateful and thankful for all the ripples and good fortune that have lapped over me and continue to do so.
I’m so uplifted by it all.
I hope you find this book both historically interesting and perhaps uplifting too.
I hope I am continually aware of both the ripples that continue to lap at my feet as well as recognizing the endless changes that encompass our daily life. Some may argue that not all change is good. Perhaps. We do live in unsettled times. But by reflecting on our ripples, and on the changes we have seen or experienced, we can refocus on how it is never too late for us to throw pebbles in the ocean of life and create our own ripples for others.
John Richardson 16 July 2024
1 Roots
Whenever famous film stars collect their Oscar, they always proudly say in their acceptance speech, “I really want to thank Mum and Dad” at which point we all groan. But in reality, that’s where we all start our life journey - with Mum and Dad.
This brings immediately into focus the eternal debate about the impact of nature versus nurture. What makes us the people we are today? I continually reflect on that and I don’t think there is any magic answer. Perhaps you will be able to ponder on this question as you read this book - which of my actions in life have been influenced by nature and which nurture? And now I often think about the nature and nurture debate on my children’s lives and on their children’s lives.
My Mum and Dad, Chris and Tom, were products of Poplar, situated in the heart of the East End of London. At Christmastime, Poplar was the focus for the family though I never actually lived there.
My mother, Christina Grace Scarlett, was born in April 1918. Bright but typical of the age, no one thought that she would benefit from an education. Absolutely scandalous by today’s standards.
At the age of 13 or 14 it was noted that one of her eyes was identified as ‘lazy’. Instead of giving the usual treatment of covering over the strong eye to enable the lazy eye to get stronger, nothing was done at all. In her eighties she confessed to me that she was worried about her eyes and
in particular if the problem was with her ‘good’ eye. I looked at her in disbelief. I was shocked. This was the first I’d heard of this. She was diagnosed with dry macular degeneration in her one good eye and by the time she died she was virtually blind. She had kept that to herself all those years. That summed up my wonderful Mum.
My dad, Thomas Richardson, was born in October 1915. I had always thought his full name was Thomas Arthur Richardson. But his birth certificate did not include ‘Arthur’. At some stage Dad decided he liked my official middle name of ‘Arthur’ and so simply hijacked it! It became part of his normal signature and all his formal documentation. I only discovered this after it was too late to ask him about it.
He was a strange man. Really quite shy and lacking in confidence. He would often cross the road to avoid talking to people he already knew. Yet quite Victorian in his outlook and expected to be the ’master of the ‘house’. Sometimes he would surprise me by his outspokenness. Later, in his work life, he became the Union Shop Steward but often got into trouble with his members as he would always take a balanced view on any issues rather than the traditional expected position that management were to be opposed at all costs. He was very good with numbers and I believe very intelligent. He was excellent at Bridge. I wish I had known him more.
As I reflect on my genetic history, the nature bit is clearly there. The good bits of which I’m extremely proud and all the other bits of which I can only see too well. I think the nurture influence is clearly visible too - again on both the good and not so good side.
However back to the story…
Dad and Mum were born during and at the end of World War One. Clearly, they had no experiences of that horror. But the consequences of that awful time must have been an influence through their parents and growing up in the East End of London as teenagers during the 1930s.
On reflection, how I wish I had asked them more about it when I could. Maybe that is what drives me to capture what I can about my early life while I still can.
They were married in April 1940, just at the beginning of the Second World War. Given their experiences of growing up post WW1, one can only imagine what they thought about starting married life in an uncertain and threatening time. But perhaps like many other young couples, they just had no idea what the future would bring and so just got on with life. What pressures! A young couple growing up in Poplar, close to the London Docks in the Blitz. It must have been so overwhelming, powerful and frightening. Yet they never talked about it. As my parents got older, I wanted to find out a bit more about it all. What sketchy details I extracted I share now but I wish I’d asked for more.
Mum and Dad had an unfurnished rented flat in Ellesmere Street close to Brabazon Street where Nanny Scarlett, my maternal grandmother, lived with her family. They had been there six months and Dad had just finished decorating the whole flat when the incendiary bomb dropped.
I think about it often. Young couples today (as they did then) get together and collect items for their new homes, ready and excited to live together. And then in an instant Mum and Dad lost everything except for a chiming clock and a piano!
But I guess they were no different to lots of other young couples. At least nobody was injured or killed. Mum and Dad just got on with life. As I grew up, they never appeared to show any resentment for it at all – not to me at least. After the bombing they were found a house in Saxlingham Road, Chingford. Dad was a metalwork fabricator and worked in a protected industry (W.B. Bawn) in Blackhorse Road Walthamstow, building tanks. He also was an air raid warden by night. But as the war was coming to an end life was still uncertain. On February 19th 1945 a German V2 rocket hit Bawn’s killing 17 outright and injuring 200 others.
33 Saxlingham Road, Chingford, was a two-up-two-down council house with no central heating, no built-in instant hot-water system and the whole house was heated by coal fires. But it did have electricity everywhere and an indoor bathroom with a flushing toilet.
My dad liked travelling and I inherited that from him. Whilst he was working in Walthamstow, so the story goes, he was approached in a pub, along with his brother, Dave – or Nobby as he was known then - and offered work in the Middle East to help build up the oil industry. It was late 1943 and I guess the authorities already saw that the war was looking won. My Dad and Dave accepted. So, in January 1944 he went off to Abadan, Persia, (now Iran) to help build up the oil industry working for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company as a contractor supervising local people on the construction sites. I never knew how he got there. By ship, presumably, travelling through the Mediterranean Sea. How scary that must have been!
So, my father went off to the Middle East and left my mother in Chingford some four months pregnant with me. I don’t know what kind of conversations they had. It’s impossible to imagine. My mother was as loyal as he was selfish. But who really knows? I think the money was good and it did provide many opportunities for them – and me - as it turned out. One of the amusing stories was when I was born in June 1944. Communications were not simple then and the telegram sent to Dad said that his wife had had a daughter. This was followed by another telegram which said his wife had had a son. So, he didn’t really know whether he had a son or daughter or twins! I was around 18 months old when my father first saw me. Travelling then was not something you could do easily, especially in war time. It must have been very hard for my mother.
Today we all can pick up our mobile or iPad and have instant visual conversation with anyone anywhere in the world. When we are worried or need help, or want to share great news, we simply can. We take that for granted. I do not wish to turn the clock back as there are many benefits to
modern communications. However, we need to be in control so that this and other technological advances don’t stop us being in touch with the basic nature of life with others.
It is clear to me now that my parents’ married life, to put it mildly, was far from perfect. As I grew up my father spent long periods away - 18 months to 2 years at a time. No nipping back from the Middle East for a long weekend! How my mother coped with it I really don’t know. It’s no wonder that when he came home, he was sadly like a stranger to me.
One incident I remember vividly. Even though dad was mostly away, he always expected to be treated first in the house. A typical proud Victorian man in many ways. Once, out of habit, my mother served me first at the dinner table. Dad exploded and forcibly asked why he hadn’t been served first. Mum replied, unusually sharply, “Well you’re never here to be served first”. I realized even then that a line had been crossed. I’m not sure either spoke for several days after that incident.
So, I never had a father figure really. I’m not sure that my father wanted a family. Even when he was home, he never wanted to be with me and to be honest I didn’t warm to him much either. But I do remember a time when I was 15 and he took me to see Tottenham Hotspur play Crewe in an FA Cup Replay. This was memorable for two reasons; he took me on the back of his motorbike (no helmets in those days!) and Crewe got beat 13-2!
There were some other good moments. In June 1953, Dad took his pregnant wife (with my sister Christine – born in October 1953 at home, Saxlingham Road) and me to see the Queen’s Coronation. At first we stood up and later slept throughout the night under a tarpaulin with a group of Canadians singing ‘Frere Jacques’ in The Mall. I was only nine. A great moment. And then some forty years later I found myself looking down on that very same spot but this time from inside The Royal Society building in Carlton House Terrace whilst attending an HR conference on Employment Law. Who’d have thought it?
So it is of no surprise for me to say that my mother had the biggest impact on my formative years. By the time I reached Sixth Form, it was clear I would benefit from further education. But, by this time, things were financially hard at home. Dad was out of work a lot and found it difficult to get overseas’ contracts. He was working more and more locally in his old metal workshops. My mother wanted me to go to college and university. Dad wanted me to just get a job to help boost the family income. She stood firm, “No, he has to go to College”. Which is what happened. As I dictate these words into my computer my heart pounds for what my Mum did for me.
I guess my father and I never really tried hard enough to bridge the gaps that had developed over the years. I do know, however, that when I did achieve my First-Class Honours Degree, he and Mum were extremely proud of me. Not that he would ever say that.
In my later years, Mum was always there for me. She always wanted me to do well. She never had any sort of selfish thoughts for herself. Her children always came first. She always wanted us to have the opportunities she never had.
As an example, after my apprenticeship, I had an opportunity to join a large well-known company in the North East of England. There was no question in my mother’s mind as to whether or not I should go if I thought it was a good job and a good opportunity. If it was, then I should go, and of course that’s what I did. Many years later I got transferred within that company to the United States for six months. This involved flying down from Newcastle to London Heathrow on the Friday night, ready to catch the morning flight to New York, and then on to Cincinnati. When I got to the check-in desk at London Heathrow that Saturday morning, I found my mother and sister (who had made the nearly two-hour trip each way from Chingford (for just 10 minutes) waiting just to say goodbye and good luck. Amazing!
But let us go back a generation and talk about my grandparents and the wider family.
As I’ve said, my roots are in Poplar. The thing I remember most was the smell. I think it was the smoke from the coal-fired chimneys which had seeped into the very fabric of the bricks. Gas lighting was everywhere but quite spread out. On foggy nights you could smell, see and feel the dampness everywhere.
May Harriet Scarlett (Nanny Scarlett, my maternal grandmother) was born in 1883, almost 140 years ago as I write) and was the ‘salt of the earth’. She and her family lived in a typical East-End terraced tenement in Brabazon Street, Poplar, typical of all inner-city working-class areas. They were terraced houses, with just a simple step directly into the house. As you entered the narrow house, there was a long passageway. On the left was the door into the front parlour, which one rarely went into except on special occasions. The main living area was further down the passage and further down still was the kitchen and a scullery beyond that. There was an outside toilet built into the house. Downstairs there were gas mantles for lighting and just candles for upstairs. Going upstairs to bed with a lit candle is something I can still remember vividly. It didn’t seem strange as that is what everyone had to do in Poplar in the 1950s. There was a backyard where my grandmother kept chickens. When Christmas came around, she would go and strangle one or two for the table!
One of my most shocking memories was going in to the scullery as a young boy and seeing my grandmother with her skirt pulled up and injecting herself forcibly with a syringe into her upper thigh. I just didn’t know that she had type 1 diabetes and that’s what she had to do every day.
Her children were Emma, Harry, Violet, Christina and George. My sister later discovered there were three other siblings who sadly died young.
My maternal grandad, Henry, died in 1941, when Mum was only 23 years old. He was never talked about very much that I can recall. I have only one photograph of him. But I do remember one comment Mum said“John, he was small but he did stand up for himself and you do the same”.
“Mum, I’m not sure I did that very much whilst growing up, being honest, but perhaps I did later on.”
I think my mother and her brothers and sisters were close but us cousins were not close at all. I grew up with the whole Scarlett family getting together at Nanny Scarlett’s for Christmas Day. Once Nanny Scarlett died, we had no natural geographic focus and the family didn’t meet so often. However, I do keep the Christmas card tradition with most of my cousins.
But the amusing family stories are there. One Sunday afternoon, Emma had fallen asleep in the chair and Harry and Bert (Emma’s husband-to-be) used fire ash to dirty her face while she was asleep. One can imagine the words Emma used when she awoke!
Like most EastEnders, their annual holiday was to go down to Kent and pick hops. That was when a lot of courting started – Mum and Dad included I believe. They clearly all enjoyed this. I have many photographs to prove it!
One bizarre recollection I have of Brabazon Street was when Nanny Scarlett died. I was almost fourteen. As was the custom, she was in her coffin, laid out in the front parlour for people to come and pay their respects. I remember Mum asking if I wanted to see her – “No” I said. She said this was ok. That night as I slept on a Put-u-Up bed in the main living room with my Mum and sister. I heard this voice calling out my grandmother’s name and I saw a lit stairway in the darkness. I woke up Mum who said “Go to sleep, you’re dreaming”. Perhaps, but I can still recall it vividly now.
My paternal grandmother (Nanny Rich) was born in 1886, in Sheffield, and also lived in Poplar, half-a-mile from Brabazon Street. She had three surviving children (Dave, Ethel and Tom - my father) though this was only three out of thirteen actual births. Ethel and her family - husband George and son Raymond - all lived with Nanny Rich.
I wasn’t as close to this side of the family as The Scarletts. This was not surprising, because of the long absences of my father. But this was also true of my Uncle Nobby (Dave) who also worked abroad regularly. However, he was more successful with the company and continued with his career in the overseas’ contracting industry and eventually joined the staff permanently.
Dad and his sister Ethel were very close. My mother would have it that Ethel had an unhealthy influence on Dad and I think she was right. Ethel was a very strong-willed lady and Dad took more notice of her than of his wife. When Mum and Dad had the opportunity to buy their own council house, Ethel advised against it. So, they didn’t. A few years later Ethel and husband George bought the rented house in which they had been living. Not surprisingly my mother was forever upset by this.
I guess my love of playing cards, and Bridge in particular, was born out of Mum and Dad and their regular games with Ethel and George.
Again, I’m in touch with my own cousins on this side of the family but I wouldn’t say we are very close, emotionally or geographically. We all finished up living up in different parts of the country so these gaps are inevitable.
Ethel was a very strong-willed lady and George was apparently quite meek but he always retained his sense of humour, and his love for Ethel. George was the only one of the family to see active service in the war in the Battle of El Alamein, in North Africa. The only injury he got was the loss of the top of one of his fingers. He told me that when he was due to return from leave, he would never go. I was shocked! “They know where I am and will come and get me when they want me!” he said. He was right. George was a nice man but Ethel apparently treated him badly, always playing him down.
Years later, Ethel and George moved to Thetford, Norfolk, to be close to their son Raymond and his growing family. But their roots were in Poplar
and they returned a few years later to live in a high-rise flat just at the North Entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel. They really were a close couple. On the morning of George’s funeral, Mum rang and told me that Ethel had also died that very morning. Perhaps she realised she couldn’t live without George.
One of the things Mum and Dad gave me, both together and separately, in different ways, was a unique outlook on and experience of life. Perhaps not deliberately, but they did. With Dad going to Persia in 1943, and then the three of us going together in 1947 to live abroad until 1951, it opened our eyes to other ways of living. Dad was well paid and worked hard and then they played hard. That’s where they learnt to play Bridge and where I used to go swimming in the open-air swimming pool at The Gymkhana Club. I remember watching ‘Easter Parade‘ in the outside cinema.
I attended a company nursery school while I was there and it was during this time my mother was told I should have an education. On reflection it was through such experiences – even though I was only seven when I returned to the UK – I came to realise that there was life outside Chingford. I guess it was playing with other children from different parts of England with different accents and being taught by people who didn’t have cockney accents that when I came back to the UK people thought I talked ‘posh’. I didn’t realise it of course, but I was told I sounded a little different to other people back in Chingford!
But as a result of the friendships Mum and Dad made, I began to visit all sorts of places within the UK which might not otherwise have happened. Places such as Whitley Bay, St Anne’s and Blackpool, and Manchesterplaces which later became quite close to me in so many different ways!
2
Early Years
The early 2000 TV drama ‘Call the Midwife’ was set in the London borough of Poplar. Whilst my roots were in Poplar, I knew that I had been born in Writtle, Essex. So, prompted by this connection, I decided to do my own version of ‘Who do you Think you Are?’
I contacted the Writtle local heritage website and discovered that I was most certainly born in Writtle Park House, Highwood, Essex. Writtle Park House is a Heritage Category Grade II Listed building and is part of the estate of Baron Petre Lord Lieutenant of Essex. Writtle Park House was built 1728.
My mother had been brought to Writtle and away from Chingford for her confinement. Young pregnant women like my mother from the East End would be brought to a safe place away from London to give birth. She would have been brought to Writtle village a week early and would live in the village up until the day she was due. Then she would have been brought up to the ‘Big House’ to give birth.
So that’s how I came to be born on June 10, 1944, just four days after D-Day in Writtle Park House, the home of Lord and Lady Petre.
It was one hot Sunday afternoon in 2012 when I was walking down a private country lane with my wife Elizabeth and my sister Christine, when suddenly Writtle Park was directly in front of us. Being unsure of myself,
I spoke to a woman working in the adjacent field gathering hay. I told her my story. She confirmed what I believe to have happened. “Why don’t you go and knock on the door and see if Lord and Lady Petre are in?” she said. I had seen a man about my age going in and out of the house through the backdoor. So nervously I went and knocked on the door and indeed Lord Petre very welcomingly invited me in and said “Yes, that’s what happened – my wife knows it all – I’ll get her and she’ll take you around.”
After a few minutes Lady Petre came down the big stairs and confirmed everything I had said. “I’ll take you into the room in which you were born” she said. This was utterly amazing.
Writtle Park is a large house, now largely in disrepair. Lord and Lady Petre were living in just a few rooms. Downstairs there was a large old kitchen, a simple lounge and a dining room. They obviously had functional bedrooms upstairs. The rest of the rooms were simply left covered in dust. One large room looked exactly like the big wedding reception room in Charles Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’. Everything was dust covered with cobwebs drifting across the highbacked chairs, the large table and across the windows and curtains. The only thing missing was a large tiered wedding cake and a disheveled Miss Havisham! Lady Petre did not seem at all bothered by any of this!
I remember my mother talking about a large fireplace and a first-floor balcony. As we climbed the stairs it all came into view. There was the large fireplace and there we were standing on the balcony itself. As we walked along the balcony, somewhat in shock by all this, Lady Petre indicated a door. “That’s the room where you were born,” she said. “The bed has been turned around but it is in the same position.”. They knew this was the room because this was the only room used by visiting pregnant ladies. What an experience! Lady Petre was very gracious and kindly allowed me to take as many photographs as I wanted, not only of the room but of the whole house. I was astonished by the whole experience and the time and courtesy they showed me.
I always thought I was born for greatness!
However, the first memories I have come from my Mum and Dad living in Abadan, Persia from 1947 through to 1951. I have recollections of excitedly looking out of the large window in a what I thought was a very modern aircraft. My Mum was not looking so relaxed! To get to Persia in those days, required two flying days and an overnight stop in each direction. On one trip, I remember being in a coach in Rome and seeing what I was told was ‘The Coliseum’. I have always loved travelling! Both nurture and nature? In addition to the outdoor swimming and watching ‘Easter Parade’ starring Judy Garland there was Alfie’s Book store. I still have a few books from there - somewhere.
I also still have a picture of me in a typical seven-year-old white sun outfit complete with Pith helmet and another photo of Mum and Dad in formal evening dress ready to go out for a social at The Gymkhana Club. A far cry from having been bombed out in 1940 in the East End of London! Whilst we lived in Persia, we had a House Boy - the concept of which my mother never felt comfortable with.
On reflection, living In Persia was the highlight of their life together and perhaps began to set me a little bit apart from all the other children who were being brought up in Chingford while I was away. For example, I never experienced rationing!
In 1951, Persia became Iran and all the British were forcibly removed by Mohammad Mosaddegh. So we were returned to the UK against our will and I joined the local Longshaw Primary School. (To be honest Mum and I would have had to come home anyway then as there was no Primary School education in Abadan). At Longshaw I did all the normal things like playing in the school football team and even made captain in my last year there. I don’t think I deserved this as a footballer but I did work hard and was considered a bit of a ‘swot’ and was generally top of the class.
My mother had been told by a teacher in Persia that they should consider me for a place in Chigwell Public School. And so, at the age of 10, I sat the entrance exam for Chigwell. The experience that followed had and still has a profound influence on my values about education and its availability for all. Remembering I was considered top of my school academically, I went along on that Saturday morning to sit for a Mathematics and English Paper. I found the Maths paper rather difficult as it included things I hadn’t yet covered in my primary school curriculum. But I was reasonably satisfied. The English Paper was something else. The duration of the exam was about an hour and the only thing I could do for that hour was to enter my name at the top of paper. The questions roamed from Shakespeare to novels I never had even heard of, let alone read and studied. I’d expected to write a short essay and perhaps to do some precis work, perhaps some grammar. But no, it was an English classical literature examination for a 10-year-old who could read but had not read any of the books listed and referred to. I was totally stunned and shocked. Not angry, but I looked back on that experience with determination that this would never again happen to me and should never happen to anyone else ever. Luckily, I think that experience didn’t lead to any bitterness or resentment but just reinforced my desire that all people should have a good education from which they can benefit to the best of their ability.
My form teacher in the last year of Longshaw was a great man who went by the name of ‘Jumbo’ Chamberlain, because he had very large ears - and I mean VERY large ears. But his teaching went beyond the classroom - like all good teachers do. I remember him taking the eight prefects (four boys and four girls) up to see a concert at The Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank in London one Saturday morning. This was my first experience of going to a concert. I’ve no idea who paid for this; I think he just took us. The whole experience of going to a concert, and being treated as eight young adults, was just wonderful. In 1953, when Everest was conquered, he bought a small illustrated volume written by Sir John Hunt, called ‘The Ascent of Everest for Younger Readers’. He gave a copy to every one of the prefects and of course I still have my copy, which I treasure, complete with his personal handwritten message.
He was one of the first people I remember making a difference to me, creating ripples which washed over me and gave me the opportunity to see and experience things differently, and feel appreciated and noticed.
One of those other prefects was Gillian Cavanagh. Her grandparents had lived next door to my grandmother, Nanny Scarlett, in Poplar. Many years later I found out that on the other side of Nanny Scarlett’s terraced house in Brabazon Street was a certain Redknapp family. They had a young boy called Harry who was keen on football – I wonder whatever happened to him?
I struggled to pass my 11 Plus and only got through following an interview with the headmaster. Mum mentioned we had lived abroad and it must have impressed the headmaster and so I scraped into the McEntee Technical School in Walthamstow. I could have gone to the Sir George Monoux Grammar School but I chose the McEntee. That choice was made, based on very little information, just on a lot of assumptions and historic biases. Was it the right choice? Who knows?
My best friend at Longshaw Primary School was Roy Watson and that friendship continued until we both left McEntee Technical School some years later. He later became my Best Man in 1966. Roy’s father came from Blackpool and his mother from Stretford, a suburb of Manchester.
Roy’s favourite football team was Blackpool. As we lived in Chingford every two weeks, Roy’s Dad would take Roy and I to watch Tottenham Hotspur play at White Hart Lane. There was no mandatory seating then and for the big matches crowds would exceed 60,000. Getting in was fine (though we had to get there well ahead of kick off so we could get down to the front or behind a safety barrier and stand on our ‘special boxes’ to ensure we could see) but getting out was a major risk. Occasionally, I was left with my feet not touching the ground as the crowd swelled out. At one semi-final game, Roy’s grandfather was with us and he nearly passed out due to the crush. Easily it could have been much worse as history sadly came to tell us, in 1989, at Sheffield.
Whenever Blackpool came to the southeast of England we would go and watch their away games. To compete with Blackpool I clearly had to have my own special team, and I chose Manchester United’s ‘Busby Babes’. This was for no particular reason other than they were a very exciting young team. Through The Watsons, I had the privilege of watching players like Duncan Edwards show their prowess on the pitch. It was simply fantastic. And then on Feb 6th 1958, while I was doing my homework in the front room, Mum said to me, “John, you had better come and watch the news”. There was the now familiar picture of the broken Elizabethan aircraft, nose up, in the snow at Munich. I know how I felt living in Chingford. I still feel the emotion of that moment. How it must have been for those living around Old Trafford I just can’t imagine.
Little did I know, as I watched the TV that cold February evening in Chingford, how big a part Manchester was to become in my life. Life is full of surprises
Finally, in November 1971, I did make it to Old Trafford. In those days it cost just 50p to stand in the Stretford end, to watch a football match with Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best playing for United. Again, sheer magic.
It was Roy’s Mum and Dad who gave me my first young experience of going away on a package holiday in the late 1950s to Austria and to what was then called Yugoslavia. We took off from Blackbushe Airport in a small, converted DC 3 twin-engine plane (perhaps left over from the war) which was a far cry from today’s modern travel machines. I shall never forget their generosity and support during these formative years. On reflection, this was the time when Dad was working in the Middle East for long periods. I guess in today’s terms, Mum was a single mother. I really don’t know how she stuck at it. So, Roy’s dad – Ron - became my stand-in Dad – certainly where football was concerned. A lot of ripples came from him for sure.
Another great friend during my teenage school years was Barry Ross. We first met when we were in the same class in our third Year but then he went off into Art Stream whilst I switched into the Science Stream. But we stayed close friends. We were an odd-looking pair – he was tall and rather large, and I was small and rather puny. Barry was very knowledgeable about The West End and we often went to see special films such as ‘Cinerama’. One really special trip included missing school. I think Mum must have thought it part of my growing up as she did let me go. Barry took some time off school to queue up outside The Dominion Cinema, on Tottenham Court Road, for a couple of tickets to see Bill Hayley and his Comets live at their kick-off UK tour event. It was March 1957. Rock and Roll was very new, exciting and quite different!
Other people in my time at McEntee included schoolmates Mick Talbot and Vic Coleman. I’m still in touch with Mick who now lives in Canada and although we don’t see each other very often, and indeed at one stage there was a gap of at least 25 years between getting together, we still have those early bonds in place. Mick was Head Boy and really did a first-class job. I remember seeing him being threatened by two yobs from the Fifth Form. He just stood there and refused to retaliate. He stood firm and took their verbal abuse. I don’t think I could have done that – ever – in that kind of situation. Already, at the age of seventeen, he was a person of great character. Good friendships – not always appreciated at the time – can endure. Today I’m more in contact with Mick Talbot than ever, helping each other as we continue along life’s surprising journey.
Three particular teachers at The McEntee stood out for me:
Mr. Jack Sugarman was the Senior Physics Teacher; a great man who simply loved Physics and more importantly helping his pupils do well in their examinations. During my time in Sixth Form, I became a Physics Lab Technician along with Mick Talbot. We had the privileges of helping out in the lab and getting a small salary. Jack was a quietly-spoken man who loved teaching. Through the lab work, I got to know him as well as any student can get to know a teacher. Everybody had immense respect
for him both as a good teacher and as a ‘good man’ or ‘a great bloke’ as we would say amongst ourselves.
He simply wanted everybody to do well in Physics at whatever level – be it O Level or Scholarship level. Physics is full of facts, laws of science and lots of Mathematics, all of which simply have to be learnt, understood and applied. There is no easy option here, just dedicated, hard work.
Jack Sugarman had a simple revision technique, not easy but simple. His method was to get everyone to copy key bits of laws, formulae, conclusions etc. into a large book but for the writing to be as small as one could make it. Creating this summary helped the student identify and understand the key facts. Writing it down helped the student commit the information to memory. Writing it small the whole of an O Level could be reduced to ten or less pages – much less daunting than several big, thick textbooks. The format also helped the student to self-test at revision time.
I have used this technique, forever, since and still do, for example, in learning the latest ballroom cha-cha sequence.
As I’ve said, what really impressed me about Jack Sugarman was his love for teaching – not just for the bright ones – but for everyone, helping them to achieve the best they could, which was often higher than they themselves believed. Furthermore, he would not ask people to do something he wouldn’t do himself.
He created his own summary of his own lecture notes to show people what he meant. I remember one young lad saying, “he couldn’t be bothered”. Jack Sugarman responded, “why don’t you take my summary and just copy it for yourself?”. This the lad did and he of course achieved a higher grade in Physics than he ever imagined. No one failed to reach the required standard in Physics exams under legendary Jack Sugarman!
As I’ve said, he was a teacher who everyone just loved. He wasn’t just teaching Physics, was he?
Another inspiration at school was Mr. John Hall. He was a music teacher. What he did do was to set up a series of lunchtime concerts playing all types of classical music records from ‘The Planet Suite’ to ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’, ‘Fingal’s Cave’ to ‘The Enigma Variations’. However, he would not only just play the music but would also explain the history, the role of different parts of the orchestra and how the story was interpreted through the music. This all happened while we munched our way through our packed lunches in his warm music room instead of having to play outside in the cold and wet winter months. I don’t have a lot of musical knowledge, but I did get a deep insight into such music and an appreciation and enjoyment which has stayed with me to this day.
As it so happens on the day I first wrote these words some years ago I was to go and see the opera, ‘La bohème’. This is just another example of a different person making ripples of their own for me in other ways.
There was one other teacher at school who made a very profound difference to me, and my life, and still does. He never taught me for any academic subject except for handwriting when I was twelve.
However, such was his influence that he is worth a chapter on his own.
3
Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick, Slow
This chapter is dedicated to Bill Atkins. He was the building design teacher at The McEntee Technical School (formerly the South West Essex Technical School) and who also ran the School Dance Club for the senior students. The dance club was considered the elite extracurricular activity. I couldn’t play a musical instrument and certainly couldn’t sing, and those statements are still largely true today, unfortunately…
But I always had a good sense of rhythm. My Dad obtained all the latest Big Band music and vocalist hit songs of the late 1940s and these were always being played at The Gymkhana Club in Abadan. I too was always listening to them and so I knew all the songs and music from that era. After we returned in 1951, Dad bought a very large KGB stereo radiogram and my interest in modern music of that time continued to flourish.
Jump forward to 1959 and, at fifteen, The School Dance Club beckoned. Apart from being taught the basics of ballroom dancing, the dance club was an obvious place where you could meet members of the opposite sex. It was part of growing up and it was there I met Lyn, my first wife.
I only had Bill Atkins as an actual teacher in my very first year at the South West Essex Technical School. He took us for Handwriting lessons. He was a very strict teacher, very precise, very clear as to what he wanted and what he wouldn’t accept. He was always immaculately dressed and never naturally smiled. We all had to write with italic nibs in a particular style. Somehow, whilst you didn’t have any particular affection for him,
you felt you simply had to follow these instructions in order to avoid his direct and sharp criticism that would follow if you failed to meet his expectations. How little did I know at the time that this man would play such an important part in my life?
Bill Atkins and his wife, Phyllis, were great ballroom dancers. I admire to this day his dedication in bringing that love of dance to the school and providing the opportunity for teenage boys and girls to learn such important dance, social and behavioural skills and attitudes, from which they would benefit throughout their entire lives.
Being honest, I think I always was a reasonable dancer. I was flexible and as I’ve said I did have, and still have, a sense of rhythm and I just loved moving to music. And I still do.
The dance club met on Thursday afternoons after school for a couple of hours. Bill brought the same discipline to the dance club that he brought to everything he did. He was a stickler for precision when teaching handwriting, and was exactly the same when teaching ballroom dancing. He was both excellent in his teaching methods and very thorough. He would never be overambitious. He taught us the basics in all the ballroom dances. That was my dancing foundation and this is still with me to this very day.
I remember the very first lesson. It became clear that you needed dancing shoes. Of course, he was right. Since then, it has always been my recommendation to all who want to start dancing that you need to get the proper footwear. Incidentally, that is true for all activities and I have followed that principle religiously throughout all my varied activities. It has paid dividends not only in safety but most importantly in helping one become more proficient.
Bill was very strict as to how boys and girls should behave towards each other. It was clear that after a short while, boys and girls would form friendships and would become regular partners. Bill’s approach was not
Slow, Quick, Quick, Slow
to fight the obvious, but he was insistent that everybody who came to the class had an equal chance to learn. There was always a waiting list to join the class, so it was relatively easy to get a 50/50 mix of sexes. But if there was a spare lady sitting out, a gentleman would have to go and ask her politely to dance. And she would have to accept. At the end of the dance, the gent would escort the lady back to her seat and both would say “thank you”. These basic rules of dance etiquette were followed without exception. Anyone who did not follow these rules was quickly thrown out of club. Everybody knew it.
Anyone who came to the dance club would have to do all the dances. We would start with ballroom (quick step, the foxtrot and waltz) and then we would go on to country dancing and then Old Time Dancing, Scottish Dancing and, finally, Square Dancing. We never did any Latin American dancing (Cha Cha, Samba or Rumba). Maybe Bill didn’t like these dances? Nor did we do any rock and roll, or jive. Perhaps these weren’t in his repertoire, but it never seemed to be a problem. Perhaps these dances weren’t very popular then. However, we did manage to learn the Square Tango and The Party Samba as I remember it.
As you would expect, Bill had high standards and would always enter us into the local country dance festivals which we always won! In the early days, a particular team was selected to go and dance in The Royal Albert Hall at the English Folk Dance and Song Society annual event. It was my early days, so I didn’t make the team. I was bitterly disappointed. Consequently, I always wanted to get it right! But nevertheless, it was good to be part of the club and to be able to support our first team and to experience the wonder of The Royal Albert Hall.
Bill Atkins was also a member of The Westminster Morris Men, and he quickly formed a Morris side (six male dancers) and called them The South West Essex Morris Men (our former school’s name). We used to practice at lunch time in the Engineering drawing office – Bill’s domain! Again, this particular activity was seen as an elite pastime and people queued up to get in. I was fortunate to get picked in the second round and by this
time we had about twelve dancers. Morris Dancing is hard physically as well as great fun.
During the summer months, Bill would take us out to dance in the countryside of Essex around picturesque pubs which was both fun and lucrative (in collecting for our dancing expenses) and a chance for us young men to sample a small cider. A particular highlight was The Westminster Day of Dancing - an annual event in May when Morris Dancers (‘Sides’) from all over the UK would descend on the capital - much to the delight of tourists. The day would finish with all ‘sides’ dancing simultaneously in such landmark places such as Trafalgar Square or The Embankment. The evening would finish with a feast hosted by The Westminster Morris Men. Cider was very popular at the feast as I remember. I was probably only sixteen at the time.
In 1960, the South West Essex Morris men (without Bill that day – I can’t remember why) went up to Westminster on our own. It was a public holiday and it was the day of Prince Margaret’s wedding. At about 5pm we were slowly walking across Horse Guards Parade when an excited young man approached us. We explained who we were and he quickly told us, “If you get out in the middle and dance you will be on TV”. Those days there was only one channel, the BBC! It appears the BBC needed a fill-in as the royal celebrations were overrunning. So came our ten minutes of fame. We danced ’Jockey to the Fair‘ from the village of Brackley. Someone in Saxlingham Road was watching on a TV and came rushing to number 33 shouting, “Chrissie, Chrissie - quick John’s on the telly!” The whole event was so very special. After our dance, we retired to the stands and watched The Royal Procession to The Royal Yacht. The BBC commentator, sitting alongside us giving the commentary was none other than Brian Johnstone, the famous Cricket commentator. What a super day!
Bill was also keen to involve the girls from the dance club in something just for them. Rapper sword dancing originates from the fishing villages in Northumberland. It is danced with flexible steel blades with a handle at each end and the step is a very specific step dance move. Untraditionally,
Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick, Slow
Bill taught the Rapper to the girls who were brilliant and took a special spot when the dance club performed at the Royal Albert Hall.
In the summer of 1960, Bill and Phyllis organised a school dance trip to Germany. We would be staying in youth hostels as well as with families, and dancing in towns and villages around Limburg. We also had time for sightseeing which included a boat trip on The Rhine River and dancing in the castle at Heidelberg. Bill and Phyllis were very strict on how boys and girls behaved, and it was managed very well, allowing natural friendships to mature but with everybody recognising the limits.
Within a few years, Bill had moved to another school and we ‘men’ began to leave school. However, a group of us kept dancing outside of school and continued to meet and practice for quite a few years thereafter. We even danced at my wedding to Lyn in August 1966.
But history moves on and in 1967 I moved up to the North East. It was here that I joined The Newcastle Morris Men who had the same sort of dances but a different costume. It was with them I learnt the Rapper Sword dance. Sheer magic to dance, the full version is complete with back flips over supporting swords. But in 1971, I was on temporary assignment to Manchester and then subsequently on to Brussels. And that completed my Morris Dancing career.
Alongside all this, I had become a reasonable ballroom dancer but practice and progress was limited to company grand balls and family weddings.
Ballroom dancing continued with its steady decline. Even the long-running TV show ‘Come Dancing’, hosted by the wonderful Terry Wogan, could not be saved. It continued to be difficult to find places to both learn and practice. About this time, the new ‘rock’n’roll’ era was with us and Latin American was becoming more popular but again was something with which I was not familiar. So dancing went on the backburner but the skill and desire to dance had not gone away.
Then in 2004, someone in the BBC came up with the idea of reintroducing a new-style competitive Ballroom Dance show, with professional dancers paired with untrained celebrities. Hosted by Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly, ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ was born. As they say, “the rest is history”. Over these last twenty years I can honestly say I’ve not missed an episode and I must have heard the happy phrase, ‘Keep Dancing!’ hundreds of times.
As you continue with this book you will see how dancing returned to my life and changed my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Thanks Bill!
4 Learning to Fly
This chapter is not about any one man but the time I spent as an apprentice at the De Havilland Aircraft Company in Hatfield, Hertfordshire between 1962 -1967. A formative five years as I went from being a recently qualified schoolboy with A Level, to a young married man with a First-Class Honours’ degree in Aeronautical Engineering.
This was a period of great change for me personally, but things were changing around me too. Perhaps I didn't appreciate it at the time. It was a time when computers were rare and not the commonplace pocketsized gadgets that we carry around today.
The Beatles were about to emerge and become perhaps the greatest performing group in my lifetime. Mum surprised us all by announcing she had got some tickets to see them perform live at The Granada cinema in Walthamstow, October 1964. The party was comprised of Mum and Dad, Christine, Lyn and I. An unforgettable evening. Great music (which most of the screaming teenage girls could not have heard). We were in the Circle and Mum was suddenly aware of a young screaming girl rushing towards the front rail, certain she was about to fall off. She didn’t. Another young girl was just crouching on the floor whimpering “John’s brown boots”. Unbelievable. The music of Lennon and McCartney was, and still is unrivalled in my view.
John F. Kennedy was sworn in as President of the United States in 1961, only sadly to be assassinated in 1963. The Space Race began with Yuri
Gagarin making a single orbit around the earth. Radio Caroline had set up operation in the English Channel in competition with the BBC! We had no idea what was to come!!!
Throughout this whole period, I don't think there was any one person who particularly influenced me in one way or another. Lots of people clearly helped me and I’ll give examples as I go. The most important person was of course my mother who insisted I go to college in the first place. I know I’ve already noted this, but it is still worth repeating as it changed the direction of my life.
Firstly, I had to decide what to study. I had taken a technical route at school and finished up with Physics, Mathematics, Additional Mathematics and Engineering Drawing at GCE and A Level. I did very well in all of them. Going to university to study Physics would mean I would either become a researcher or a teacher (I thought) and I really didn't fancy either of those. So I chose Engineering simply by elimination then focused on Aeronautical Engineering. I didn't really understand what Mechanical Engineering was and I didn't fancy Civil Engineering (thinking this would be boring) and Electrical Engineering was a possibility. In the end I chose Aeronautical Engineering. Perhaps I based the decision on my early adventures with flying to the Middle East when I was young or simply that I just liked the idea of flying. I was warned against this decision by teachers saying it was difficult for this industry to have a long-term future in the UK. By the time I completed my apprenticeship I agreed with them, although in 2023 that is now less so and the UK is a major player in Space Technology.
In reality, the number of career choices open to me was much wider than I knew. The possibility of a career in Law, Finance and Accountancy, Social Work, Human Resources and so on, even with having a technical background, was never shared with me. I believe that was due to the school-based career guidance officers who simply had no knowledge or experience of the real world. However, I’m not sure I would have changed my decision even if I was aware of all the options. I would have made
all sorts of false assumptions. Yet on reflection, as my later experiences demonstrated, I now could have seen me becoming a successful lawyer. But who knows? Such is life.
I also had to decide whether to go to straight to university or to do some form of graduate or student apprenticeship. These apprenticeships would involve some industrial experience alongside the university learning. These were quite popular at this time, and it is really quite amusing and positive that these graduate apprenticeships are again becoming fashionable. In my view they always were the right route for engineering.
The 1970-2000 period for our country was being controlled by financiers who really didn't understand technical issues. All economic decisions were made on short-term monetary objectives without any long-term vision for the future of this country. How different it was in Victorian times! What great Engineers with great vision we had then!
I decided to opt for an apprenticeship as I felt (and still do) that this was the best option for establishing a successful Engineering Graduate career. Through this you would get a good training in practical and intellectual Engineering skills at all levels, but you would also be working alongside people in the manufacturing plants at all levels and ‘getting your hands dirty’. This provided both physical and emotional experiences you just can't buy by going to university.
I began to sense that life was beginning to change when I started going for interviews with the industrial employers. Three particular incidents are embedded in my memory forever but for all very different reasons.
The first was when I travelled from London to Bristol for an interview at The Bristol Aeroplane Company at Filton just outside Bristol. I caught the early train from Paddington. I arrived at Paddington about 8am with 45 minutes to spare. I had tea and toast in the British Rail buffet. The buffet was like a cathedral - a vast Victorian-built large theatre with lofty ceilings, and ornate decorations on the high walls. When I
arrived, there was just one other customer in the buffet. He appeared quite elderly and very shabbily dressed and unkempt. I guessed he was probably homeless and had come in for his first meal of the day, in a warm place. Then suddenly he started singing at the top of his voice. The quality of his voice was outstanding. It echoed around this vast empty cathedral-like space. He sang ‘Fools Rush in Where Angels Fear to Tread’. I was spellbound. Perhaps he was there every morning and sang the same song each day, but I had never heard anything like it before or since. I just wondered what stories he had to tell. I can still picture myself there feeling somewhat embarrassed and suddenly overawed by it all. He appeared oblivious to his surroundings. He wasn't singing for anyone except himself - though perhaps he was. Here was a young 18-year-old schoolboy full of ambition and promise going off to apply for an engineering apprenticeship and here was this down-at-heel figure just singing his heart out.
The second experience also took a whole day! It was in early February 1962 and it was very cold. This was the day of my interview with De Havilland’s. Chingford is only about an hour from Hatfield so Dad said that he would drive me.
I get nervous in stressful situations and this was particularly so when I was much younger. This day was no exception. When I'm nervous I simply can't eat. The interview was set for 11am but when Dad went out to try and start his car, the battery was lifeless. Dad was at home because he was out of work and his car was somewhat ancient. So, I became stressed out even more. Not having our own installed telephone (which in 1962 was not unusual for a council house), I went down the street to the public telephone box on the corner to ring De Haviland’s to say I was going to be late. That did my nerves no good whatsoever. They understood and said to let them know when I could make it. I don’t know what I did while we waited for the battery to recharge but I still didn't eat anything. Thankfully, by 1 o'clock the engine was running. I phoned De Havilland to reconfirm that I was coming. Again, they were fully understanding.
The De Havilland factory was large. The Apprentice School where the interview was to be held was located on top of the factory Medical Centre. Dad parked up and I went up the external stairs to walk across the roof of the Medical Centre to go into the Apprentice Training School itself. I can remember it so well. As I opened the door the smell of ether rising from the Medical Centre below hit my empty stomach. As I approached the reception desk both nervously and yet trying to be confident, the inevitable desire to be sick overtook everything. And so I was! All over the receptionist and his desk. Many years later, as a Careers Consultant I would give interview preparation training sessions to students. If I had time, I would often tell this tale. I would tell the story in a somewhat lighthearted but worrying fashion. I got quite good at telling it and the shock of the punchline was always greeted by a great gasp of disbelief immediately followed by the same question every time – ‘Did you get the job?’ – and yes, amazingly, I did! There are many ways to make an impression at interviews but this is not one of them.
The last story seems quite uneventful until you make the connections. Like everybody, I applied to several companies in order to secure an apprenticeship. I managed to secure an interview with Vickers Armstrong in Weybridge, Surrey. All went well until they asked if I had already secured a placement (I had - with De Havilland’s) and then they seemed to lose interest and I was not offered a place. Vickers Armstrong (later to become part of The British Aircraft Corporation) was located at Brooklands - the site of the old famous car racing track. Keep reading if you want to understand the connection!
So, in September 1962 I started my apprenticeship at Hatfield. I had decided to continue living at home and so had a daily commute of twenty miles each way by motorcycle. When my own son, many years later, indicated something similar, I quickly steered him away from this idea and reached a deal about buying him a car instead. However, in 1962, having a motorcycle was considered a normal thing to do and I bought a secondhand BSA C 250 C15, complete with white fairing and drop handlebars. How cool was that! Not that it would have made any
difference but the UK was about to experience, from December 1962 to March 1963, the worst winter in recent living memory. Snow started falling on Boxing Day and, as I remember, did not finally leave until the end of late March. Once the initial snow storms finished, it just got colder and colder and so apart from the ice it was life as normal and I could still ride my motorcycle to Hatfield - although there were a few spills along the way! Thank goodness for my motorcycle leathers!
The other weather condition we still had to deal with in 1962 was the winter smogs: fog with body!! Having to drive home some twenty miles at ten mph, with your headlight on full beam and permanently looking downwards towards the left kerb, was both nerve-racking and tiring.
The structure of my five-year apprenticeship was what they call a “thin sandwich”. Six months in the training school or on assignments within the factory, and six months at the local college studying for my degree in Aeronautical Engineering. After four years as a graduate’ I would spend my final year in a particular department with a view to continuing working there once my apprenticeship finished. That was the plan at least!
There was about a dozen of us undergraduates on the college course studying either Mechanical Engineering or Aeronautical Engineering. All the Aero students were apprentices from De Havilland’s and we formed some close friendships. By the third year, I had bought an old Ford Prefect (1953 vintage) in addition to my BSA C15. I had just been forced to install a reconditioned engine and it seemed a good idea to go on a touring holiday in it for two weeks. So, apprentice friend Rod, and his girlfriend Eleanor, joined Lyn and I on a twoweek camping trip to Northern Italy. I’m surprised our parents let us do this but they did. I suppose I was the Project Manager as it was my car after all! We hired all the camping gear. I planned the route, organised the ferry crossings, and booked all the camping sites. We left Chingford one Friday night to get the midnight ferry to Ostend. We were extremely ambitious about how many miles we would do each
day but we wanted to spend at least five days in the Mediterranean. Our route took us across the highest Alp crossing (St Bernard Passpre-tunnels) on the outward trip and back across through The Brenner Pass into Austria for the return journey. We did manage our five days at Lido di Jesolo, just outside Venice. The biggest surprise happened as I took a photograph of Lyn sitting on a rock on the top of The St Bernard Pass because as I stepped back to get a better photo I fell through melting ice! I fell about 6 feet into the stream below but I didn’t even know the stream was there! ‘Candid Camera’ or ‘You’ve Been Framed’ would have loved footage of this comic incident.
Apart from the technical subjects within the Diploma of Technology (as my degree was initially called) I studied non-technical subjects such as Industrial Administration. This covered organisation structure, basic Company Law, Trade Union history and practice, all of which I found totally fascinating. We also had a separate one-hour weekly session on modern literature. In these we would be led through the various writing styles of modern authors. Ian Fleming (James Bond author) was all the rage. The first 007 film ‘Dr No’ hit the screens in 1962. James Bond did not just have a cigarette lighter – it was a Dunhill lighter! In John Braine’s ‘Room at the Top’, we are told about Susan’s recent visit to a hairdresser – ‘the cut was so simple it had to be expensive’. ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ by Alan Sillitoe, was another classic. It is to be noted that all these novels had their racy sections, and I expect that's what kept the young male apprentices particularly interested, including me. So, all of these lecturers made their own ripples into my life since. I remember them still.
Another ripple into my life – a big one this time – occurred when we apprentices spent a week away on a residential development course. I can't remember much about the week but I do remember what happened that Thursday night. Colin, Mick, Rod, Ross and I started playing Pontoon for halfpennies and pennies. We played for about an hour or so before one of the tutors came in and suggested we start playing Three Card Brag. Suddenly the stakes were sixpence (2.5p) or even two shillings
(10p) at some stage. This doesn’t sound a lot but in 1965, we were only apprentices and £5 was our typical weekly wage. This went on until the early hours. When we finished, Colin and I walked out into the early morning summer sunshine and just listened to the birds singing. We didn’t speak. We both were in a state of shock. I'd finished about even but Colin had won two weeks’ worth of wages at the expense of our other two friends. Never again I thought! An odd flutter on the Grand National each year but that's been about it for me. I like playing cards but will never again play for money. If you play for money, whether you win or lose, it is always a bad experience in my opinion.
I thought that by going into the aircraft industry I would do a lot of flying. How wrong I was. Apart from one exception I flew about three times in five years, simply making up weight in a test plane which was executing circuits and bumps in automatic take-off and landing tests. During my apprenticeship, I came to realise that an aircraft is a very complicated “bit of kit”. Every piece has to be designed in minute detail. If not, it would either not work, break or collectively be too heavy to get off the ground. If you love engineering detail, then aircraft engineering is for you. I was learning that my interests lay elsewhere.
The one exception was a two-week flight test programme held at Cranfield College. Each morning, we would attend class to prepare for a particular set of tests. In the afternoon we would take to the air in a De Havilland Dove which had been fitted out as a flying laboratory. Each plane would take eight students working in pairs plus (of course) the pilot/instructor. After each test, one of us took a turn to sit up front with the pilot and fly the plane back to the airfield. After a few simple familiarisation pointers you would hear those magic words, “Mr. Richardson - you now have control”. And I did! WOW, it was so exhilarating. Knowing and experiencing that when you turned the stick sideways the plane began to roll and if you pushed on the stick, the nose dips and you begin to go down!
One particular test is worth a bit more detail. We had to experience what happened when a plane approached a stall condition. If an aircraft loses
speed, the laminar airflow across the wing breaks down and the wing loses its lift. This is not to be encouraged but everything had to be tested.
Both wings were fitted with tufts which we could observe through the windows and then we would sketch their pattern (iPhones were still a long way off!) as we approached the stall speed. We were looking for when the tufts began to reverse. This was an indication that normal laminar flow was about to be lost!
For safety reasons, the pilot had to keep one engine running albeit with the throttle way back but then he would then turn off the other one. It was very scary to look outside at a static propeller! Not only would the plane slow down but the pilot would also pull the stick back to increase the angle of attack so that we could still maintain lift, despite the reduced air speed. It got quite exciting. The whole plane began to shake. As we were about to experience, one wing would always lose its laminar airflow lift, fractionally before the other. So, as we went into the stall, one wing would suddenly drop and the other would rapidly rise, and we would go into a potential roll. Meanwhile, we would drop rapidly, losing at least several thousand feet in about thirty seconds. Not for the fainthearted! Seeing the pointers on the analogue altimeter rotating anticlockwise was scary enough but looking out of the windows just added to the excitement. Once we had regained our stability and the airplane height restored, we would repeat it all again – just to be sure we hadn’t missed anything!
The reason I chose an aeronautical engineering degree was because I liked flying, and I still do. I was somewhat disappointed by my lack of flying throughout my five-year apprenticeship. How little did I know what was round the corner? How could I anticipate that I would spend a lot of my working life in an aircraft flying all over the world?
When I look back to the mid-1960s, it is unbelievable how we ever managed without computers. I’ve said an aircraft is the most complicated piece of engineering equipment one could ever imagine. All the stresses
and strains on the airframe were calculated by engineers working pen, pencil, paper and electronic and electrically-powered mechanical calculating machines. In the Stress Office, where I spent a lot of time, there was a large partitioned-off corner where forty or so calculating machines were located. These machines were always in operation, with their internal cogs and moving carriages making the most hideous screeching, whirring and thumping noises one can imagine. It is amazing that we ever got planes to fly at all!
In my final year at the college, I carried out a piece of research to investigate what would happen to a particular structure when it was loaded beyond its yield point and whether the yield point and subsequent plastic structure behaviour can be predicted by mathematics. The structure was designed by us (my tutor) to make it more predictable as to when it would yield. This would make it easier to observe and measure what we wanted. The structure was set up with numerous strain gauges and as I slowly loaded up the structure, we measured the loads and strains and plotted the results on a graph. The challenge was to try and predict the yielding through mathematics. So, I then became familiar with ‘Finite Element Technique Analysis’, a technique only really possible using a computer. So, I was also introduced to computer programming. This I loved. I’m a very analytical and logical person (though mixed up with high emotions). So, it is no surprise that I really enjoyed this part of the project. For today's readers, the actual running of the programme must be beyond belief. The computer itself would just about fit in a 5m x 7m room. My little programme would take about five minutes to input the data (using punched tape) and another five minutes to run it.
The output (also via punched tape) then had to be turned into text via a special printer. Today, we all probably have much more power and flexibility in our common mobile phones which even young children can operate with consummate ease. How technology has changed.
I graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in June 1966. I had worked hard, and Mum and Dad were so very proud of me, as I was
of myself. I remember the emotion when I first read the results on the noticeboard and again when I was the first one up out of the whole assembly at college to receive my award at the presentation ceremony.
In August 1966 Lyn and I got married. We moved to our first flat in Ilford, Essex, and I continued my daily commute to Hatfield. To add complete historical perspective, England also won the World Cup that summer!
But I was still an apprentice with one full year to run. Most graduates start off their final year in the department in which they would ultimately take full-time postgraduate work. However, I was asked to be part a small group of fellow graduates working on a rather special project which in its way had a big influence on me and my future career. A few years earlier there had been a competition in Flight International magazine to design a small single-seater racing aircraft. Joe Goodwin, from the De Havilland aerodynamics department, had entered a design which finished third. It was decided that this was an ideal project for final-year postgraduate apprentices and craft apprentices to complete the detail design and then to actually build it. When I joined the team of four or five, the outline design was already turned into many detailed designs. The basic fuselage and wing structures were being built by the craft apprentices. Rolls-Royce had donated a flat four engine and my particular part of the project was to design the engine mounts. I also remember Mike Hutchins, one of my fellow students, had the job of designing the propeller, which was something none of us had ever covered in our degree studies. We all felt challenged, excited and motivated. Clearly our rate of production was rather slow but that didn't make any difference. I was also involved in the more managerial activities of the project.
In parallel, I was working in my spare time, as the advertising manager for the apprentice magazine, Pylon. When the magazine editor decided to leave that role, I took on this editorial role too and all remaining functions. This involved getting article contributions from where I could, securing adverts from appropriate local, technical and aeronautical
institutions to help pay for the magazine, and ultimately to work with the printers on layout design, proofreading and everything else associated with the production and distribution of this magazine.
I had already agreed with De Havilland that I would join the Stress office once my apprenticeship was over, at the salary of £1450 per year – a good starting salary in those days. However, I was very unsettled and really did not see myself being completely fulfilled in designing what I considered ‘detailed nuts and bolts’, important though that was. After all, I'd been working in a small team doing my own full design, as well as taking a lead role in producing the apprentice magazine. So I started looking for something different outside. I also felt that the long-term future of the aircraft industry in the UK was somewhat bleak.
I initially started looking for work as a computer programmer in technical roles within large engineering organisations. Despite several interviews I was not successful - either I didn’t like them, or they didn’t like me.
Just as my apprenticeship was coming to an end in 1967, world technology was beginning to change everything. Computer technology was still in its infancy but growing fast. Colour television was first used in the UK on BBC2 for an outside broadcast from the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Within two years, incredibly, Apollo 11 would land two men on the moon and get them home safely.
However, in that summer of 1967 I would sit in my car each lunchtime reading the job adverts in the Daily Telegraph. A small advert caught my eye: “Looking for graduate engineers to work under the guidance of a senior engineer in the design and construction of engineering projects”. My apprenticeship was due to finish in early September. This sounded like the kind of role I was looking for and so I applied. The company was Thomas Hedley, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, which was well known for making soap and detergents.
Another key change direction beckoned but of course I never knew how much at the time! I’m a great believer in the concept of ‘Sliding Door’ moments which are easy to recognise in hindsight. If only we had the wisdom and awareness at the time. Who knows? In my case it was simply a way to escape the aircraft industry.
When I told the head of the Stress Office that I was not taking up his offer and was going to leave immediately at the end of my apprenticeship he was somewhat shocked. “How could an aeronautical engineer with a First-Class Honours degree go to work for a soap company?” was his understandable reaction.
And so to the North East
Right from the early days I knew that Thomas Hedley was going to be different. It felt so right. My first interview was at The Waldorf Hotel in London and very quickly after that I went for my second interview in Newcastle upon Tyne. I already began to experience differences like travelling by First Class rail and staying overnight in plush hotel rooms with their own telephones! I instantly liked all the people I met in the Engineering Division on that first day visit. I left with a job offer and said I would let them know very quickly but I already knew in my heart that I would accept it.
Thomas Hedley had been owned by the US Giant Procter & Gamble from the early 1930’s. But when I joined the company the UK arm was still known as Thomas Hedley. The name of Procter & Gamble (P&G) only became more widely known throughout the world as P&G grew across many other brand categories. P&G’s history is fascinating. It started when Mr. Procter, an Englishman, met Mr. Gamble, an Irishman, in Cincinnati, Ohio and established Procter and Gamble in 1837. Yes, that long ago! Cincinnati was a town full of German immigrants who loved eating pork. Where there was pork, there was fat, and Mr Procter and Mr Gamble decided to set up P&G making candles. Soap products quickly followed. Humble beginnings…
Their first expansion outside of the United States was to the UK, in the 1930s, when they bought the existing soap making company of Thomas
Hedley based on Tyneside. Incidentally Thomas Hedley also started his business way back in 1837! P&G invested heavily in the UK and set up new, larger factories in Grays, Essex, and in Trafford Park, Manchester, to expand and house the new spray drying towers to produce the growing development of granular detergents.
I joined P&G Limited Engineering Division located in Newcastle upon Tyne in September 1967. I had expected to do my initial factory training in Grays, thus enabling Lyn to remain in Ilford, Essex. My first lesson in being flexible presented itself when they decided my factory training was to be in Manchester. However we quickly found a modern flat in Jesmond, Newcastle, where Lyn spent those first weeks while I did a weekly commute to Manchester.
Manchester was a shock! The factory was in Trafford Park in the heart of heavy electrical industrial machinery manufacture and carbon black manufacture. The air was black and dirty. It rained nonstop for six weeks. It was there that I first met Brian Clough and John McCann. Brian oversaw my training on behalf of my line manager in Newcastle.
The Manchester factory culture was set by the Plant Manager who was always aggressive to his Group Managers. In turn the Group Managers treated their own first line managers with aggression.
It was survival of the fittest. I dreaded my daily review meetings with Brian. How things changed over the years. Brian was always very helpful in helping young graduate engineering managers grow and develop in the company but it didn’t always feel like that. First impressions were quite different. On the other hand, John McCann was a young Chemical Graduate who was the Fairy Snow Tower Manager. He was very polite, helpful and precise. I remember the first time we met. There is much more of him to come!
My salary quickly increased and within a year Lyn and I had our first home in Cramlington, Northumberland. It was during our early years
that Neil Armstrong said those immortal words “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” as he became the first man to step onto the Moon. Breathtaking, and we’ve come a long way since then.
My first assignments were part of the synthetic powder mixing group and I quickly became involved with designing and commissioning new expansions both at Manchester and Grays. This led me to become part of the team charged with building a completely new enzyme additive making department to be built in Trafford Park.
Whilst I was busy working on the new project, I was also getting involved with the Newcastle Morris Men and becoming the treasurer of the North East branch of the graduate section of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. At the weekends we continued decorating our house and getting the garden sorted. Lyn was also busy with the house and working in Blyth, Northumberland, at the British Gas showrooms.
Other people I met in these early years included Tony Lees and his wife Joyce. He and his wife were strong Christians and gave me much encouragement to continue with my faith even though Lyn and I no longer went to church. Tony also introduced me to squash and I became a member of the P&G Tynemouth Squash Club. It was there that I met a certain lady called Pat Innes who was the Club secretary. She also organised for the P&G squash Club players to go up to Aviemore in Scotland and learn how to ski for a weekend. Another key event for me as it turned out. Pat Innes was another key ripple generator in my life. All in the long future ahead and yet to be uncovered as my life progressed.
Our big focus was on having a family. Lyn had become pregnant as soon as we arrived in the North East but a miscarriage was the sad outcome. We were advised this was not unusual and that we shouldn’t worry. However, time passed and nothing was happening. Both of us went for the necessary tests and both were clear, though it was noted that my sperm count was on the low side. Daily temperature taking became routine. Then in early
1970 it happened and Lyn became pregnant again! Nervously we took it all very carefully and cautiously. The pregnancy progressed normally although we knew the baby was in the breach position.
Lyn went in to hospital on a Friday to be induced. Today, husbands are routinely invited in to be part of the birth of their child. But not so then. Times have changed, thank goodness. I was a young man - grossly inexperienced in the ways of the world. At around 8pm on Saturday night, the first phone call came. “Mr Richardson, everything is going OK but we’re having a bit of trouble with baby. As your wife pushes, the baby’s heart beat drops off. We’ll keep you informed”. Around 11pm the second phone call. “Bad news, I’m afraid. Your wife is fine but the baby has died”. I can relive that terrible moment whenever I choose.
I don’t know how I drove that evening. “We haven’t told your wife yet”. That was my job. She knew of course before I opened my mouth, she saw the look in my eyes.
On reflection, it was clear the staff in the maternity unit that Saturday night were inexperienced - as was I. Why had they not gone for a Caesarean section? The baby, as it was being delivered, simply ran out of air with the chord wrapped around his neck. I meekly acquiesced to their suggestion that they simply “deal with everything”. Should I have made a bigger fuss at higher levels? Had I been older I might well have. No funeral. No grieving, just emptiness. We never got over that.
Meanwhile my career was progressing and I was asked to go to Manchester and initially lead the early start-up planning for the new enzyme additive production plant I had been working on for the previous two years. Lyn and I rented a house in Swinton, Manchester and this was our first introduction to Manchester.
The start-up went well and it was during this period I worked more closely with Brian Clough and also worked alongside Hasan Hammami - more of him later too.
As already mentioned, outside of work, one highlight was to go and pay my 50 pence to stand at The Stretford End and watch my beloved Manchester United play football. I managed to see Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and George Best all play when they were still extremely good.
At the end of my commissioning period at Manchester, in Spring 1972, I was asked to consider relocating to P&G - European Technical Centre located in Brussels. By this time P&G were becoming big in Europe and needed to increase the staff level at ETC. It just seemed that my career was getting better and better. Lyn and I decided that we would try this positive break in another direction and maybe life would change for us in other ways too.
Suddenly I was working in an international arena assigned to Mr Ton Fleuren as part of the Synthetic Granules Making Group in Brussels. They gave me lots of opportunities to travel to all the factories in Europe, contributing to discussions, trying to solve problems and doing small projects. I remember, within my first few months, I was told by my direct boss that he and I were going off to the Pomezia plant just outside Rome. One of the great locations - standing in the warm night air in St Peter’s Square in front of St Peter’s Basilica. Truly amazing. A bit of a different trip to the one I had taken nine years earlier in my Ford Prefect. I always wanted to travel and here I was standing in such a location, just turned twenty-eight.
As time went on, it gave Lyn and I the opportunity to travel as a couple. P&G were not paying for Lyn but we took opportunities where we could. At one stage I was assigned to carry out the design work for a new sewer system in our plant at Koblenz, Germany. Interestingly, the plant manager had been a U-boat commander in the Second World War.
I began to realise that ‘ETC’ really stood for European Travel Club whilst P&G really stood for ‘Pack and Go’. During this time I was travelling to Marseille, Paris and Amiens in France, Frankfurt and Worms in Germany, and more locally to Mechelen in Belgium.
In those early years, the group secretary was a lovely Belgian lady called Mrs. Cawthen. She had married a British serviceman who had stayed on after the Second World War. One day she said to me, “John, would you like to learn French?” She knew I was going to lessons but not getting very far with them. “Yes of course,” I replied. She continued “Et maintenant nous parlerons le Francais seulement dans le bureau”. And that’s what we did. I got quite good at speaking French and making myself understood but was never that good at interpreting the answer!
However, whilst I was doing a lot of travelling and doing lots of different work, Lyn was becoming more and more isolated. I began to realise that the super-confident lady - as seen by the outside world - was in fact someone very shy and lacking much self-belief. She had a driving licence but refused to drive. Because we had no children, we didn’t mix with any of the English couples via the British School of Brussels. We had plenty of visitors from the family and friends who came to stay with us and visit Brussels and the surrounding countryside but she was distraught and still not having a family became more and more difficult for her.
However during our time I did meet up with an old South West Essex Morris Man, Neil Irons, quite by chance. He and his wife became our only friends really. They had come to Brussels without the support of a big corporation, like me, but he and his wife just got on with it. They had much more initiative and were really becoming part of Belgium and Brussels.
After two years I was asked if I wanted to stay and become a permanent member in Brussels. I had been on an international salary and I didn’t really understand the changes in salary, taxation and so forth, and we had never integrated into local life even with the Expat community. I had worked hard at learning French but we were never really settled there.
It really wasn’t a very difficult decision to tell P&G that I really didn’t see Lyn and I settling in Belgium. By this time, we had been married
eight years, without starting a family, and we were realising that we were probably going to have to adopt. We thought this would be more successful if we were back in our home country. My immediate managers understood this but I’m not sure if those at the top did. So, in 1974, after two years in Belgium, we came back to the UK.
6 Change
In June 1974, Lyn and I returned to the UK. We moved from Cramlington to Wideopen - still in a three-bedroom semi but with an extension giving us a separate dining room, a large lounge and another bedroom upstairs. Lyn was glad to be back in the UK but was still determined not to drive. We were still striving for a family but to no avail. Being around other couples with children at Wideopen didn’t help Lyn one bit.
Work-wise I became a project engineer which I loved. My Section Head was Brian Clough - my old Manchester Training manager. Little did I realise what another important ‘ripple generator’ he would become in my life.
About six months later Brian sat me down and asked if I’d consider a new assignment. P&G Manufacturing had decided to train up four more managers to become Internal Organisational Development Consultants. They wanted one from Engineering Division to join David Simonson from London Factory, Arthur Jones from Distribution and John McCann from Manchester Factory - the same John McCann I’d met in my first week’s training at Manchester. I jumped at it. We were trained by Lawrence Megson, helped by Brian Lawrence and Bill Tilley. All “ripple generators” too though Lawrence was the star.
On reflection, this was a great career decision. Perhaps I didn’t take full advantage of all the possibilities on offer but I look back on those days
with fondness for what I learnt - and still know and treasure - and for the friendships I formed and still have today forty-nine years later.
I worked in Organisational Development for only two years or so yet could write a completely separate book on what I learnt, experienced, observed and contributed. Immodestly I’m still a great trainer, helpful with working group dynamics and still able give impromptu talks on Open System Theory appropriate to any type of organisation I might come in to contact with. Just ‘in the blood stream’ as they say.
A few stories. The highlight of this period was The Darlington Course. It was run in the same large hotel used by William Whitelaw in September 1972 with the objective of bringing all Northern Ireland political parties together to sit round the same table for the first time. Our courses brought together fifty senior managers from UK Manufacturing with the object of helping them to initiate and manage change. To do this they had to experience change for themselves. We got support from some participants, neutrality from others and sheer resistance from others. Lawrence Megson quietly shared that the qualification for us four was to run the first course. We were of course to be supported by Lawrence, Brian and Bill. Nevertheless, we all felt it was a big ask. But we succeeded and, in the end, we ran about six or seven such courses over a year or so.
One thing I have learnt in life is that you never know when things are about to happen which bring life-changing consequences. On the eve of our first Darlington Course, in June 1975, Lyn and I decided to hold an evening barbecue. Obviously, David, Arthur and John would be invited but we needed some female company to make the evening more balanced. The only single lady I knew was Pat Innes from the P&G Squash Club. She agreed to come with one of her girlfriends. This was the event that changed John and Pat’s lives forever. Most years in early June I still get a phone call from Pat McCann and we quickly relive her first meeting with John McCann at my barbeque. She and John are still very happily married and I remain good friends with them to this day. More stories still to come!
Back to the Darlington Course itself. Each course lasted a week. The course would start on a Saturday evening with a dinner at the hotel. All participants expected a gentle social evening but not so. Immediately after dinner they were all put into their teams of six, sent to their team rooms and a team exercise started comparing and contrasting very dry articles about Organisational Development Strategies. Very hard and dull stuff and it built the ‘aggro’ nicely! Developing a healthy team through the week was a key vehicle for individual growth. We consultants were on hand to help them throughout. Sometimes we weren’t seen as helpful though!
Every evening, after the day’s events were over, the staff team, led by Lawrence, would sit together and review how it was going against our overall objectives. By the third course it was going particularly badly. The participants were not getting into the giving and receiving of good and bad feedback. Lawrence decided we needed a design change. True to our principles, we would never ask any participant in any team to do anything we weren’t ourselves prepared to do. It was decided we needed to get each team to individually rank order all its team members as to who was best at building effective working relationships and who was worst. So that’s what the staff members team did. I was ranked bottom by everybody. I was gutted! I just withdrew inwardly from it all. I was physically still there but internally a total mess, confidence-wise.
The next afternoon Lawrence recognised I’d had enough and took me to one side. His advice was simple and direct. “You don’t engage and you just don’t smile at people enough”. The next evening event was a particularly difficult but potentially greatly influential session with all participants together. “Right John, you can lead Positive Stroking tomorrow night.” I’d seen it done on previous courses but the prospect of me leading it was just terrifying. “Don’t worry, we can do some rehearsing during the day tomorrow” Lawrence counselled.
And that’s what happened. I was nervous. I stood in the centre of the large ring of fifty senior managers and colleagues and started by telling
them what had happened at the staff ranking a couple of evenings ago. I had been given some helpful feedback and, “here I am sharing that experience and smiling at the same time”.
You could hear a pin drop, but I remember they were all listening very attentively and smiling back at me. I went on to share a true story about a Children’s Home in Canada where despite very careful clinical care and the latest technology, the death rate was unusually high. When the staff started cuddling the babies, they responded and the death rate dropped dramatically.
I explained we all need that cuddling, physically when we are young and psychologically as we grow and physical stroking becomes less appropriate. But we still need ‘stroking’ and equally we need to know how to respond to it. As a man we might get a genuine comment“John, I like your shirt!” and we men might dismiss such a positive comment with, “It’s nothing - just an old shirt I found in the cupboard”. The other option is to say, “Thank you”. Everyone was smiling at me, fully identifying with an all-too-common occurrence.
Now for the tricky bit but I was in full control. “Everyone please stand and get someone to stick a double-thickness flip chart on your back, pick up a felt pen and when I say ‘go’ I want you write any genuine positive feedback you want to give to any other participant by writing on their back”. Quite a few were reluctant and would even stand with their back against the wall so that would be their excuse if they didn’t get any feedback. The job of all staff members was to ensure everyone got involved and all had some good stuff written on their back. Then I signalled that the exercise was over and that all should take off their own flip chart and read it. The noise, the laughter, shouts of joy and excitement that erupted was amazing. I got a lot of positive strokes that evening. I was back in business, but more so. I had grown.
Another incident which captures important changes which can occur, happened one very sunny afternoon in the expansive grounds of the
Mum & Dad pre-1940
Grandad Richardson
Dad in mourning December 1934
The Sheffield Sisters Left to right: Aunt Lucy, Nanny Rich and Aunt Sarah
April 1940 My
Mum & Dad Wedding Day April 1940
Mum and Dads wedding Left to right Nanny Rich, Dad Nanny, Scarlett, Mum, Aunt Em and Grandad Scarlett
Nanny Scarlett Hop picking Sept 1948
Abadan about 1948. Me in my tropical gear
Me in Abadan November 1950
Abadan New Years Eve 1950. Mum & Dad, Me, Uncle Dave and the Gibbs Family
Me in Saxlingham Road garden next to the chicken house about 1953
Me in Chingford ready for the first day at South West Technical College 1955
Langshaw Primary football team 1954/55 season (I'm 4th from left)
Chingford about 1957
Me with new bike 1957
Christine, Mum, Nanny Scarlett
hotel. It was always the pattern that the groups would work together and then one of the team would present the group’s work to the whole course in large group sessions. Lawrence was helping one group where one team was struggling. Naturally, everyone got a turn in presenting, and on this occasion the individual elected to give the presentation was really struggling and physically under stress. One of the senior managers in the team was Archie- a plant manager who was never seen as friendly or helpful and was, in fact, always stern, very intelligent but wasn’t particularly liked Archie listened to his team member’s poor rehearsal. Lawrence asked for feedback. “Simply awful” was Archie’s quick and sharp reply. “10 out of 10 for accuracy, Archie, 0 out of 10 for empathy”. The power of feedback skillfully given. I didn’t notice Archie for a couple of days but then I spotted him in the bar. He was a bit like Mr Punch in physical appearance and he may have had a couple of drinks when I saw him, but there he was popping behind the curtain, then reappearing and then hiding again, pretending to be Mr Punch! He was having a great time. Someone had given him some feedback he recognised and with which he could deal. The energy that radiated from him was unrecognisable. Such is the transformational nature of personal growth and development.
One final story about Darlington. As each week progressed the team tasks were more creative and teams were encouraged to literally act out their presentations to the whole group. Such was the energy level that if dressing up clothes were required then the hotel staff were often approached by the teams for help and responded readily. Such was the reputation of the course that hotel staff would haggle to change shift rotas to be at work when we were there. Naturally the hotel staff knew everyone on the P&G training staff. We were infamous. One Saturday lunch time I went to the front desk to check in. As I approached, I recognised two people also talking to the front desk attendant. It was Terry Scott and June Whitfield - famous for their legendary national TV comedy sitcom, ‘Terry and June’. Terry Scott was in earnest discussion with the desk attendant, demanding his total attention. When the attendant noticed me standing quietly a foot or so from Terry Scott, he
turned to me with a big welcoming smile, “Hello Mr Richardson, good to see you again, your usual room is ready for you”. All show biz stars have big egos and Terry Scott was obviously no different. He looked furious. For a moment he had lost the attendant’s attention to someone else in the hotel by name. In that world, we were more famous than him. I wished I’d caught June Whitfield’s eye. I’m sure she would have had a twinkle in it!
Another name for Organisational Development is Change Management. At the beginning of my OD training, I remember a discussion with my engineering OD mentor, Brian Lawrence. He counselled me on the personal problems consultants sometimes have to deal with. He was concerned that my marriage might suffer. Consultants through their training realise they can make their own personal choices too. Maybe he could see it coming.
I left OD mainly because whilst I knew all the theory and loved the work, I felt I hadn’t the charisma nor had not developed the personal confidence to operate successfully and be taken seriously by senior managers. Training courses were one thing, real organisational life was different.
In 1977 I came out of OD and went back into Product Technical work. Initially I worked on a synthetics tower expansion project at Mataro in Spain with the design being done out of Brussels. So, for twelve weeks I spent Monday to Friday in Brussels and the weekends back in Newcastle.
1977 was the time of the Queen’s Jubilee and the street in which we lived at Wideopen decided to have a street party - like many streets did. And that was the evening I met Elizabeth…
Elizabeth was married to Brian. They had previously lived in the same street as Lyn and I. By the time of the Queen’s Jubilee in June 1977, they had moved away to Ponteland, Northumberland. By this time, they had two daughters, Sara who was 3 1/2 and Amy, who was five months old.
As Elizabeth and I chatted in the kitchen, it became clear that her marriage was not a happy one. Brian had been unfaithful for some years. He played in a band which gave him the opportunity to ‘play away’.
My relationship with Lyn had broken down. There was no counselling in those days and we didn’t recover from the stillbirth of our son and the monthly anguish and panic that this brought. I saw with Elizabeth the opportunity for a fresh start. Lyn was completely the innocent party and I regret any hurt I caused her.
And so our affair began.
Early on I was very upfront with Elizabeth about my apparent lack of fertility. She had previously said she had wanted another child but clearly stated that she would not have had any more with Brian.
The year after the street party was very difficult. By Christmas, Lyn had left and had gone back to London and we were soon divorced. Elizabeth took a long time in deciding what she wanted to do because she didn’t really know me and her prime concern was of course her girls.
In July 1978, Elizabeth and I moved into Killingworth New Town with Sara and Amy. At this time, she was still married to Brian and was not pressing him for a divorce, which I found difficult.
During early 1979, I was reassigned and took over as Project Manager for the European Zest rollout - five bar soap production lines in three countries. I was pleased but very surprised. Perhaps my European experience was a factor. I loved it. After the project, I took over as Bar Soap Engineering Lead for Europe. This I loved too. Italy is the world technical centre for bar soap machinery and I would visit Italy often. I loved their expertise, the quality of the equipment and the quality of the delicious lunchtime meals.
There was a drive to take advantage of US large-scale bar soap ‘knowhow’ and reapply it to the three bar soap plants in UK, France and Italy. It was suggested that I tour the US and Canadian bar soap plants with my US counterparts, together with Eric Hopkinson from Manchester Plant and Bernard Couton from the Amiens plant.
Neither Eric, Bernard nor I had ever been to the US before. Eric was keen to take his wife, Sheila, for some of the time, at his expense of course. He suggested that Elizabeth might want to do the same. Immediately I thought this was unlikely because who would look after Sara and Amy? But Elizabeth was keen and said she would ask Brian (who was still her husband at the time). This episode taught me a lot. My expectation was that he would not want to look after his girls while his wife spent two weeks away with her boyfriend in the United States. What I didn’t appreciate was that, despite the severe acrimony between him and Elizabeth, Sara and Amy were still his girls and his priority. Elizabeth was always keen, quite rightly, to protect their relationship with him. I had completely concurred with this principle right at the beginning, though I found it difficult at times. Surprised that Brian had agreed, Elizabeth and I started planning for a visit to the United States.
In late October 1979, Eric, Bernard and I started our tour of the US, initially centered around Cincinnati. Elizabeth and Sheila came out two weeks later. Elizabeth spent three days in New York with her old friend Patti and her husband John Caturano. Then after spending Thanksgiving with John and Patti, we planned to travel to San Francisco for the weekend then on to Los Angeles for two days at work at the Long Beach Plant, finishing with three days holiday in LA, including two days at Disneyland.
Patti and Elizabeth were at school together back in Newcastle when they were in their early teens - maybe earlier. Patti, Marion (more of her later too) and Elizabeth were very close. Patti’s ambition was to go to the US and become a nanny, and this is exactly what she did. Through this she
met John Caturano. John and Patti were, and still are, very generous people - in all respects. They made our two weeks’ stay in the US simply unforgettable. More ‘ripple generators’ and they remain firm friends today.
Being first generation Italian, growing up in Greenwich Village Manhattan, John had lots of Italian connections and many fascinating stories!
It all started on the night I was reunited with Elizabeth, on US soil, at JFK airport. Given our short time together that in itself was a magic moment. I had just flown in from Toronto after having squeezed in a trip up the CNN tower before Eric and I caught the flight to New York. This was Thanksgiving Eve. Traffic was hell! Our time in New York was limited and I wanted to take Elizabeth up the Empire State Building. Despite John’s reluctance, but encouraged by his wife’s determination to please her visitors, that’s exactly what we did. At the top, Elizabeth whispered, “It’s OK but the Twin Towers are even more impressive”. Within half an hour we were all on the very wide top roof of Tower B. By this time, it was about 9.30pm and we were famished. From our viewpoint we could look across the dark void into the ‘Windows of the World’ restaurant on top of Tower A. Patti looked at John appealingly. In his deep Italian Brooklyn drawl, I hear his words still. “Get real Patti, it’s Thanksgiving Eve; it’s heaving in there”. Fifteen minutes later we got to the front desk of the restaurant. “Just go and sit over there and I’ll be back soon,” he said. He was right. It was packed. Then John returned with a rather smart waiter and said, “follow me “. We went through a pair of double swing doors and then dramatically we were confronted by one of the best views of the New York skyline. The whole of one side was completely clear glass through which we looked directly up Manhattan towards The Empire State Building, covered in its electric coat of red and green Thanksgiving lights!
“Here is your table, enjoy,” the waiter calmly ushered. As I said John had a lot of Italian connections and those, together with money quietly
passing from hand to hand, made this all possible. John picked up the tab of course.
What a day. I’d started the day in a bar soap meeting in Hamilton Plant, had flown between Toronto and New York, had been up four world famous skyscrapers and here we were being dined in such a place on top of Tower A at the World Trade Centre. It was some twenty-two years later on Sept 11th 2001 that Elizabeth and I sat in our lounge and cried our eyes out as we watched the horror in New York unfold. But in 1979, 9/11 was unimaginable. For Thanksgiving, we spent the afternoon at John Caturano’s mother’s apartment in Manhattan watching American football on the TV and experiencing a Thanksgiving meal Italian style. Magic!
We were due to fly to San Francisco the next morning. Patti asked where we were staying and when we would be ‘on holiday’. We gave her the name of the hotel in Long Beach and said we would be free from Wednesday onwards. “See you on Wednesday for breakfast - don’t worry John can always fix a trip out to LA” she said.
And that’s what happened. On Monday, Elizabeth and Sheila visited the Queen Mary luxury liner which was docked at Long Beach (For the Thursday and Friday, the plant arranged for us to get free tickets for Disneyland).
But back to Wednesday, another memorable day. As predicted, we came down to breakfast and John and Patti were there waiting for us! Patti was our host and drove Elizabeth and I, and Eric and Sheila down the coast to San Diego. Patti did not have her passport, otherwise we might have made it to Mexico! In the evening we met up with John C at his hotel - the newly opened ‘Bonaventure’ complete with external glass lifts and a revolving rooftop restaurant and bar. After drinks and nibbles, John C gave us a tour of Hollywood, finishing in an Italian restaurant on Sunset Boulevard - as you do. At least as John C did. As we went in, the piano player welcomed John C by name.
So far, I’d not paid for anything. I indicated to Eric that I thought we should pay. He readily agreed and so I gave my credit card quietly and secretly to the waiter. As we came to leave, John C in his thick Italian Brooklyn voice said, “When you are in the US I pay, you can pay when we are in the UK” and flicked my credit card across the wide round table.
Some years later when John and Patti visited Newcastle, Elizabeth and I were determined to honour our commitment. We took John and Patti to the best French Restaurant that Newcastle could provide. Strangely, I never got that bill on my credit card account. It was only many years later when visiting them in their new home in Florida that I shared this story with Patti. “Didn’t you realise, John fixed that bill too!” she revealed.
I share these stories as witness to the ripples that these two made to the lives of Elizabeth and myself. And of course, they were always generating ripples for all the people that they met.
After my Bar Soap trip to the US in October/November 1979, Toilet Goods was added to my brief as well as Bar Soap. As I said previously, the month-long Bar Soap trip had been my first US trip. But now it was becoming quite a regular feature. One particular visit coincided with the Annual Employee Company celebration. I was working on a particular bar soap feasibility study with the aim of developing hotel size capability in Europe, similar to that in the US. My small team, including the P&G Italian Manufacturing Office Manager (Fernando Mattioli), all received an invite to the celebration. P&G is a big employer in Cincinnati and to have a show required the hiring of the big Cincinnati Coliseum Concert Arena. The stars in the show were Crystal Gayle (“Don’t You Make My Brown Eyes Blue”) and the great Bob Hope. Off the wall! I met Fernando the next morning for breakfast. “Did you enjoy last night”? He beamed as he replied in his limited English “It was wonderful even though I didn’t understand a word of it”.
On another trip, Brian Clough learnt I was in town. (By this time Brian had been transferred to Cincinnati Head office Engineering). Brian knew I was interested in Aeronautics and offered to take me to the Dayton Air Force Base and Museum during the weekend. It was great. He also arranged for me to catch up with other ex-Newcastle Engineers who had been transferred to Cincinnati at a BBQ he arranged at his house. Such was his commitment to developing young engineers within the company. Of course, he did not do this just for me but for all the P&G UK engineers who visited.
In my life I’ve had the good fortune to meet and know some many genuine ‘ripple generators’. He was another one of the best for sure.
In early January 1979 I went back to the US for a week visit to look at the toothpaste line in Greensboro, North Carolina.
We can never be sure what lies around each daily corner. It’s amazing how we remember bits and pieces and the significance.
After I’d been back a week, I could see things were strange. It transpired that Elizabeth had got out of the habit of taking her regular morning pill and now a week after I was back, she discovered she was pregnant.
The next few months were traumatic to say the least. After all I’d been through and had shared with Elizabeth, I had expected her to be so pleased for us. I think she felt I had misled her. I even have a photograph of her, at three months, sitting with the girls around her but looking miserable as sin. We never did bottom it all out; it’s something that took some time to overcome.
Not the whole story but I think that a contributory factor to her gloom was the fact that she didn’t want to have a child out of wedlock and thus took the perspective that she was being ‘forced’ to get a divorce. Elizabeth has always been strong-willed and forcing her to do anything was just not possible. Not that a divorce bothered her in itself, but she would have to
declare herself as the guilty party, a situation both inaccurate and unfair. But it certainly sped up the divorce process and once it was decided, Elizabeth began to blossom and look pleased. During this difficult time I affirmed my commitment to her. After all, I’d come a long way fighting my corner to be with her. Over those six months in early 1980 I had felt much ‘let down’ but was still pleased to be marrying her and looking forward to the next chapter.
Elizabeth’s divorce (decree absolute) was granted on August 5th 1980. Elizabeth phoned Patti Caturano the next day. We got married on Saturday 9th August 1980 in Newcastle Registry Office. As we arrived for the ceremony a taxi pulled up and Patti Caturano appeared unannounced. More magic.
And of course, John McCann was there as my Best Man, along with his beloved Pat.
A great day. Our son Matthew John Richardson was born on October 17, 1980.
I later discovered there was nothing physically wrong between Lyn and myself. Several years after Matthew was born, I learnt that Lyn had remarried. Her son was born just three days after Matthew. God at work? Perhaps, but I was pleased that at last Lyn had her family too.
During that summer of 1980, Elizabeth decided that we needed to move to an area with better schooling. She was a great believer in education, as was I. She took the initiative to start looking elsewhere. We put our house up for sale and then one Sunday evening, as I was painting what would be the nursery for Matthew, a gentleman turned up, looked around and said, “I’ll buy it for cash”. “Yes,” we replied immediately but we had nowhere to go.
Elizabeth went into hospital on the 15th of October and came home with Matthew on the 17th, and on the 18th the five of us: Elizabeth, me,
Sara, Amy and Matthew moved in with Maggie - Elizabeth’s Mum, for six weeks, while we found somewhere else to live. During this time my mum and dad came up to visit us whilst at Maggie’s, and they were both delighted with their new grandson. I’ve never seen my dad so happy!
Six weeks later we moved to Whitley Bay. A couple living opposite usJo and Roger Hartless - had two boys similar ages to our three children. They too have become lifelong friends.
Back to Procter & Gamble.
Out of the blue, I was asked to take over the Top Job project manager role. This was a test market development being built at Tyne Tunnel, led by Derek, a colleague of mine. For some reason I was asked to take over from Derek. This was new technology to me, being more like the paper industry. Clearly, I was being groomed for a career in project management. To help with my training I had the support of Brian Clough (yes him again!) who was flying in from the US to instruct me.
By this time, I was crossing the Atlantic quite regularly which was quite exciting, really. I remember flying into Green Bay in late March, early April, 1983. P&G has a massive Paper Plant in Green Bay on the edge of Lake Michigan. Green Bay also hosts the Green Bay Packers.
It was an unusual visit, very cold with piles of snow on the pavements. One highlight on the local news was that a ship had just broken through the ice on the lake to reach the local harbour for the first time that year. It was mid-April.
I can’t remember too much about what I did on Top Job but it was a marketing disaster with very poor results from the test market in Berlin. In August I was on holiday and when I came back Derek had stepped in to wrap up the project.
Then almost immediately I had a meeting with Gottfried Schmidt who was the head of ETC. He told me he wanted me to join an Orange Juice project for Germany. Hasan Hammami (another voice from the past!) was leading the Test Market installation out of Cincinnati and, when I became free, he was keen to get me on board! They wanted me to go to Cincinnati for six months to learn the Orange Juice business before picking up the European project manager role.
I wished I was good at asking the right questions at the right time! Why me? Did they really want me to be project manager for Europe?
I remember coming home to Whitley Bay with the news. Elizabeth’s immediate response was “Can we all go?”. I hadn’t thought to ask. Gottfried’s initial response was very positive.
Within a matter of days, we were destined to spend six months in Cincinnati. Ex-husband Brian was understandably rather distraught but realised it was a great opportunity, and as it turned out he was never far away, and came to visit us that Christmas.
This was all very exciting. In my first conversation I remember saying that as a priority we would need to get the children into school but would we be able to have two weeks holiday before school started? Hassan readily agreed.
We flew down to London from Newcastle, one Friday night and then caught the 11am Heathrow to JFK the next day. Those days we all flew Business Class. We also had a connecting flight that afternoon from La Guardia to Cincinnati. Business Class included transfer between the airports by helicopter. However, the weather was bad and the helicopter connection was delayed. But it did eventually take off. Elizabeth was up front with the pilot. Because of the bad weather the pilot was forced to take a detour via Manhattan. What a way to arrive in New York! We missed our intended flight to Cincinnati but caught a later one. We were all shattered. When we arrived at the condominium in which we had
been housed, it was midnight – about 5am UK time. We managed to get a key – someone still met us somehow - and we finally got into our three-story family house in Indian Creek. Simply amazing!
The next day I went into work while Elizabeth got the girls sorted out with schools and a nursery for Matthew. On the Wednesday, we left Cincinnati for our almost two-week holiday. Off we went in our car to Florida. Two days each way driving, four days on the Gulf of Mexico and then a further four days in Disney World Florida!
There were so many good memories for everybody during those six months in Cincinnati. From Amy throwing herself into being American and putting her hand on heart and singing, “God Bless America” every morning at school and Sara’s communication problem being solved when the school realised she just didn’t speak American. Remembering how cold it always was in midwinter, with the Ohio River freezing over, and Sara winning the Condominium Halloween Prize for fancy dress (simply by wrapping our packing cases in silver foil, getting inside and going as a robot). Treasured memories.
But they had messed up our salary and allowances, and we had found it financially tight despite being told before we left that we were “the chosen ones.” About four weeks before we left, I got an apology from the company who told me we were owed about $2000 which was a bit late, to say the least.
However, that Christmas was very special. The big Christmas tree we had (everyone had giant Christmas trees just like in American films) and all the shops with Christmas tree festivals. Over Christmas we all went to see The Nutcracker Ballet at the Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts. It was simply mesmerising.
We also agreed that we would go and stay with Patti and John Caturano in New York. We would drive up on Christmas Eve and Brian – yes, exhusband Brian - would fly into New York on Boxing Day. John Caturano
was not too happy about this. The plan was that Brian would join us and we would then drive back to Cincinnati via Washington and spend New Year’s Eve sightseeing in Washington. This was an unconventional plan when I look back on it but this is what happened.
In the evening as we arrived after our day long drive from Cincinnati and pulled up outside their Long Island house, the snow began to fall, gently but thickly. It was just like a traditional Christmas Card with gigantic snowflakes floating down to transform everything they covered. Sheer magic. The next day we went up The Empire State Building again, this time with Matthew, Sara and Amy. Another day we went to the beach. The Atlantic Ocean had frozen edges like a partly defrosted popsicle
On New Year’s Eve, we left New York and drove to Washington. This was all pre-9/11 and places like The White House were then open to the public. So, we took a guided tour – Elizabeth, Me, Sara, Amy, Matthew and Brian. When I think of that June Jubilee party where Elizabeth and I first met, who could have predicted all this?
Being New Year’s Eve, The White House, whilst open, was deserted. I can remember the six of us going from room to room, just aghast at where we were and what we were seeing. The White House and its delightful Christmas decor was magical. We even had the opportunity to look into the Oval Office!
We stayed at a Holiday Inn and the hotel was deserted. We ate together but it was a very quiet affair, and we went to bed early. Matthew was with Elizabeth and me, and Sara and Amy were with their dad, Brian. This was the weirdest New Year’s Eve I can ever remember. At midnight we could hear all the horns blaring into the darkness.
Brian was beginning to suffer from severe toothache and so we left Washington early next morning. We had planned on Brian staying with us at the house in Indian Creek but I think that was a bridge too far. So, he stayed in a motel close by and visited a dentist early the following day.
All I can remember is us all driving Brian to Cincinnati Airport soon after to start his journey home.
During these six months, I was travelling back and forwards to Germany quite often. At one particularly critical meeting, Hassan said, “We’re going to have to go to this meeting on Monday morning in Frankfurt” so we flew out of Cincinnati on Saturday afternoon at about 2pm. At JFK, on boarding the Pan Am flight to Frankfurt, we found two people sitting in our seats. Remember this was pre 9/11. The steward asked to see the tickets of the two ‘trespassers’. The steward commented “Thank you. You are in the right seats but the ticket is booked for tomorrow’s flight!”. I wonder what conversation followed with the two travellers. We were found two seats in first class!
Well, that started a very meaningful conversation with Hassan. One I will never forget.
Hassan is a Palestinian Christian. I had known him over a long period of time but didn’t know him very well. I knew he was very ambitious, worked hard but wasn’t a very good team manager, in my view. Over our First-Class airline dinner somehow the issue of Palestinians bombing the Jews in Israel was raised. He then told me the other side of the story.
His family had lived in Jaffa. In 1948, when the State of Israel was created, the ‘Jewish young thugs’ disenfranchised the Palestinians. The Hammami family lost both their home and their business. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 laid down both the rights of the Palestinian people already living in the land whilst also laying the foundation for the creation of a homeland for Jewish people everywhere. This declaration was later ratified by the League of Nations in 1922.
Regretfully – for all people concerned – this balanced approach never worked nor was it supported or policed by the United Nations. As Israel took more land the Palestinians retaliated. Palestinian political terrorist
groups grew (more recently openly supported by adjacent countries) who have the clear objective of ‘taking out’ Israel.
Hassan, whilst genuinely not condoning any violence, did have sympathies with the Palestinians trying to right the awful wrongs which were mostly often glossed over in those early years of conflict. Each year The Balfour Declaration is celebrated but fifty percent of its intent has been ignored by everyone. The desire for a Jewish safe homeland had been recognised in 1917. Yet it took the unspeakable horrors of the Second World War to make it a reality. In 1948 the world quite rightly celebrated the creation of Israel but it is equally clear that The Balfour Declaration has not been followed - either then in 1948 or even today in 2024. And sadly, the tragedy of Israel and Palestine continues.
We talked for a long time on that flight. Little did I realise how important hearing the ‘other side’ of the story was to become in later life.
My work in Cincinnati continued but I knew what was coming of course. I was in an Orange Grove in Florida when I got the phone call from head office in Cincinnati. “John, I just want to let you know that as of today P&G are shutting down the Engineering Division in Newcastle and we’d like you to go to Brussels after your training in the US”.
It was a good opportunity; I would follow the Orange Juice project back to Europe. Elizabeth wasn’t so sure but she was a different and much positive person than Lyn, and I hoped she would be OK. The deal was that I’d go on an international basis with a fair salary and The British School of Brussels (BSB) fees paid for by the company. We also were able to keep the house in Whitley Bay whilst we were away.
By June 1984 we were set up in Brussels and I found myself working directly for Brian Clough who at that time was there on assignment. As always, he was a great manager. However, he was going back to the US and was to be replaced by none other than Hassan Hammami. The chemistry between Hassan and myself was never great. Whilst I was
notionally European Orange Juice Project Manager, the reality was quite different. Hassan was always very ambitious and saw this project as his step to becoming a Director of Procter and Gamble. We never did bottom that out.
I spent a lot of time away during the week either at Hamburg in the Alfa Laval's design office or, later on, in the commissioning team at Worms. This did not help family life.
My role in Worms ended around 1987 and I moved back into a Brusselsbased technical role. Again, I was working for a very ambitious young man again with whom I didn’t get along.
Outside of work, The British School of Brussels was a good experience for us all. The school prided itself on ensuring every child was able to learn to the best of their best ability. The school was deliberately strong in Theatre. Consequently, there were plenty of opportunities for costume design and making and. Elizabeth excelled. The outfit I wore as ‘Tweedledum’ in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was a masterpiece of design and construction. Sara, Amy and Matthew were all in the ‘Alice’ cast. Separately, Amy discovered her talent for gymnastics and languages. In my view, they all benefited from both their USA and European experiences both inside and outside school. Elizabeth started learning Flemish!
Additionally, each year we would all go skiing in February. We would bundle everyone up in the car and drive overnight to Austria. This we did for three years, where all three children became excellent skiers, and we all had a wonderful time.
With one exception. It was our last day in Austria and I wanted to make the last run down rather special. We had spent the afternoon up high in this gentle bowl ideal for family skiing. “Let’s just take the gentle run back to the car instead of getting the cable cars down”. BIG MISTAKE. The long downhill run was on the North facing side of the mountain - so
quite icy in places, we were tired, and we hadn’t done the run before so not sure of the best route. We struggled – particularly Elizabeth (who was in panic mode) and Matthew who was only 6 or 7. The run got less and less busy and it was beginning to get dark. By this time, I too was rather worried. Suddenly two expert skiers came up to us (they were the officials who each afternoon would sweep the slopes looking for people in trouble). They shared a few choice words on how stupid we were. We could see the next stage of the cable car down in front of us. They checked that Sara, Amy and myself could get there safely on our own. “Off you go” he said to the girls. One of the men picked up Matthew in his arms and off he went too. The other signalled to Elizabeth to jump up onto his back ‘piggy-back’ style. She was horrified but quickly realised this was the only way. And so, these two went, with me quickly following. At the chairlift station, they gave me a talking to - well deserved - and opened up the chair lift for us all to go down to the bottom. As we descended, I realised how dark it had become. Not only was I very cold but I was also shaking uncontrollably with relief and the realisation of how much danger I had put us all in. Never again would I make such a mistake.
However, yet another particular event which will be in my memory forever.
Expat life can be very sociable. We lived next door to Jane and Dan and they had some close friends, Joe and Diane. Joe and Diane agreed they would have a big fancy dress party at their house. The theme would be ‘come as you were when the ship went down’.
On the Friday night before the Saturday party, Joe and Diane were at home putting up all the decorations. I can’t remember exactly how we heard the news. It was Friday 6th March 1987. That was the night ‘The Spirit of Free Enterprise’ sailed out of Zeebrugge with its bow doors not fully closed.
Our doorbell rang and Dan and Jane were there, completely distraught – as were we. None of us knew what to say.
That Friday night sailing was a very popular time for Brits to go back to the UK. Sadly, 193 passengers and crew lost their lives. All of us knew friends and families who were on that ship. The following week’s sailing would have been even more catastrophic as it would be the half term sailing back to the UK, completely full with families from the British School of Brussels.
What followed was both surreal and yet all we could do. Jo and Diane came round to Dan and Jane’s, and we just had a quiet time having a simple meal, reflecting on it all. Not the weekend we had expected for sure.
A few weeks later, Amy was due to go on a school trip back to the UK. The sunken vessel was still there with its prow sticking up out of the water as her ferry went uneventfully slowly by. We didn’t talk about her experience much.
Later that year, I was assigned to a very different role. P&G were in discussion with Richardson Vicks. My role was to help the Richardson Vicks plant in Weinheim, Germany, establish process capability for a dental cleaning tablet - Kukident. The product relaunch was scheduled and commercially committed to, but the plant production trials were not successful. The tablets kept breaking in the machinery and were variable in density. The Process Development engineer - Ken - was located in the Health & Beauty Care Division located at Brooklands, Weybridge, UK. (Yes - that same Weybridge site that had previously hosted the British Aircraft Corporation to which I had applied much earlier for a Graduate Apprenticeship!). Together with Ken, we reviewed the ingredients, process conditions, machine settings and so forth, and devised a series of control production runs.
At the end of one particular week in the plant, Ken flew back to Gatwick and I flew to Brussels. It was Friday 15th October 1987. That day a certain Mr Fish announced on UK TV that there was not going to be a
hurricane over Southern England. History tells us otherwise! My flight back to Brussels was very bad and scary enough, but Ken told me later how horrific it was on his flight into Gatwick at the height of the wind!
More importantly, we succeeded in establishing formal process capability. Apparently, getting process capability on the product upgrade was critical to what happened next. On December 1st 1987, P&G formally acquired Richardson Vicks. I felt very satisfied. Later on, I heard that the relevant Product Director in Weybridge had considered me ‘the best process engineer he had come across’ and there would always be a job working for him if I wanted it. This was very satisfying after the previous years in Brussels.
However, we did not see Europe as a long-term location for us. P&G asked if I would transfer permanently to Schwalbach, Germany, but it was easy to refuse. Who knows if it was the right thing to do? Maybe my career might have progressed, but Elizabeth was not settled and if we were to come back then June 1988 was the time to get Sara (who was coming up to 14) into a good school for GSE O Level studies.
Quite quickly a fresh direction was opening up for me in the UK. I was offered the Plant Engineer Role in the newly-acquired Richardson Vicks plant in Skelmersdale. It just seemed to be right.
7
Skelmersdale
Working at Skelmersdale in the Richardson Vick culture was very different to what I had been used to with P&G.
For example, because my role was Plant Engineer, my office was buried in the core part of the plant, right next door to the boiler house! And being a Health & Beauty Care plant, I had to wear my white peaked hat literally everywhere I went. Getting to my office took me past the Vicks VapoRub making department. Starting the day with a clear head and clear nasal passages was always a given for me!
I soon came to find out my role was very different. Apart from the one or two P&G people around me, everybody else had a very different background. But that’s not to say that it wasn’t both enjoyable and challenging. Indeed, I really learnt a lot during my three years at Skelmersdale as you will find out.
We had originally planned to live in Southport along with the other P&G managers, but before we arrived we were advised that my longtime career was probably going to be in Manchester. So, we switched the focus on where to live and we chose Altrincham because it offered a very good education system and had two excellent grammar schools with the 11+ still in place. Of course, that brought all the Pass/Fail tension emotions too. But it was a good choice, and I still live in the same house we bought in 1988.
I had not had any experience in managing engineering maintenance functions in a major plant before and so I came to rely on my three managers, Jim Ball, Harold Cunliffe and Len Fairclough, to keep the plant running. They were great. It worked well and gave me the space to take on other tasks. I also had responsibility for the RV plant in Saffron Walden. This was relatively self-contained and again basically ran itself. My focus there was to provide some expertise in project management and contract specifications.
Because of my extensive experience in P&G and their factories and standards, I was considered a bit of an expert in this field by those who led the Richardson Vick organisation. So, when P&G bought the Shulton business (including the factory in the North East at Seaton Delaval) I was asked to visit the newly-acquired factory and give my overall view as to its state of operation and any issues that needed to be addressed. Wow – what a responsibility! I was the first official Procter & Gamble group manager to visit the new acquisition and give it my tick or not. I was treated like royalty. However, I must say it was a good operation and there was much that P&G could and did learn from Shulton.
What made my first visit to Seaton Delaval so surreal was that the first house I owned in Cramlington was within ten minutes’ drive. Life is curious at times.
And now for something different. On reflection my life has not been dull!
One morning I was called in to Jerry’s office. ‘What had I done now?’ I did not expect what he was about to tell me... There had been an explosion at the Worms plant in Germany in the new orange juice plant I had helped design, build and commission. It appeared that the team had decided to replace the liquid nitrogen supply unit. It seems that one of the overpressure relief valves had not functioned and this led to an overpressure in the main liquid Nitrogen storage tank, and eventually it blew up. I was totally shattered. Fortunately, it happened in the late
afternoon when the plant itself was staffed at a relatively low level. The whole juice plant was destroyed. At least two technicians were killed.
The original project manager, Hasan Hammami, decided to call the original design team together to review what happened and to give the company an opportunity to review what we would do differently if we had a chance to redesign it.
The small original design team met again in Worms shortly afterwards. Standing in the remains of what was the central control room was one of the eeriest and saddest moments of my P&G life. It was good to see the team members again but not in these terrible circumstances. It was as if a bomb had just dropped out of the sky which in fact is what had happened.
I can’t remember the details of the conversations but it must have covered things like the location of the central control room etc. The brand for which the plant had been built was not doing very well. It was an expensive product in an overpriced, non-friendly PVC package. It may be that they just let the brand die and did not rebuild the plant. I honestly don’t know but such a very sad end.
But on a brighter there have been times when I think I too have created positive ripples for others.
Mike Barrow, was a fitter in my department. He had the reputation, led by our plant manager, of being very lazy. In fact, to be fair, he did give that impression even in the way he walked around the place. So, one day (before the closure plan was announced) I was chatting with Mike about his perceived laziness. He replied, “I’m simply bored”. In his own time, he had built his own house and had studied for an external engineering degree. Clearly, he was not lazy.
So, I gave him a project to do. The plant needed more distilled water capacity. You can buy package units readily available from various
specialist companies. I made him ‘project manager’. He would be responsible for the specification, the placing of the order and managing installation and start up.
A complete success; I was so pleased for him but also for me.
However, my work at Skelmersdale was about to be dramatically refocused. It started with the Skelmersdale top management team (of which I was part) being invited to dinner by the plant manager. Under strict secrecy rules, we were told that, whilst the decision hadn’t been made to shut down the Skelmersdale site, we were going to plan for such a closure. Bearing in mind we employed around three hundred people, (a fair percentage of whom were single mothers), and some twenty managers, all in a fully unionised culture and we were being asked to do this without any disruption to the business, this was a big ask!
The work started that very first night after dinner. Immediately Turner and the Plant Manager (Jerry Houlihan) met with each of us in turn and dealt with any anxieties we had about ourselves and our futures. That was key. When our own worries were individually addressed, we could then put them to one side and work forward to the next task. This process was followed without deviation. Whenever new members were brought in to the working team, we always started with that first one-to-one. We did this when we told all the other managers, and we still followed that process when we finally announced the decision to the whole of the workforce some six months later. This cascade approach was the only way to manage all the issues, both at plant and individual level.
The whole thing was masterminded by Turner Atkinson, a colleague of mine from my OD days. My specific functions were to find new locations for all of our equipment throughout the P&G/Vicks world (which involved a lot of travelling - which I liked of course). Managing inventories to ensure we would never run out of product, and to manage my department of three managers and twenty fitter mechanics and help them find new jobs or help them with career decisions.
As announcement day to the whole workforce approached, preparations were intense. It would be done in natural work groups simultaneously. Whilst we were doing our bit inside, Turner was outside talking to the local MP and Press having just previously ‘consulted’ with the Unions. The management team had individually practiced the announcement, and we had prepared answers to anticipated questions. I learnt a lot that day. I had my department of fitters and managers all in the workshop adjacent to the boiler room. I was physically shaking as I placed my flipchart in the centre of the fitting shop. No one was surprised by the announcement. Everyone in the factory knew that we were not competitive compared to other production options and things needed to change. Perhaps they were surprised by the professionalism of our approach and the care the company took over all of its employees.
The company brought in a Career Consultancy to come and work on site to help everyone with the process of making decisions. For most it was just a question of getting a new job. The consultancy would seek out as many job vacancies as they could (and they knew where to look) and help write CVs and application forms. I think all my fitters, being well trained and skilled, got better jobs locally. Quite a few went to Heinz at Wigan. Another finished up as a senior plant engineer in a large major hospital in Liverpool. Of my three managers, Jim was transferred to Health and Beauty care at Manchester, Harold went up to the Shulton Old Spice plant in Northumberland, and Len retired.
When the closure announcement was made, Mike Barrow clearly decided that he wanted to stay with P&G and move to Manchester in whatever role would be offered to him. He chose to go and work in the small buying office and began to make a successful contribution there.
Eventually he made management and then got transferred to Brussels. Last I heard was that he had been appointed to the role of Associate Director for buying engineering equipment for Europe. I feel personally proud that I helped him make that start.
In any redundancy programme you have to show honesty and truly care about people as people, not numbers, but we were apprehensive. Perhaps unions would take charge and initiate strike action and this would greatly disrupt our company’s ability to continue to make and sell its products.
By showing that we cared and by explaining the business basis for the decision, we did get people’s buy in and we successfully managed to complete closure without any loss of production and with many people going onto new, alternative employment, some of which was a step up for my engineers.
However, there was some joint action before the production plant finally closed, initiated by Turner himself. He convinced Jerry to hold a lunchtime party in the canteen. Being a largely female work force, there was only one type of entertainment that would fit the bill. Turner was that kind of risk taker at times.
As a ripple generator, Turner Atkinson was a major source of energy. He was professional. He knew his stuff, P&G, the law, unions and so forth. I learnt so much about how to manage major successful changes in large organisations. I honestly don’t think P&G ever recognised and rewarded him for what he did at Skelmersdale. After he returned to the Manchester Paper plant he was not settled, he soon left and became an HR Director at Colgate Palmolive.
As for the plant manager Jerry, he was found a special assignment operation in Manchester; just keeping him quiet really until he finally got another job and left P&G. I left Skelmersdale having found the work satisfying, challenging and was proud of my contribution to the closure programme. By now the Trafford Plant was becoming a paper plant rather than a liquid, granules and beauty care plant.
8 Trafford Park
I had had lots of contact with Manchester through the years – both the plant and its people - but had never actually worked there. I was a bit more experienced about plant life since Skelmersdale but not a great deal.
They didn’t know what to do with me really. I knew nothing about Paper Technology. They found an assignment for me working in the liquids’ area. I don’t remember too much of what I actually did to be honest.
However, there was one particular short-term assignment which will stay with me forever.
One of my old trainers in OD (Bill Tilley who by now was an Associate Director in Health and Beauty Care down in Brooklands (Weybridge!)) called me. Vicks Cough Drops were having a boom in Europe and it was very profitable but they were very short of production capacity. We had made cough drops in Skelmersdale and H&BC was on the lookout for an expert to help them with their European roll-out. Bill Tilley came looking in my direction. I was hardly an expert on cough drops but not bad on projects, so I found myself on a temporary project commuting between Sweden, where they were very short of project management experience, and Gross Gerau, Germany, which was the big Richardson Vicks production plant in Europe.
My first visit to the Swedish plant was really amazing. It was just like out of a James Bond movie! It was wintertime. I flew to Stockholm and stayed overnight (everything was very expensive). I followed the plant manager’s instructions and got to the main railway station to catch an early morning train.
When I got to my destination, he would be on the platform to meet me which seemed straightforward.
I remember it was a couple of hours on the train, eventually finishing up going on a single-track line, very slowly through a forest deep in snow. James Bond territory for sure! This was very different to the citrus groves of Florida! It was out of this world. When I got to my destination, I got out and there was the plant manager, a solitary figure in the thick snow. I was the only one who got off the train. By this time, it was John Le Carre territory rather than Ian Fleming. Back in the real world, he made me very welcome and again I was a treated like royalty with my subjects assuming that I knew everything about cough drops! (I didn’t tell them the truth!)
The small Swedish plant was in the middle of nowhere. It was well run but a bit short in know-how in how P&G would set up, authorise and run plant projects. Everyone was helpful and open. ‘I know what I know, and know what I don’t know’. That philosophy has been very helpful over the years, particularly after my ‘smiling’ experience in Darlington.
Someone in the company had located a complete but idle Cough Drop production unit and its associated complete packaging equipment, elsewhere in the Richardson Vick world. But we had no idea as to its condition. The problem was that this particular equipment was in a P&G plant in Parramatta, just outside Sydney, Australia.
In discussion with Bill, he asked the key question, “if this piece of equipment was located just outside Manchester you would visit it wouldn’t you, to see what it was like?”. My reply was clearly yes. I knew
what was at stake in terms of increased European capacity and profit. Bill said to me, “leave it with me, I’ll have to get special authority for your trip, but get ready for it!” About two weeks later, I was back in the Plant Manager’s Office, in Sweden, when the phone rang. It was Bill. “Your trip is authorised.” I smiled. Then Bill went on, “by the way, normally we travel Business Class but, because it is so far away, you will be travelling First Class.” My smile got wider. It was a Tuesday when I took this call and that very next Sunday, I caught the first flight out of Manchester to Heathrow en route to Sydney, via Bangkok. What an experience. I arrived in Sydney on Monday night, local time, came out of my Darling Harbour Hotel and went down to the low harbour wall; I sat down and was so overwhelmed over the events of the last week. From a small office, in a small plant in the middle of a wintry Sweden, I was now in the balmy evening breeze, literally on the other side of the world. Unbelievable! I knew I would just have to come again and bring Elizabeth.
I took the Tuesday to recover (I didn’t need it really) but used the day to begin to see the sights of Sydney. The plant was out at Parramatta, and I had a hire car but took a taxi out to the plant. I quickly got engrossed in reviewing this Cough Drop line. To be honest, I didn’t know too much about the particulars of a cough-drop making machine. We had them at Skelmersdale, and I had a nodding acquaintance with them, but it was easy to see how well it had been looked after. All the bits were there. A good start.
A cough drop machine is a totally integrated, multi-function machine, purpose-designed and manufactured, but simple in principle. Hot liquid is poured into a multitude of moulds of the appropriate lozenge shape and then at the right time each drop is emptied onto a metal cooling belt where the lozenges start to set. Once cooled enough, the lozenges are fed into waxed paper-lined cartons which are opened automatically from a flat stack of empty cartons. The full cartons are then collated and fed into a case packer. All the bits were there, and in good condition, apart from the case packer. So, I passed the basic machine as ‘fit for purpose’
but recommended immediately that a new case packer unit be purchased in Europe to replace the clapped-out unit in Paramatta.
It took me two days to inspect the line in detail with many photographs. Friday was another sightseeing day.
On Saturday morning I visited Bondi Beach (which was really rather dirty and disappointing) and then drove my hire car, dressed in shorts and T-shirt direct to the First-Class check-in at Sydney Airport to get my short connecting flight to Melbourne. I was very sandy! Even then, I just didn’t appreciate First Class.
“Anywhere I can get changed “I asked? “Yes, Mr Richardson just follow me through into the First-Class lounge”. This included a very plush bathroom/shower suite at my disposal. “No rush, Mr Richardson – you have plenty of time – the plane will not go without you!” And he meant it!
Boarding the plane was another eye-opener. I walked down a short ramp and before I knew it, I was in the very front section of the Jumbo Jet. There was only one other person in First Class that morning. After all, it was just a short hop to Melbourne, probably en route to London. As I took in my surroundings, the Qantas stewardess greeted me with, “What would you like to drink Mr Richardson?” This was a very, very special occasion.
The whole trip cost the company about £25,000. But I felt satisfied knowing that P&G suddenly had another Cough Drop production line, about to make a big difference to the profits.
As mentioned earlier, Elizabeth had been at school together with Patti and Marion. Patti had gone to the US, but Marion had decided to go to Australia with her husband Tim. (Strange – she called him Tim as everybody else called him Eddie! We never did find out why.)
Marion and Eddie lived in Melbourne. Naturally, Elizabeth suggested I stop one night with them en route to home, which I did, and this reinforced my desire to take Elizabeth to visit them.
On Sunday I caught my flight from Melbourne to Bangkok where I spent two days on holiday, at my own expense, seeing the sites, it’s a remarkable place. It’s not a place I would want to visit regularly but it’s still special, where the magnificent old-fashioned, ancient temples and traditional culture and rituals coexist right next to a modern busy Southeast Asian capital with all its wealth and devastating poverty.
This visit was clearly a highlight of my career. Obviously, my earlier visits to the US were amazing but Australia was something else.
Back at Trafford Park I continued getting more and more involved with packing upgrades for the Flash packing lines, and I was still making day visits to Brussels to liaise with the European planning people. I admit I didn’t handle this project very well. It was clear that the people in Brussels wanted to increase the capacity of Manchester but really didn’t give the people at Manchester enough information, early enough, to engineer the changes properly and in a timely way and carry out the necessary testing before the expected rollout of the new packaging.
And I failed to stand up to Brussels leaders to say, “No, we couldn’t do this because we needed more information and time.” Equally, I failed to communicate this to my own local management. I learnt a lot from this.
Another bad experience was when I was asked to lead a major warehouse project. This was to convert an existing low-rise, conventional warehouse to a high-rise, fully-automatic warehouse. Strangely enough, I had been the project engineer based in Newcastle assigned to build this low-level warehouse in the first place. The plan was also to introduce the Skelmersdale brands into the distribution system at Manchester, alongside the conventional P&G products.
I knew nothing about distribution. Apparently simple, but complex in the way orders are received from the customer, set out in the plants for production and then assembled. I replaced at short notice an experienced production manager and the project was in a mess. Trying to stamp my own authority on a well-established team, which was really out of control and in an area I knew nothing about, was really beyond me. Again, I should have asked for help. The existing plant manager of the time had been very successful in building the new paper plant and he was a very tough man to work for. His mistake was to assume I could do the job because I was an experienced P&G project manager. For big projects I’m not sure I was really!
After these two disasters I was then given a very ‘romantic’ assignment, as the paper plant waste manager. I worked alongside Greg; a nonP&G contract buyer and we made a formidable team. I was part of the Procter & Gamble European Waste Management Team and I learnt a lot about what was going on in Germany, the different materials used in making disposable nappies and in packaging generally. We organised how to separate and collect the different waste streams created as part of the production process. Greg quickly found out those areas where we could sell certain waste at a very substantial product profit and others where we just had to pay money to take it away. Of course, there was the additional focus to reduce the waste in the first place. It is interesting today to see how people strive to reduce the use of plastic. I agree, but what we really must also do is eliminate the use of plastic in the first place. Plastics are all very different. Some are easy to reprocess and recycle (if non contaminated) and some are easy to sell if they are in demand by other industries. However printed plastic is especially difficult due to ink contamination. Nevertheless, Greg and I contributed about £1 million to the plant budget in the first year.
Once the systems were set up, there wasn’t much for me to do so I was migrated into the HR Department which I had been wanting for a long time. Again, I learnt a lot. I think I also contributed a great deal.
One thing of note, is that P&G is very thorough. Anyone working in HR can quickly make a big mess organisationally with disastrous consequences to the whole of the production process and to the people. Consequently, I used to go to endless modules offsite to study employment law. I also got involved in the UK recruitment process, initially at Sheffield, and then more locally at Manchester University. I was also responsible for workforce payroll. However, I had a very good but small team which was very experienced and knew it all. So I just let them get on with it! Also, I was administratively responsible for the medical centre which was fascinating too. There was a UK-based HR community and again I was part of that and was able to visit plants throughout UK and Ireland.
But a big chunk of my time in HR, initially, was occupied with managing the Procter & Gamble Legal Protection Plan at Manchester.
At the time, Procter & Gamble had an employment legal protection plan which would support the costs of any employee who wished to make a legal claim against the company. I don’t think this programme existed anywhere else in P&G, except in the UK. For non-UK Plant managers, it came as a shock that such a plan existed.
It was designed to ensure that if an existing employee judged they had a claim against the company, they could apply to the company for funding to progress their claim. The plan was intended to discourage employees from seeking financial help from outside organisations. As such the plan was very successful.
The company ethos as ever was to be fair but firm. Once an employee made a claim, it was clearly part of a formal legal process and this opened up another wide avenue of learning for me. On reflection, I think I should have been a lawyer. Logical, precise with written words, analytical – it all fits.
Throughout this period on the legal issues, I worked with a company solicitor and learnt a lot from her. I attended an employer tribunal hearing, (which we won). In another case we got as far as the door into the courtroom only to be greeted by our barrister who announced that he had come to a settlement with the opposition. Selfishly, I was disappointed at that outcome.
I suppose we always had to see the bigger picture. At times it was hard, but on a case-by-case basis and overall, we always understood the longterm strategic nature of what we were about. I remember working on one complicated case which involved going to see a Queen’s Counsel (QC) to seek his advice. l was so impressed by his communication skills, as well as his intellectual capacity, and utterly overawed by his ability to get to the key issues in such a complicated case, in a very short time.
But now, as the end of the century approached, I was asked to be the Y2K coordinator for the plant. I didn’t have much choice, but they needed me to do something! It was January 1999 when I began. Again, this was an interesting job, made particularly challenging by the way Procter & Gamble (like many other companies worldwide) were frightened to the core that none of their production and distribution systems would work after midnight on the 31 December 1999. I did like the thoroughness but felt it did go rather over the top, but that may be hindsight talking. It was all about risk management. I always remember Brian Clough saying that when any decision or situation was in front of him, he would ask himself, “what is this decision, or situation, worth in monetary terms?”. Maybe trivial or maybe serious, it helped focus the mind. It is hard to remember the panic that was going on everywhere as the time of the pending switch into the new century approached.
The plant was full of desktop computers which were easy to replace and test, but in Manchester we had this brand-new, fully-automatic warehouse system. This was the very same one I had worked on earlier. As I said, the project had been in a mess. Apparently, it got no better after I left. P&G’s insistence, by some team members, on lots of inappropriate details and
facilities within the planned software had caused the Swiss software company to go into liquidation. I discovered that the final programme had been written ad hoc by the P&G engineers. The company was really in the dark as to what was going to happen on 31 December, 1999. Clearly, we couldn’t take that risk. Having a warehouse full of product, which you could not get out or the inability to add in fresh product, were not viable options. I recommended we buy a new computer, copy the existing programme, and then switch over computers one weekend about three weeks before December 31. This we did.
So, one weekend we wound the date forward on the test computer. To be honest, we did not find lots of problems but there were some and it was still worth spending the money. By comparison to my earlier project work at Manchester, this was a success and I felt pleased with the conscientious way I conducted the programme. The existing plant manager at the time was delighted.
Because of my experience at Skelmersdale, I was then asked to manage a small but significant redundancy programme within Procter & Gamble, Manchester.
The redundancies were caused by the elimination of the old liquids and granules, and health and beauty care operations at Manchester, in order to focus just on the new paper modules. It was unusual for Procter & Gamble to have some parts of a site booming and other parts having to shed people. All the principles and processes I had learnt in Skelmersdale were just waiting there to be used again. Again, another successful piece of work of which I can feel proud.
It was early 2001 and I was in the middle of this redundancy programme. I had assumed that the programme would not apply to any managers, as was the normal case. However, at other sites it appeared that it did apply to managers. My plant manager came to me and said, “This redundancy package applies to you as well if you want to choose it,” and it was a good package. I was coming up to fifty-seven. I had worked for P&G
for almost 34 years. I worried about the ability to survive financially but gaps between my leaving pension entitlement and my normal state pension payable at sixty-five were met by the company. Still uncertain, I decided to take the plunge and told Dave Mills I would take retirement at the end of July 2001.
During all these final years at P&G, I had been part of the P&G UK recruitment team and was particularly responsible for recruiting from the engineering faculties at Manchester University.
I loved working with the students, running presentation skills workshops as well as giving short presentations on CVs and all sorts of career-related workshops. I would also go in and deliver company presentations. I loved it. I would say to my recruitment team, “Let’s go. It’s showtime!”
When I told Terry Dray (my main contact in the careers service) that I would not be visiting next year, he was immediately concerned that Procter & Gamble were not coming in to recruit. I reassured him that was not the case, “No, I’m simply retiring”.
Very shortly thereafter, he invited me in and asked if I would be interested to work as a career consultant at the Manchester University Career Service, particularly working with the engineering schools: “You clearly come well recommended by members of my staff who have worked with you.” “Yes, for a few years, part-time,” I replied. Within a few weeks I met his boss (the Head of Careers at Manchester - Jane Ratchford). She again reiterated the point that I came highly recommended by the members of her staff and she was in no doubt I would fit her needs. “But is it enough for you?” she asked.
“Yes - I like training, I like working with young people. I think I can offer a lot.”
I left Procter & Gamble on the 31 July 2001 and spent August painting my house and then on the 1 September 2001, I became a part-time career consultant at Manchester University. As one door shuts another door opens.
God
This is the period of my life during which I experienced the largest number of ripples. I’ve always said ‘He moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform’. I know that to be true.
As a young boy growing up, the church simply was not around. My mother got me to join Scout Cubs at the local church and I was occasionally sent off to Sunday school by myself. Maybe she just wanted me out of the house! Particularly if my dad was at home.
The biggest early influence in changing my life in this direction came from Lyn, my first serious girlfriend. We had met at the school dance club. Part of our dating ritual was for me to go on a Sunday evening with Lyn to the Highams Park Baptist Church. After church we would go back for evening tea and then spend the rest of the evening watching TV, with her parents, which obviously was not that exciting apart from the odd cuddle in the kitchen.
The minister at Highams Park Baptist Church was Reverend Stephen Winward, a great preacher, softly spoken, but every word counted. I became an active member of the church and with Lyn I would attend the Young People’s Fellowship following on from the Sunday evening service.
This was all happening in my late teens whilst I was an apprentice with de Havilland’s. I was often studying very hard at the weekends. For some reason I missed quite a few Young People’s Fellowship events and I remember one evening there was a knock at the door. The house was in an absolute mess but there stood Reverend Stephen Winwood coming to say “hello” and to find out how I was and to have a chat. I was amazed. I continued to be involved with the church and probably would have gone through a total immersion baptism as is the Baptist tradition. And of course, when I married Lyn in August 1966, Reverend Stephen Winwood conducted the service in that same Highams Park Baptist Church.
Within a year of us being married, and having completed my apprenticeship, we moved away to the North East and our association with the church faded. I guess our church attendance had been focused very much on Highams Park. As young people growing up together, we didn’t put any roots down with any particular church in the North East and so Christianity got pushed to one side.
One of my early P&G colleagues, Tony Lees, and wife Joyce, were strong Methodist Christians and still are. I don’t see Tony and Joyce very often but our friendship continues to this day. His ripple was lending me a Christian book by Michael Green. They had planted a seed. When I had finished the book, I tried to return it. He replied, “No, give it to someone else”.
Throughout all my subsequent years, with all the twists and turns and ups and downs of life, Tony and Joyce have always been there to turn to if I wanted to discuss something.
Then for many years I didn’t think too much about God. My career took all my attention.
A big jump forward to 1988.
Elizabeth, our family and I had just come back from P&G in Brussels, and in October Matthew had a birthday party. As was the tradition with all the expat families in Brussels, both boys and girls would be invited. Perhaps not so in the UK! For Matthew’s eighth birthday party, only one girl turned up - Felicity Willmott - another significant generator of ripples. Felicity was in the same class as Matthew and was attending Sunday School at the Altrincham Methodist Church. She was a member of the junior church choir there. Matthew was truly headhunted into the choir by Felicity and I remember regularly going to church to drop him off and pick him up an hour later.
It is difficult to reconcile my thoughts and feelings of those days with how life is today. In this situation (despite my earlier strong involvement with the Baptist Church in Highams Park) I was nervous about entering the premises and ill at ease with these unknown Christians. However, when Matthew was singing solo, Elizabeth and I would join the congregation to give him our support.
I didn’t realise that another ripple was about to be launched, perhaps one of the biggest ripples ever, by Felicity’s mother, Ann Willmott. She would often sit behind us when we came to church. Ann had a very clear distinctive voice. One particular Sunday morning when we were listening to Matthew sing, Ann Willmott lent forward in a quiet but gentle clear voice and whispered, “John, Elizabeth, it is so good to see you in church when Matthew is singing, but it would be even better to see you in church when he is not singing.” I tell that story often to illustrate how Christians can simply make a difference by witnessing God in the smallest of ways. Very powerful.
The congregation at Altrincham Methodist church were and are very special people. Why was I ever frightened of them? Of course, it says more about me than anything else. We quickly became regulars and we applied to become members of the church although Elizabeth and I went to separate discipleship courses. I don’t know why that was. Each course was led by the then minister Reverend Paul Smith.
I remember one conversation during my discipleship course which was and remains very impactful for me. For the first three weeks we had been studying Jewish history through The Old Testament and we talked about different faiths when Paul asked the question, “Do you believe that there is just one God?” He went on, quite forcibly, to simply state that, “this has to be the case.” The cornerstone of Christian faith. “One God for every person on this planet and it is the same God”. I hadn’t thought about that before but it is so profound. Yet as we look around our world today, we see great divisions between different denominations within the Christian church, as well even greater divisions between different faiths beyond Christianity. The awful pain and torture that groups have inflicted on each other over the centuries, in the name of God, is mind blowing and it is still going on. Little did I know how big an impact that would have on my later life and relationships.
Another different story. Maybe it was in the discipleship course or maybe some other meeting. Paul Smith opened his book and read a poem, “I stand by the door” by Sam Shoemaker. It was so powerful to me to help me understand the kind of relationship I wanted to have with God. I simply had to have a copy of that poem. For many, many years I carried a copy of that in my wallet. It’s highly recommended reading. Just look it up on the internet.
Paul then quickly moved on and asked if we still wanted to continue with our individual application for membership. We all did. But before I confirmed my commitment, I asked if I could go into the church and have a look at the large plain wooden cross that stood high on the front wall facing the congregation. After a while I realised Paul was at my side. I said to him, “Paul when I look at that cross and think of Jesus I feel as though my sins are forgiven”. Paul replied “John, if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord, then your sins are forgiven.” Magic.
Elizabeth‘s great contribution to Altrincham Methodist Church started during her discipleship course. Paul Smith asked everyone what could they do for the church. Elizabeth had seen her sister’s Methodist
Church at Cheadle covered in banners and thought that she could make banners for our church. So, in 1999 with the millennium approaching, she made her first banner, which comes out every year as the calendar moves another year. She went on to make six or seven other fantastic banners, including a new alter foil which is simply amazing, stunning and beautiful, all handmade. This alter foil is a permanent feature of our church decoration whilst the others come out at the appropriate times in the church calendar, a wonderful legacy.
When people commit to membership, there is a special part of the service when the applicants come forward to declare their faith and commitment to the church in front of the whole congregation. There were three others on that day and each of us were allowed one other person to stand alongside us as we took our commitments. Elizabeth and I chose Ann Wilmot and her husband Gordon.
During this time, Elizabeth and I were also attending dancing classes and we were quite good. We felt drawn to offer our skills, perhaps helping the younger members of the church to learn to dance. That didn’t pan out exactly as I expected. However, there was in existence a very small youth club (like the YPF at Highams Park) and one of the leaders approached me and asked would I like to join the team. That’s how I got roped in to youth work and quickly became the team leader but well supported by a small group of dedicated helpers. So, every other Wednesday we organised a trip for the young people to go out to places around Manchester. In turn we visited Manchester Airport, the stables where all the police horses were kept, swimming, and even abseiling one evening, led by a very competent climber. Alternate weeks, we would simply stay in and use the limited facilities of the table-tennis table, snooker table and other games for the youngsters to play. I regret not having a God spot where we could perhaps have introduced faith to them in a gentle way. I felt I was unable to do it justice, always nervous, but I should have tried.
During this time, I also became a church steward and of course got to know Paul Smith and his wife Margaret very well, as well as their
youngest son Phil, who was helping out in youth club. Later their middle son David also helped out at the youth club. He was a great inspiration, particularly when we were having difficult times dealing with more disruptive young people from outside our church family. I would go along with all sorts of organisational ideas and he would simply turn round and say, “John, where is God in this situation?”. Very thought-provoking.
On a lighter note, as already mentioned, Elizabeth and I had tried to set up a dance group for the young people which never quite got off the ground. However, one Saint Valentine’s Day, we held a dance in the church hall. Paul Smith led the proceedings and because he couldn’t dance, he really picked the wrong music. He loved Big Band music but some of that is not easy to dance to. I intervened and played some simple, slow Fox trots, some simple quick steps and waltzes and, in the end, people had a great time. It was suggested that if there were enough people interested in learning to dance, Elizabeth and I would set up a Friday night group in which we would teach the basic dancing steps. We started with about six couples including Paul and Margaret Smith of course. When they moved down to Plymouth, as a farewell event, Elizabeth and I took them to Blackpool and he and Margaret danced a wonderful, slow foxtrot on that famous Blackpool Tower Ballroom floor! Paul was rather pleased to say the least!
I continued as team leader for quite a while but as I got older, we had to have a new face at the front and so I took on a more administrative role. I took over developing Safeguarding responsibilities for the church and later for The Circuit. I thought this was just a simple job keeping records and so forth. Ultimately safeguarding became an industry and not only including young people but also vulnerable adults. Part of my job there was to run training courses across The Circuit. I remember, with great fondness, the help I got from Liz Harwood and Jacky Griffith. We were a good team. I’m pretty sure we made a difference. This I did for sixteen years.
My other push as a member of The Church Council was to continually campaign for a trained youth worker. Eventually this happened after much support within the council and practical support by Reverend Paul Smith. The very first part-time youth worker was a young man called Christie Spurling. He went on to set up a young people’s help group in Wythenshawe Manchester (N-GAGE), wrote a book and eventually was awarded the MBE for his services to youth. His work and contribution still carry on. I can’t claim any credit at all for the great work he has gone on to do, but perhaps I started a ripple by getting the funds from the church in the first place for his first working appointment.
Meanwhile Elizabeth had become Church Secretary for Altrincham and then later also for The Circuit, initially in Paul Smith’s time and later for Reverend David Cooper. Whilst this book is about ripples affecting me it would be remiss of me not to mention Elizabeth’s quiet but significant contributions too.
Elizabeth was secretary for Altrincham and The Circuit and therefore would take minutes of all the meetings and particularly AGMs. She was very dedicated, precise and captured every important detail.
Reverend David Cooper’s time at the church was extremely difficult and he basically split the congregation right down the middle. The defining meeting resulted in an official complaint being made by two members of the Altrincham congregation. This led to the church hierarchy coming into Altrincham to investigate what had happened. Elizabeth’s minutes were a key point in the process. Eventually there was a meeting held in central London to review the situation. Elizabeth’s minutes were presented. Both parties agreed that she had correctly recorded what happened. Based on that, the panel was able to move quickly to decide what to do next - to help the church heal and bring the congregation back together. The accuracy of her minutes meant that the focus went immediately on how to rebuild and reconcile.
In the Autumn of 1999, I had not been going to church very much as I had been working on a major redecoration of our kitchen. On my first Sunday back in church, I felt people good-naturedly saying, “John is back - the kitchen must be finished.” During that service Margaret Smith got up and announced there was a project starting and the church was looking for volunteers to go to Romania to help rebuild a wreck of a place which would become a hospice for children in Romania with AIDS. “We want to have people who can paint, do a bit of tiling, refit and rebuild the dining area and kitchen.” I smiled. It took me a few months to convince myself I wanted to go but by Christmas I agreed I would go the following summer for a week or so.
I needed to be inoculated first and spoke to the company nurse, Mike Schofield, in my medical centre about getting this done at the plant. Categorically he said, “No, go to your GP” but he was interested to know a bit more about the project: “Do you realise that they’re knocking down the whole of the canteen in the old part of the plant? We’ve got a new canteen in the new paper plant and I guess that all the old equipment will be scrapped”. As I’ve said, He moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.
I spoke to my boss, the Plant Manager. He simply said, “Take what you want.” Jim Ball, my great helper from Skelmersdale, was working on site clearing out all the unwanted equipment from the now-defunct canteen. The Trafford team, led by Jim, loaded up three 40-tonne wagons with all sorts of canteen equipment. All the equipment was given free to be reused in the hospice; an amazingly generous offer by P&G. Later on that summer, whilst I was in Romania working on site, it was strange seeing all that familiar furniture start a new life – the tables, the chairs, the false ceilings. Even the old canteen noticeboard had made it across! However, not all the old ovens were appropriate for use in Romania so, what could not be used directly was sold in the UK and the funds used to buy brand-new equipment for Romania.
So that’s what happened. Such memories! Firstly, of looking back and seeing what we had physically accomplished and, secondly, of seeing young children afflicted with AIDS. I had expected them to be miserable and sorrowful but they were actually so joyous. They were so glad to see us when we went down to the hostel one afternoon and they just danced for us. Amazing.
One other particular story I often tell in Christian circles is the story of The Good Samaritan. When based at Skelmersdale I would occasionally visit Saffron Walden. Typically, I would leave the plant about 3pm in the afternoon and drive down and stay overnight. My company car at the time was a left over ‘wreck’ and known to be unreliable.
It was about November time and it was getting dark early but I was comfortably speeding along the M6 between Birmingham and the M1, heading south. Suddenly, the car began to lose power and so I just pulled over onto the hard shoulder. I realised this car was going nowhere. It was the time when mobile phones were the size of bricks and not many people actually had them. Stupidly I had not brought a top coat and I really didn’t know what to do. By this time it was very dark and raining. I was hoping perhaps the police would come along but sadly they didn’t. I remember getting out of the car and walking along the hard shoulder, waving and trying to attract attention. Eventually one car did stop. This is where The Good Samaritan story fits. I went up to the passenger side of the car. Inside sat a very big smiling sheikh with his wife in the back, “can I help you?” he asked. “ Yes please. I know that at the next junction there is a motel and I’m sure I’ll be able to stop there overnight.” So that’s where he took me, leaving my car on the hard shoulder.
I phoned the police that night and then later I was told it had been taken to a local garage to be picked up the next day.
I was so relieved by the help this man had given me. For those not familiar with The Good Samaritan story you can find it in the Bible New Testament, Luke, Chapter 10, verse 25.
And yet another story about God’s Grace. One particular evening, my son Matthew and his wife Claire came round for dinner. They were clearly upset. They had been married for six years. They had unsuccessfully tried a round of IVF treatments and the prognosis for future successful pregnancy via treatment was not good.
We counselled them to give the fertility treatment one more attempt, and we would pay. I clearly remember saying, “Don’t worry, He will fix it.”
Within two months, Claire was pregnant (without any treatment) but faith was again put to the test when Claire learnt that her recently conceived baby had died in her womb. “He will fix it” And fix it He did. Claire quickly became pregnant again and our lovely grandson Frank was born on 8 May 2014.
Frank was dedicated in Altrincham Methodist Church service led by the new minister Reverend Kevin Johnson.
After twenty-three years at Altrincham Methodist Church, we had really become very much at home and very much part of the “furniture.”
However, a Church is not about the building or the furniture. I have already said that the people of Altrincham Methodist Church are special people and some recognition of that is now appropriate.
Through our overall involvement in Church Life, we knew many people and many people knew us. But Methodist Life is often focused deliberately around small groups. One particular set of groups are the House Groups – groups of people who choose to meet – typically monthly – to talk about their faith, to listen, to share and to learn from each other. After a few years we chose to join the Tuesday House Group. We chose it because we felt comfortable with the established group and that it would not get into high-and-mighty theological abstract discussions. We chose well. Initially under the leadership of Sue Jolley, and then continued
by her husband David, the group just gelled. We developed a group where we could indeed study bits of scripture, or relevant politics but most importantly where we could also openly share thoughts, feelings, uncertainties, doubts, hopes, worries in a safe encouraging space, without threat or risk of judgement. The group has recently lost its leader, David Jolley (who passed on just a few weeks ago as I complete this book), but we are determined to continue. We have added a few new members and lost a few – but the essence of the group remains – a mini group of ripple generators I love and trust
Another important group has been the KKK (Kit Kat Klub) walking group led by Graham Jackson, former employee of Nestlé’s. Graham had had a heart attack and soon decided to retire and start walking on a regular weekly basis. This group was mostly male but Elizabeth quickly decided to join in. I too joined in when I retired. This group was one of fun, exercise, sharing and regularly looking forward to the pub lunch during the winter months. Sadly, this group too is much reduced but Graham continues. Another ripple generator!
Another person worthy of mention is Chris Nock. He was a member of both the Tuesday House Group and the KKK. Chris too has sadly passed on over the last two months. He got me into golf some 25 years ago and we maintained that golfing relationship and deep friendship throughout. A true gentleman and I was shocked, but not surprised, to learn that at the beginning of 2024 he and his wife Norma were still providing pastoral care to others despite his obvious failing health. Both he and Norma are more examples of the power of ripple generation.
As I look back and look forward, I feel very secure in all this God stuff.
Let me finish this bit with a short story about me playing God! Graham Jackson (our church organist) had decided to create and perform a musical dramatisation based on a song by Bryan and Sally, “What Kind of Love is This”. The story is about the Life and Death of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit to be with us forever. I was a lot
younger then but I suddenly got asked to play the part of Jesus!! “What do you want me to do?” I asked the director?” “Oh, just play it as Jesus would behave”. No problem there then! David Slack, the director, was very good at direction and helped me through it. In truth the part was straightforward (as I wasn’t in the second half!!) but it was amazing.
For the Palm Sunday bit, I was in modern dress surrounded by my two sun-glassed protectors and then walked down and shook hands with the members of the congregation. Great music played throughout. Then I saw Jim Berrisford. Jim was a member of Altrincham Golf Club –Captain even - and a good player and always kind to me on the course as a relative novice. His faith was strong. “Hello Jim” I said.
In the second half I was dragged down to the front of the church –just wearing jeans where I was ‘whipped’ by Chris Nock (!!!) and then literally hoisted up onto the large wooden cross behind the alter table at the Church. I was wearing a crown of thorns too. Very emotional. At the time of Jesus’s spirit leaving Him, the place went into darkness and I quickly ‘disappeared’. No one saw me leave. Once the light returned everyone saw an empty cross. Very dramatic.
The next week I was down at the golf course club house. The barman told me that Jim Berrisford had been around telling everyone he had met Jesus at AMC. What another ripple generator!
10 Manchester University
Back in September 2001, I started a new career as a Career Consultant at Manchester University. I loved my time in the Career Service there. I had always had a passion for helping young people to grow and develop. I just liked trying to explain things, where I could, and to see the pleasure and pride in young people growing in knowledge and skill. It sounds cheesy but nevertheless, it is true. It is particularly true when, at my age, you realise that the future of our world is in the hands of the young.
I also enjoyed the thrill and joy of running training sessions for large groups of students in the Faculties of Chemical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Physics, and offering my knowledge and skills to help them write CVs, prepare for interviews and presentations.
I also enjoyed the 1:1 sessions where I would try to help students who sought basic career advice. Some would want help in deciding which of two offers they should take. Others simply wanted to know where to start. And everything in between. All were welcome.
I also enjoyed very much the interaction with all the employers who regularly visited Manchester University.
Consultants would also make regular visits to the companies in ‘their area of speciality’. So, I would visit companies such as Rolls Royce, and other major large manufacturing companies such as Unilever. I would also
visit all the big four accounting companies and giants of Management Consultancy and IT, such as Accenture and IBM.
Through these visits I got additional insights into what the big companies were looking for in the graduates they were looking to recruit.
Clearly some companies wanted to focus on particular degrees. For example, Engineering and Scientific-based companies would want Science and Mathematics degrees. Accounting companies and banks would focus on Economics.
However, an underlying perspective which was always there but which got reinforced by my experiences in visiting these companies, was that they basically wanted bright, intelligent people, with vision, strong leadership skills and the ability to work with others. Sometimes the actual degree subject is secondary. Not really surprising, is it?
Some of the business trips were quite exciting.
The most exciting was to visit Portsmouth at a careers’ event run by the Royal Navy.
I joined a fellow consultant (Graham Keating) and we drove down to Portsmouth the night before. We both felt quite excited that morning as we drove into Portsmouth Harbour and parked up. We thought we knew what to expect but even the event description did not prepare us for the reality of a morning aboard HMS Richmond. We were kitted out in the full white overalls, headsets and safety helmets that we would need to wear to be aboard an operational frigate.
As we went into the English Channel at full speed, out of the blue we spotted a Harrier Jet circling around us making all sorts of manoeuvres. We were brought back to another focus as they fired the 4’’gun. Almost immediately we had another frigate alongside and people and loads were being transferred between the vessels whilst the two frigates continued
at full speed. The officer looking after us let it be known that this part of the trip was not open to career consultants!
We next visited the engine room and inspected the Rolls-Royce engine powering the frigate. I was surprised at how low the technology was in controlling this engine. They had few computer-controlled components. They explained that they were using Sinclair chips from the early Sinclair home computers for their control systems and were struggling because this particular component was becoming obsolete as these computers came out of production.
I commented on how basic it all was compared to a modern, fast production line, generating five hundred nappies a minute. The officer in charge explained that simplicity was what it all was about. When you are at sea, in an operational situation, you never know what sort of problems you might have to face. Priority at sea is keeping the ship safe and operable and maintaining its mission. Complicated design is not helpful. I found that assessment so insightful.
The operational control room was something else. It was illuminated in a dark-red glow and all one could see were the illuminated displays. The only sound was the regular ‘beep, beep’ from the radar sonar. This housed all the ship’s controls, gauges, screens, panels, radar instruments tracking other ships and planes in the area. Also, this was where the torpedoes firing controls were located. This really was James Bond territory.
But not all companies got it right. One particular large financial company prided itself on operating a balanced male/female ratio and culture. However, it was clear that all the women were really trying to behave like the men in the style of dress, speech and presentation techniques. Apparently, it was customary for this company to give little gifts to all the careers consultants who came to visit. All the men were given a computer table set (pen and pencil set) while women were given face-powder compacts! There was a stunned silence in the conference room. One female careers’ consultant quietly said, “Do you know what
you’ve just done?” The company was shocked by the statement because they didn’t really understand it, which shows that they really weren’t treating men and women equally. When the penny dropped, they were very embarrassed. I doubt if they ever did that again.
My visit to IBM was another insightful learning experience, particularly as it was over twenty years ago. IBM had a clear vision of the future and their partin it. They saw the future of the company not making mainframe computers but providing software and intrinsic devices through which devices and other machines could be controlled and operated within remote homes and offices. This was before Bluetooth and Wi-Fi became what itis today.
They were also very clear about the kind of people they wanted to work in the development department. One of the best senior people in IBM had a degree in Latin and they were very proud of that. Why? Because Latin is a very logical language apparently and that’s what they needed.
The last IBM presentation that day was a guy who wore spectacles and pretended he had the ability to connect with a satellite. So, he spent the time talking to satellites and advising people on traffic on the A4 in order to get to the airport. This was extremely funny at the time – not so today. That’s the nature of vision.
When I first joined the Career Service, I was told that I would be selfemployed. It would give me certain tax advantages but not significantly. And then some eleven years after I arrived, the university realised that this was probably the wrong tax decision and I would need to become a fulltime employee.
At the age of 67, I wondered if they would be able to pull it off but they valued me and managed it. It was the norm for new employees to go and have a lunch meeting with the Chancellor of the Faculty. At the meeting, the Chancellor would obviously introduce himself and ask a bit
of background from the new employees. I was not typical and I think the Chancellor and myself were both really quite embarrassed by it!
I had intended to stay for a couple of years but I fitted in so well. I think they valued what I did and I enjoyed working with the students and, suddenly, two years turned into fourteen. But by then I was less energetic and newer leaders came in with different expectations of what they wanted me to do. I felt the role had changed and while the expertise I offered in running courses, in writing CVs, interview trainings etc. was still very much valued by the students, others had different ideas.
I decided at the age of 71 it was finally time to retire and, in any case, life had other demands on my time.
11
The Family
So far, the story has been largely focused on the various events and locations in which I have lived and worked. It might appear that my family was purely incidental, and perhaps at times in my active career, that was the situation. When we came back from Brussels in 1988 and settled in Altrincham, Sara was 14, Amy was 11 and Matthew was 7. Sara and Amy entered the fourth and first grade at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls (I still think in old-style school grades). Matthew was to enter the first level of Bollin Primary School, in nearby Bowdon.
Dad had not been well for many years- too much smoking and not enough exercise. He had been in and out of hospital frequently and finally died in Whipps Cross Hospital at the age of 74 on 13th July 1990. The call came about 8 pm and I drove straight from Manchester, getting to Leytonstone at midnight. I arrived in time - as if he was hanging on until I got there. Mum was not prepared for this outcome.
Previously all three children had been at The British School of Brussels. The BSB’s teaching philosophy and practice was to provide an environment which was as friendly as possible and supportive, in what was a foreign country, and still a relatively stressful situation for all. The BSB believed that this environment would encourage successful learning. Altrincham Grammar, whilst educationally excellent, had a very different culture and a much more formal approach to learning which would create its own problems.
One early experience set Sara’s attitude. One morning she was surprised to see everyone in her class get up when the headmistress came into the room. Sara didn’t get up. In fact, no one had told her that was expected! “Will you please stand-up Sara?” was the instruction. Her reply was, “What for?” I don’t think she said it in a malicious way, but simply asked an honest question. Sara soon adapted and did well at school, but when she came to choose Sixth Form decided to go elsewhere. Principally because the grammar school didn’t provide the subjects she wanted to pursue, but I also feel the ongoing formality of it all was not to Sara’s liking.
Amy was younger and more flexible and just got on with schoolwork and her school life.
Amy had been a keen gymnast whilst in Brussels, and so we immediately looked for a well-established gym school. Consequently we took her over to Gorton, in Central East Manchester, three nights a week. This was a big drag on both Elizabeth and myself. Amy quickly found out that while she was good, she was not good enough to progress into senior competition, and after a while she lost interest.
Matthew was quickly fitting in with his new friends, and we were pleased when he later passed the 11+ to go to Altrincham Grammar School for Boys. In his teenage years, he became interested in music and singing and started a pop group with three of his friends from school. He was the lead singer and bass guitarist. They even produced their own song and cut a demo CD. But no one came knocking at his door. However, it was this interest that led him to study media technology as a university degree.
Both Sara and Amy also went to university. Sara eventually to Newcastle to study Psychology after a brief affair with Art & Design. Amy had a natural flair for languages, and having learnt fluent French in Brussels, went to on study French and Italian at Leicester University.
During these early years, Sara and Amy saw a lot of their father, Brian, over weekends and holidays. They would stay with Brian and his new partner Margaret. Consequently, Elizabeth, Matthew and I would often be on holiday as a threesome. Sara and Amy seemed happy with the arrangement and it all seemed to work out well.
One of the great joys - throughout all this period which continues to this very day is the good brotherly-sisterly relationship between all three of my children.
Very soon, Elizabeth decided to go back to work. Before we met, she had been a laboratory technician in the School of Agriculture at Newcastle University, and looked for similar work in the Manchester area. She started working in Didsbury, in the material-testing laboratory, and then later in a materials fire testing laboratory in Altrincham.
She was a competent touch typist with shorthand ability but did not have any modern computer-based experience. So, she decided to go to college to get trained in the modern world of computer technology. She also decided to go back to night school to study English Literature at A Level. Very hard working, she was disappointed not to get an A (but she got a creditable B).
In our early days, whilst in the North East, Elizabeth had started learning ballroom dancing right from scratch, and we both went to dancing classes with our friends, Pat and John. So, it was natural for us when we came back to Altrincham in 1988, to rekindle our interest in Ballroom Dancing.
We initially went to a small dance school in Urmston (Painters Studio). Here we added the Jive and Latin dances to our basic Ballroom repertoire. Elizabeth also had a colleague who had decided, that by the time she was 40, she would become competent at the Jive, which she clearly had done! Elizabeth and I then started to accompany the colleague and her husband
to a dance school in St Helens (The Silhouette Dance School). There, we progressed greatly in all dances. St Helens encouraged people to enter for medals and we both did pretty well. Elizabeth was particularly pleased that she got, ‘Very Highly Commended’ for the Jive and I only got a ‘Highly Commended’. Not that she was competitive! Unfortunately, the school became very crowded and it became more and more difficult to learn and enjoy. So, we stopped going and sadly never really found anywhere else to meet our needs.
Elizabeth was great at handicraft, particularly in repairing, designing and creating clothes, especially for women. She would also be in demand for repairing men’s trousers from members of the Altrincham church congregation! As already mentioned all her church banner, were simply breathtaking.
Once Sara and Amy had finished their degrees, they left home. Sara continued her education to become a social worker, which she successfully did, and has worked in that field ever since. Amy discovered that unless you were exceptional it was difficult to find a career based on language skills alone. She worked as a Travel rep, in PR, in Marketing, and has now become successful in web design work.
Matthew left home very quickly after his successful Media Technology degree. His initial interest was in Music and Media, but during his degree he became hooked on animation. For his final year project, he created from scratch a short video story of a piece of chewing gum, swimming around in the water of our kitchen, sliding down a broom handle and then eventually being picked up by a bird outside and dropped back into a chewing-gum making factory. All he had to work with was a very basic computer. It was very slow by today’s standards. For those of you who don’t know about animation (most of us), individual ingredients needed for each shot have to be ‘rendered’ into the finished painted picture. On our machine, this was a very slow process. Matthew would leave the computer running overnight. His hope was that the rendering would be completed without crashing the programme. Sometimes it did,
sometimes it didn’t. But he is very patient and even when the rendering failed to complete, he didn’t rant or rave. He just tried it again. This patience and attention to detail would pay dividends later.
In 2003, Matthew graduated with his first-class degree in Media Technology. He found it hard to break into animation but eventually, through perseverance, he did. Starting at the bottom and gradually proving himself, it was with great pride only recently, in December 2023, I saw his name on the big screen at my local cinema, crediting him as one of the Visual Effect Supervisors for a major Universal Studios action feature film!
Mind you, his patience can be very frustrating. I introduced Matthew to golf. How slow he was at setting up his shot and he still hasn’t changed very much - except that over the years he has turned into a very good golfer.
The thing Elizabeth and I had always like to do was to travel. In these early years following our return from Brussels, we visited Menorca and Rome. With Matthew, we went sailing for two weeks in the Greek islands, crewing for Jo and Roger.
Sara was always good at running, although she’s quite short, which means she needs to do long strides to keep up with everybody else! She was the first of our family to complete The London Marathon. Soon after Matthew was born, I did my first Newcastle Great North Run. Running The Great North Run was one of the best experiences ever. Running away from the start line, down along the Newcastle City motorway, onto the Tyne Bridge, with the Red Arrows giving a low fly-past to send us on our way. Again, sheer magic. I had trained hard and wanted to break two hours. That morning, it must have been the hottest Sunday on Tyneside ever. Before we started, the thermometer gauge had already tracked over 70-degrees F. Unheard of ever before or since. In 1997, I repeated The Great North Run, but this time with Matthew and Sara both competing. Of course, they both finished well ahead of me. More recently, I was very
proud of Matthew and Claire who ran the London Marathon together and both completed it in good times.
My visit to Romania I’ve already covered but of special note was that six years after I went, Elizabeth made the same trip and then repeated it the following year with Sara.
Taking the redundancy package from P&G in 2001, and then immediately starting a part-time job at the University career service, made a big difference in the opportunities we could take. It made my immediate retirement plans even more financially secure. I was able to pay off the mortgage and have some money left over to deposit into savings and with the part-time job at the University it was like having a full-time salary without any of the worries about surviving on an early company retirement.
As a retirement present to ourselves, we had booked a World Trip for 2001. Starting in New York (to see Pattie and John), Fiji, and Australia to visit Marion and Eddie, and then travel home via Bangkok. What an experience!
We flew to New York in early October just three weeks after 9/11. Downtown Manhattan was very dramatic. I shall never forget the pictures of the missing people and firemen on the building walls. Our earlier memories of standing on the top of both towers with Pattie and John on Thanksgiving Eve in 1979 were brought into sharp focus.
The delay through JFK airport on our way to Fiji, via LA, was a nightmare. We got to LA late but with only enough time to run through to get our onward midnight connection. It was clear, as we waited at Fiji at dawn, that our luggage had not made it. The relaxation we had dreamed of experiencing in Fiji never got off the ground. Our luggage caught up with us in Fiji on the evening before we left to go to Sydney, noting that the luggage had already been to Sydney and back before finding us in Fiji.
In Sydney, we took the high walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and whilst up in Cairns with Marion and Tim, Elizabeth snorkelled and I scuba-dived on The Great Barrier Reef. We went back to Melbourne with Marion and Eddie for a few days before leaving for home via Bangkok. But at our final lunch Marion got the call – “baby is on its way.” As we got to the hospital Marion’s daughter was just giving birth. A crazy trip, but wonderful.
If the rest of this chapter sounds like a travelogue, then I make no apologies, that’s what we were able to do with the freedom of the children not living with us and some money to spend.
The next memorable trip was in January 2003. I still had some Air Miles with BA from my P&G travel days, and I did need to spend them within the prescribed time. In October 2002, a man by the name of Eddie Daniels was visiting our church in Altrincham to talk about his time imprisoned on Robben Island for fifteen years alongside Nelson Mandela. He had written a book about his experiences and was on a UK tour to promote its sales. He had been invited to our church by one of the members of our congregation when she met him on a visit to South Africa earlier that year. Ripples are everywhere!
I was expecting to see a large powerful man. When a small quiet man got up and was introduced as Eddie Daniels, I was stunned. His opening words will stay with me forever. He first thanked us – the people of the UK - for providing a blockade around South Africa. It was that which made the South African government realise that Apartheid was not acceptable. Despite having being detained on Robben Island for fifteen years he showed no bitterness. Eddie gave much praise to Nelson Mandela, though he did have to earn Nelson’s respect which he did over time.
Eddie had become political to fight the evil of Apartheid. He was classified as ‘coloured’ in those days but could have probably claimed white status because his father was from Yorkshire but on principle he
chose not to. Eddie talked about the integrity of Nelson Mandela but on that day in October I met someone else who ticked all those same boxes.
Eddie’s political fight took the form of blowing up electrical pylons. Unfortunately - and unplanned - someone got killed and Eddie was sentenced to fifteen years on Robben Island.
That day in October 2002, Eddie talked all about the stories – of horror, abuse, kindness and respect. Before leaving Elizabeth and I had decided we would visit Robben Island for ourselves.
Whilst there we met up with Eddie and he took us onto the island. He showed us his cell and filled in all the details. He talked about the time when Nelson Mandela cleared out his morning slops when Eddie was unwell - (there’s no sanitation in these cells – I know as I’ve stood outside them).
On the island in 2003, Eddie was a treated as someone special and deservedly so. During a separate bit of our island bus tour, we found ourselves at The Lime Pit. The guide stopped the bus and shut down the motor. He allowed the dust outside to settle bit. He announced, “Ladies and Gentleman. Please take off your sunglasses and look out. Imagine what it must have been like here in the hot sun, with pick-axes, collecting the lime.” He paused, “Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce Mr Eddie Daniels” “Eddie stood up. “He will tell you directly how it was as he spent twelve years out there.” You could hear a pin drop. Eddie started in his quiet way, “It wasn’t so bad really – better than breaking rocks in the prison courtyard. Here we could talk. It was here that Mr Mandela and Mr Sisulu planned the new South Africa.” Someone behind me shouted, “Why were you on Robben Island?” “I blew up a pylon.” “Well done, sir” they said, and the whole bus erupted in well-deserved spontaneous applause.
Eddie was such a humble, principled person. He and Nelson Mandela became good friends and when Nelson was released, he joined Eddie and
Eleanor (Eddie’s wife after many years waiting) when they got married in the Methodist Church in Cape Town. An amazing day. Such memories.
Later that holiday, we experienced many things including four days in a Safari Park.
However, by 2003 my mum’s health was deteriorating. Her ‘good eye’ was virtually without sight and she was registered as partially sighted. Yet in 1997 she and I were to experience quite an adventure. We thought that in April 1997 Mum would be 80. (We later discovered that she was only 79!). My mum was not that interested in horse racing but when in Abadan years before she remembered attending a horse race meeting and would sometimes share her memories -the excitement, the bright racing colours of the jockeys and sight of the horses. The plan was for my sister Christine to get her to London Heathrow and put her on a flight to Manchester on Friday April 6th 1997 and for she and I to attend the Grand National at Aintree the next day. We got there in good time and saw the first two races. But only those. This was the year when a bomb threat was received at Aintree and the event got cancelled. It was cold, our car was marooned in the car park in the centre of the track and mum and I had to get onto a local bus and head into Liverpool to catch a train back to Manchester. I really don’t know how she coped with it all. But she just took it all in her not so strong stride.
Jump forward to 3rd December 2003. Elizabeth and I returned late from a church meeting and I noticed a flashing light on our phone message recorder. It was the very indistinct voice of my mum trying to contact Christine. I couldn’t raise Christine but rang her husband Derek who was away in Edinburgh. Eventually Christine was contacted and she then phoned the police. They broke in and found mum at the bottom of the stairs. She had had a heart attack. A sad end for the greatest ripple generator of my life. Yet of course she is still with me in spirit.
Moving on, in March 2005, Elizabeth and I returned to skiing, initially in Courmayeur, in Northern Italy. In June that year, we did a big tour
of Southern USA taking in LA, Utah, Mount Rushmore and The Grand Canyon. In 2006, we visited Florence and Tuscany.
But the great event of 2007 was Matthew’s wedding to Claire. Both sets of parents paid the bills, but left all the arrangements to Matthew and Claire. What a wonderful day! It was in a small church in Newton Kyme, Yorkshire - reached only by walking across a field - unless you are the bride and groom where an American pink cabriolet Cadillac was available for use! The day ended with a wonderful firework display outside the stately-home style hotel, called Rudding Park. Among our friends there were Pat and John, Roger and Jo and Colin and Lesley.
Then to cap it all in September 2007 Elizabeth completed The Great North Run as a power walker!
In 2008, Elizabeth, Sara Matthew, Claire and I went skiing to Mayerhofen, in Austria. Again, another exciting time. Later that year, in April, Elizabeth and I went to The Bahamas after picking up the boat in New York with Pattie and John and visiting Cape Canaveral Kennedy along the way.
That summer Sara finished her degree.
In 2009, Elizabeth, Matthew, Claire and I went skiing to Les Carot, in France. On the very first day, Elizabeth slipped on the ice with her brand-new skis and tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). She was out of action for the whole week and required major surgery on our return to the UK. Somewhere in all of this Elizabeth and I also managed to visit Venice and met up with Amy for a few days.
In 2010, we made our first visit to Selva, in north-western Italy with Jo and Roger, and this became a regular booking for quite a few years. That summer was our thirtieth wedding anniversary and I had planned it six months in advance. The idea was to go first to Lake Garda for a week and then to Sorrento for another, and all by train. Absolutely fabulous!
2011 saw us at Selva again but we also included an Egyptian Nile cruise earlier that year with Margaret and Norman. Again, this is something we would not have normally done without the prompting of others.
That November Amy graduated.
In 2012 we visited Selva again.
Earlier that year we came out of church with a good friend of ours who had recently lost his wife to breast cancer after a long battle. As he came out between us, he put his arms around each of us and said, “Don’t put anything off - you never know.” As it happens we had made provisional plans to visit New Zealand, and to revisit Australia, and catch up with Elizabeth’s niece and nephew, and that is what we did in January 2013.
I’m so glad we did.
12
The Dark Ages
It was in during the summer of 2012 when we first began to suspect something was wrong.
Over the years Elizabeth and I had played quite a bit of Bridge with Colin and Leslie when we lived in the North East, and were reasonably competent. Years later in Manchester, we joined a very friendly learning group, locally recommended by a neighbour, and we went regularly and both worked hard at trying to remember the bids, the best way to play a ‘No Trumps’ hand and so forth. But Elizabeth was finding it increasingly difficult to remember the basics. We had a timeshare vacation unit in Wales for the third week of August each year and so I decided that in August 2012 maybe we could use that for a piece of quiet time to try and work with our laptops to help us recover our proficiency in Bridge. It was hard work.
But life did go on normally as much as it could. In January 2013, Elizabeth and I still continued with our planned visit to New Zealand and Australia, and in February we were skiing again at Selva. Soon after I had also been away to play golf at Celtic Manor for a weekend while Elizabeth was at home. So, life was not all that different even then.
But in April 2013, it became more obvious that Elizabeth was not remembering things and our son Matthew convinced her that she should go to see a GP. He did a few simple tests and simply said, “okay, let’s just see how things progress.”
But things were different. On April 17, 2014 (one year later) Elizabeth and Matthew visited Dr Sangha once more.
Our grandson Frank was born in May 2014. Elizabeth was so overjoyed. She had waited a longtime for this moment.
In June we travelled to Florida to stay with Pattie and John. We were still managing a normal sort of life but recognising that Elizabeth’s symptoms were becoming more noticeable and more difficult.
In August 2014, Elizabeth visited The Trafford Medical Health Centre and they confirmed a preliminary diagnosis of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. We were told we would need to confirm the condition to the DVLA and her medication was moved to maximum levels.
In November 2014, Elizabeth’s condition was confirmed at Salford Royal and she was asked to take part in a two-year research programme.
Before I share the details of Elizabeth’s journey, and the impact it had on her, the family and me, I just want to acknowledge the great support and love from our family and friends and also from the church family. As Elizabeth’s condition worsened, she simply couldn’t do the secretarial work for the church she had been doing for many years and the banner-making had to stop too. I also stepped down from the safeguarding officer role and my membership of the church council but the friendships we had made throughout the years did help and are still in place.
When I look back over these events it is disgraceful that it took over two years to move from our first concerns to an official diagnosis.
If things had moved quicklier, earlier, then the medication could have started earlier and maybe this might have slowed the onset and progression considerably. We shall never know. Perhaps it was a lack of willingness by all parties. Certainly, inexperience on our part, and perhaps by local GPs,
may have been factors. But overall, this is the biggest regret I have in how Elizabeth was let down in her hour of need. Today I see much increased awareness but not a lot of practical help.
During this early period, Elizabeth really didn’t want to know there was anything wrong with her. She was quite a stubborn lady and I guess no one really knew what was going to happen, so we continued to work around the situation. I don’t think we ever used the word Alzheimer’s in general conversation.
But we still tried to enjoy life. In February 2015, we took a trip to seek out The Northern Lights and we continued our skiing holidays at Selva. We also visited Alnwick Lodge on a walking holiday in April. So, we were still trying to keep our life as normal as possible.
But it was clear that Elizabeth and I needed help. In June 2015, I retired from the Careers’ Service.
And it was Sara, Elizabeth’s daughter, who urged me, saying, “If you don’t go and talk to the Alzheimer’s Society for help, I will.” She was right. So, I did.
Early guidance from Alzheimer’s Society was helpful and by November 2015 we were also getting practical advice through monthly Age UK hub meetings.
I had previously planned a short golf trip for September and so Sara came and stayed at home with her mum while I was away. In December 2015, the DVLA revoked Elizabeth’s driving licence. That was a big shock for Elizabeth and indeed for us all. Not that she was driving very much and I was always trying to keep her driving if only to the shops with me sitting alongside her but it was clear she was not knowing where she was when she was in a car.
However, despite these obvious deteriorations I was determined to make life as enjoyable as I could for Elizabeth and in February 2016 we set off for a Caribbean cruise.
This was something we always wanted to do. Somewhere we could dance and relax and enjoy ourselves while we still could. However, at first it was quite a disaster. When Elizabeth first saw this huge ship she went into panic mode. The size was something she couldn’t get to grips with.
On the first day, out in the middle of The Caribbean, we managed to ring Matthew via the captain so that Matthew could talk to his mum to convince her that it was alright. It was hard work but slowly she did begin to settle and after three days we began to have a relatively pleasant time.
We even managed to go skiing again in 2016, to Bansko in Bulgaria, with Matthew and Claire, and now Frank. But even then, she was often quite terrified. Once she got onto the gentle slopes her confidence began to return and she showed us that she could still ski. We have the videos to prove it! That was the last time either of us went skiing.
From January 2016, Elizabeth started attending Age UK day help centres.
In March 2016, we joined a new group called Dementia Conversationsa group set up by Dr David Jolley, a good friend of ours from church and a retired psychiatric doctor. The aim was to set up conversations in which people who are interested or involved with dementia could simply talk about their experiences and share what was going on. Bearing in mind I had never used the word dementia or Alzheimer’s in our house in front of Elizabeth, this was quite an event for me. I stood up and introduced Elizabeth and myself to the group, describing our situation. Most of the people there already knew, through our church contacts, but this was the first time I had openly talked about it in front of Elizabeth. I was visibly shaking. I have no idea if any of it had registered with Elizabeth but at least it became an open subject and I felt a great relief.
It was during this time I began to start the use of Home Instead. Sue Shaw was the first lady we met and she would come in for a couple of hours initially every fortnight, but later on, this changed to every week. Sue Shaw is a natural carer and Elizabeth always looked forward to her visits. To this day, Sue and I are still friends. Later on, Pauline and Kat joined the team to cover the morning rituals that were just becoming impossible for me to cope with.
Our granddaughter Olive was born on November 24th 2016.
I had previously increased Elizabeth‘s ‘day visits’ to Age UK to twice a week and then in March 2017, I added a further day at another centre. This was at least allowing me some respite and for me to get a game of golf in etc. I also found a company called Mind for You designed to give a UK holiday to Dementia patients and their carers. Our first visit was to Scotland and we had a good time, though Elizabeth was becoming increasingly difficult.
We were also regularly attending the ‘Larkhill Demetia Café’ every two weeks. This was led by Dawn and daughter Kyra – two more star ripple generators. We also attended, ‘Vibrant Voices’ a choir run for people living with dementia, Parkinson’s disease, stroke survivors and their careers. ‘Vibrant Voices’ was (and still is) led by Clare Morel aided by pianist Richard and her team of helpers- all super ripple generators. In December 2017, Elizabeth and I, helped by Sue Shaw, took part in a Vibrant Voices Christmas Carol concert in Manchester Cathedral. Hard work but amazing.
In 2018, Sara began looking for homes for Elizabeth and we also began looking around for some ways of giving me some respite. We continued to take two holidays with Mind for You, visiting Devon and then Scotland once more.
But by this time, we were having Home Instead help seven days a week to get Elizabeth ready for the day. During August 2018, Elizabeth began
a further sharp decline. Pauline and Kat (two of our Home Instead morning helpers) were a great support, and every morning they would listen and give me moral support, advice and understanding. They were both brilliant. In particular I remember an early morning conversation during this period sharing that I thought my wife had left me and whoever was there lovingly replied, “Yes, and she’s not coming back.” And that was the jolt that made me think I just couldn’t carry on like this.
We had previously established with the local authority that Elizabeth was in need of a care home, but due to our circumstances this would have to be self-funded in the first instance.
In January 2019, it was clear I couldn’t cope any longer and Sara, Matthew and I started looking earnestly for a care home for Elizabeth. On April 26, 2019, Elizabeth moved into Allingham House Care Home.
Even after Elizabeth had gone into Allingham full-time, I continued to take her to church every week. I also continued to take her to Vibrant Voices and The Alzheimer’s Café. I visited Allingham House to attend the regular musical activities that we both enjoyed together. Truly, music somehow is able to get through. But during the next nine months it became increasingly difficult for her to understand what was going on.
However, Covid and lockdown intervened in 2020, and all face-to-face visits were shut down but we continued as best we could with Skype meetings.
In April 2020, we applied for funding from Social Services as all Elizabeth’s savings had been used up. In December 2020, our application for full funding was rejected and we then applied for top-up funding. This was a very stressful time as we were uncertain as to what would happen. A top-up plan was worked out that effectively meant her state pension, attendance allowance and company pension would be her top-
up contribution. The balance was picked up by the local council which was a practical solution and meant Elizabeth could stay in Allingham.
In early January 2021, Elizabeth had her first booster jab but was also found to be Covid positive at the same time. However, she showed absolutely no symptoms of Covid and never did.
When Elizabeth first entered Allingham House, she was very mobile and would be forever walking around the open-areas corridors and chatting in her own way with members of staff. By September 2021, her mobility had dropped dramatically and she was becoming more and more dependent on a wheelchair and her ability to communicate had virtually stopped.
Visiting to Allingham was restored in the Spring of 2022. Elizabeth was quite immobile but still very strong in spirit and the occasional smile would show itself.
Matthew and Claire had managed to get slots in the October 2022 London Marathon. They decided they would run for Alzheimer’s Research. They used a recent picture of Elizabeth taken with Matthew in the garden at Allingham House around early summer for the donation poster. The picture is wonderful. Elizabeth is clearly struggling to move but full of smiles. They raised well over £3500.
During August 2022, Elizabeth became bed-ridden. She was still mostly alert but in September she lost the ability to swallow. Matthew, Sara, Amy and I were all with her over those last few days and hours and she sadly died on Sunday 18 September. Her funeral was held on October 11 2022 at Altrincham Methodist Church and Altrincham Crematorium. The church was full. All her banners were on display. A fitting tribute. On the first anniversary of Elzabeth’s passing Sara, Amy , Matthew and I went up to Holy Island off the coast at Whitley Bay, Northumberland and cast her ashes into the waters around the lighthouse there.
Throughout Elizabeth’s ten-year illness, my overriding goal had been to give her the support and dignity she deserved. I like to think – aided by my family and other ripple generators – that I did what I could.
13 Life Continues
As I begin this final chapter, two thoughts emerge.
I have tried to keep the chapters’ contents separate, but that has been somewhat difficult at times because in life episodes overlap. Secondly, this last chapter shows how it seems that things are just meant to be.
This chapter begins somewhere in the middle of 2018. Elizabeth’s condition was deteriorating significantly, and in all sorts of ways she was not the woman I had married many years earlier.
I needed something to hold onto, to maintain my own sanity and give me a focus and something to keep me going. I never stopped loving ballroom dancing. Some people have natural talents, singing or playing sport. Dancing is the only thing I consider I have some talent for. Thank you, Bill Atkins, for providing the opportunity to develop whatever talent I had. It has become a lifeline.
In ballroom dancing, the gentleman leads and the lady follows. I had kept trying with Elizabeth, but as the disease progressed, she just couldn’t cope with the noise and distractions. But I was determined to get back into ballroom dancing. So, I needed a regular partner. I approached a couple of ladies I knew to ask if they would partner me. One particular lady was in a similar situation to me in that her regular partner (her husband) was suffering with dementia and he was unable to dance any longer. She
genuinely felt quite flattered that I asked, but decided she would decline. I heard later her husband had died quite suddenly. Surprisingly, I found out that she was a neighbour of mine, and of course I still see her from time to time as I walk to get my newspaper every day and say, “Hello how are you? How’s things?”
But the main ripple during this time – almost a tidal wave in fact –happened around January 2019. It was routine that I would take Elizabeth every other week to the Dementia Café, in Timperley. On Saturdays when music was playing, we would sometimes dance, though it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to follow. This particular morning, she was really in a bad mood, and said, “No, No”. I was upset. I said to the lady sitting next to Elizabeth, to whom we had been chatting over previous weeks, “Do you dance?” She accepted my offer. Her name was Jean Lewis. She was a lovely dancer. I asked her where she danced. “At the Bowdon Rooms,” which, of course was where Elizabeth and I had been trying to dance only quite recently.
I invited myself to join Jean and her friends on Sunday evenings, and that’s how I got back into ballroom dancing. During this period, members of the family, and of the church, would come and look after Elizabeth for a couple of hours. I found this so enjoyable; a complete release from the daily strain of life with Elizabeth.
Whilst the dancing continued, the next few months were dedicated to finding the right Care Home for Elizabeth. Elizabeth went into Allingham House on April 23, 2019.
It sounds almost casual. We had a family get-together the day before, with a barbecue in the garden. On reflection, it was a very sad day but inevitable.
After Easter 2019, I had the opportunity to go to dance classes twice every week. I started going on Wednesdays as well as Sundays.
By the middle of May, I began to notice a lady with the most wonderful smile. Her name was Suzy Stonefield. We seemed to hit it off almost immediately. Yet another positive ripple was coming along which again, on reflection, was important and significant.
By the end of June, Suzy and I were in a relationship. So, we needed to start telling people. She told her son, Ylan (Suzy also has a daughter Maya) and I told my son Matthew almost at the same time. Both were fully supportive. Matthew in particular summarised it by saying, “Dad, you did everything you could for Mum and youwill still be doing that as long as you can and need to. But you also need your own life.” What relief I felt from Matthew’s words! All other members of our family and friends were very supportive of us both. Elizabeth’s sister Margaret was especially understanding and positive. It took a little longer for Sara and Amy to accept that their stepfather, was having a relationship with someone who was not their mother. Very understandable, but over the years that followed, those barriers too have been completely broken down.
So without exception, everybody just celebrated with us in my new relationship.
So, Suzy and I started a new life together. On our first date, I was talking a lot about the church. She remarked, “of course, you know I’m Jewish.” To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about it! However, it has brought a whole lot of new experiences, including Friday night dinners, attending a few services at the local synagogue and many discussions about each other’s traditions, similarities and the differences between her faith and mine. The one thing we concluded as being fundamentally true, is that there is just one God for everybody but there are many different faiths and traditions. But only one God of love. We have had quite in-depth discussions about Passover and Easter, what it means to the Jewish people and what it means to Christians today and the linkages between them. Pentecost, which I took to be a 100% Christian festival, based on the
Holy Spirit coming down from God into this world, was in fact a Jewish festival going back long before!
Two particular stories to highlight.
During June 2019, a wonderful preacher, Wesley Loane, asked the question in his service, “what has happened to you during this last week that you would like to share with the congregation?” I put up my hand and said, “I’ve realised that God still loves me.”
That made a big impression on Wesley. He followed up that evening with a tremendously supportive email. However, I am sure he thought I was talking about Elizabeth's condition and her ongoing needs for care. Within a couple of weeks, Suzy and I realised we had better start telling more people who might know us. I decided I would start by telling the members of the church (other than immediate friends who already knew). So about two weeks later, I was sitting behind Wesley (who was a member of the congregation) and asked if I could have a word with him after the service. We went into the private chapel, and I said, “I’ve got a confession to make. When I put my hand up to share that God still loved me, I wasn’t being completely honest. Yes, I know he does love me as I look after Elizabeth, but there is another factor. I’ve met someone else.” He looked at me with his big Irish loving and warm smile. “ What a blessing” was his simple reply.
I wasn’t expecting that.
The second story occurred a few months later. A band ‘Loose Change’ was due to play at our church, continuing its mission of raising funds for charity through music. Suzy particularly wanted to go and see them. For her it was a big event as this would be the first time she would step into the Altrincham Methodist Church. Of course, I had talked about Elizabeth’s famous banners and Suzy wanted to see them, but not at the same time as trying to listen to a band. So I arranged for us to visit the church and see the banners several days before the concert.
The lady who ran the church office, and who could let us have access, was Pauline Roberts. I’ve been great friends with her and her husband over many years. They both helped me tremendously when I was in my youth club leader days. I remember sitting in the coach, about to return from a youth club outing to Alton Towers, when Pauline quietly whispered, “Ian and I are getting engaged!” My first selfish reaction was that I would lose them from my team, rather than sharing the joy about them getting married! I didn’t of course.
Back to 2019 and I had arranged with Pauline to introduce Suzy to Elizabeth’s banners. Pauline was in the office chatting with our organist Graham. I knocked somewhat nervously, and then opened the door. A slight pause and then Pauline rushed out shouting, “Suzy, Suzy, Suzy.”
I just looked at Graham in amazement. It seems that Pauline and Suzy knew each other. They had attended maternity classes together, and now that relationship was rekindled. It was a long time before Graham and I could get a word in edgeways!
Amazing. As I’ve said some things are just meant to be.
Suzy had been extremely understanding about Elizabeth's illness and my need to continue to support her as best I could.
So suddenly life for me became very full. I had been a full-time carer. Now, I had another person in my life. What ripples did God still have for me? Suzy and I continued dancing and our first holiday was to visit Blackpool. Suzy was born in St Annes, Lancashire, just around the corner from Blackpool. We just had to go and try out the magnificent sprung ballroom floor in The Blackpool Tower. Our dancing wasn’t very good that day, but it was a wonderful experience to share.
Very soon after, I became aware that Suzy’s family owned a house in Tenerife. It was the retreat for her Mum and Dad (Beryl and Harold) for the winter, with the family visiting for Hanukkah. At first, the
family were very surprised and shocked by Harold buying this property, thinking he was mad, but it has become a wonderful permanent restful feature of The Stonefield experience.
Suzy and I have spent quite a few wonderful weeks over recent years in Tenerife. During the lockdown, Suzy realised that because her work was via the Internet and telephone, she could work quite happily in Tenerife, not just in Greater Manchester. Simply amazing.
In the evenings in Tenerife, we sit on the balcony, looking westward towards the sun going down, providing wonderful sunsets and quickly going into deep dark skies with sparkling stars. It is a special place for us. Again, it is a time of appreciation of our new life together and a time when we can both feel close to God.
We’ve also been to other places! In our early days we visited Scotland via Northumberland (staying with Pat and John) with Suzy swimming in the North Sea with Pat. We have also visited Cambridge and Stratfordupon-Avon.
Perhaps the biggest change in my lifestyle has been to be a partner of someone who has worked at the Royal Northern College of Music for over forty five years. Her perspective of music and her tremendous contribution to all the staff and students over the years is observed whenever I meet her colleagues. She is a naturally loving person, respectful and full of care for others. Just to be repetitive, every time I meet her colleagues at the RNCM it becomes obvious.
One special story concerns Tim Reynish – a world-class conductor. The story typifies the kind of ripples Suzy has initiated in her professional life. When Suzy first started at the RNCM, Tim, the Head of the School of Wind and Percussion, needed a personal assistant. He had a bad reputation in terms of not working well with administrative staff. Another ripple generator told Tim that the person he needed had just
started working in the library. Suzy was interviewed and given the job. After a couple of months there was a confrontation. Tim shouted at Suzy and Suzy, being Suzy, shouted back and that was the start of a wonderful professional relationship. He quickly realised that she was capable of running the admin side of the School, which she did, leaving him to concentrate on the music. It worked well.
Six months after Suzy and I had been in our relationship, she received a letter from Tim telling her he had been awarded the MBE and was invited to Buckingham Palace to receive his award. Tim had three guest passes. Hilary his wife and his son Si took two of them. Tim offered the third to Suzy (ahead of his two other children) in recognition of the contribution she had made to the School, and for starting the process of the MBE Award. Suzy invited me to join her on the trip to London. We travelled down on the day before (Tuesday) and on that night we went to see a West End Show. In the few days before the trip, I had contacted my local MP, explained the circumstances and I asked if it was possible I could attend Prime Minister’s Question Time on that Wednesday morning whilst Suzy was at the Palace with Tim. Within 24 hours I got a call back - it was arranged! That Wednesday morning I left Tim, with Hilary, Si and Suzy outside Buckingham House to meet the then Prince Charles while I walked off to the House of Commons to see Boris in action. How bizarre!
Afterwards we had lunch in Mayfair, all together. Since that day Suzy and I have met with Tim and Hilary on quite a few social and musical occasions. And I’m sure Tim and Hilary will remain our friends even though Suzy has now just retired from the RNCM.
It is interesting to note that whilst Suzy had been working for over 45 years at the RNCM, I also was working literally 100 yards across the road at the Manchester University Careers Service for 14 of those years and, to our knowledge, we never met. Perhaps we did queue once behind each other at the sandwich bar. Who knows? But clearly it wasn’t our time.
Now I go to concerts, opera and she has opened me up to watching films at the cinema and to reading for pleasure. Suzy is a very fit lady who just walks everywhere, including to the gym and yoga classes. She has encouraged me at every stage. What ripples there are in those few words!
During the early stages of our relationship, it became clear that the previously-diagnosed condition of stenosis in my back had deteriorated. Stenosis is a condition where something is not right in the lower back and causes pressure to be put on the spinal cord which gives all sorts of pains in the lower body. Loving persistence led us to a private consultation with the recommended consultant and this eventually led to major surgery in May 2022, through the NHS system. It was a tenhour operation in total and I remember how sore I felt at the end of that day. But after two days, I came home and I realised that while I was still very stiff and uncomfortable with all the stitches and everything else, the pain that I had been feeling for two years or more had simply disappeared, and I was beginning to stand up straight again. It has been a major success. Amazing!
Suzy also suggested quite early on post-operation that I take Alexander Technique lessons to help me improve my posture. This has been a revelation. I continue with this today.
Just a few months ago as I write this, I restarted playing golf and because my spine and lower back has been somewhat modified, I had to relearn from the beginning. I think I’m now doing it the right way!
In April 2020 the nation was entering lockdown and during the first year of lockdown, and while Suzy’s son was away at university, we did live together at her house.
But when Ylan came back after finishing his degree, we realised that we had two homes and slightly different ways of working, and that we really didn’t need to be on top of each other to share our loving relationship.
So, we changed our living arrangements. I came back to live in my house and now Suzy stays over at with me at the weekends
On the other side, my grandchildren now sometimes come to stay over with Suzy and me at the weekends.
During lockdown, I had been unable to visit Elizabeth but kept in touch with her via Skype, twice a week, with the rest of the family. When they began to open up the homes, the family would go in and see her face-toface, but by this time it was clear, she was sadly deteriorating.
When Elizabeth died in September 2022, people naturally shared the sadness of the tragedy of this awful disease over such a long period of time. They would say to me after a few weeks of her death, “How are you doing? How are you coping?”
I want to share this next point because it is key to help people caring for people with Alzheimer’s and other dementia-related illnesses. I want them to understand the nature of it and to prepare for it. When Elizabeth went into Allingham House on April 2019, I suppose we all knew in our heads that she would not be coming out. We wanted to provide her with a loving environment where she was looked after with careful dignity and where she could enjoy herself, in her own way, through the activities they provided as long as she was able to do so. As I said previously, it was years before she went into Allingham House. Even with all the help I was getting it was emotionally and physically very hard for Elizabeth and myself. That’s when the bereavement process started. Sharing the thought that my wife had left me and the confirmation from my lovely helpers that she wasn’t coming back, was really so helpful in coping for the future yet to come.
So, when Elizabeth died, and we knew a month or two in the late summer of 2022 that it was going to happen quite soon, we were all prepared. It was still a shock, but of course I had replaced my life with all sorts of other activities. Such is the grace of God.
I think it is fair to say that my connections with the church had dwindled during lockdown. Partly because no one could actually attend, as the churches were closed, but also for all sorts of other reasons.
Even when lockdown began to ease, I had simply got out of the habit. But now that it is over, I’m beginning to re-establish those links.
I have become a member of a church group called The Gathering, currently led by Reverend Kevin Johnson, under whom I served as the Safeguarding Officer at Altrincham, Methodist Church for quite a few years. The Gathering, and all that the project encompasses, is developing ripples of magnitude beyond comprehension. When we get together socially, Suzy joins us. Simply wonderful!
I am sure there are ripples yet to come. Some might be difficult.
For me, from God and everyone else, they have been nothing but helpful.
Perhaps we don’t always recognise the ripples that are reaching out to us. I hope and trust I can make ripples for others…
John Richardson July 16 2024
Post script April 5th 2025
The title of this last chapter is ‘Life Continues’. Indeed, and I just have to bring the story up to date before I finally close it.
In addition to those already mentioned in the text I have lost 4 dear ripple generators since July 2024.
The first is Graham Bowen. Graham and his wife Cathy joined our church some 6 years or so ago. Graham quickly joined Chris Nock and I on our weekly assault on the golf course. Graham and his wife were always there for me - particularly supportive as Elizabeth’s illness took hold. After Elizabeth went into Allingham House and I had met Suzy they continued with their support for us all.
After Cathy too became ill with Dementia and was forced to move to a care home, Graham became quite ill and died mid November 2024.
This was quickly followed by the sudden passing of Graham Jackson on November 18th 2024 who collapsed suddenly in his garden with a heart attack.
Then just before Christmas I got my usual email from Mike Talbot in Vancouver, Canada. Being busy (aren’t we all) I decided to delay my annual reply to Mike from Tenerife in early January. Mid-January I received an email from Mike’s daughter, Martha, informing me that her dad had suddenly passed away while he was sitting in a chair in his beloved boat in Vancouver marina. A ‘don’t ever delay’ lesson for sure.
Very much more recently I got the news from John Caturano that Patti had passed away in her care home.
As I said at the beginning, this story is about the ripple generators who have made a difference to my life. As my earlier last sentence says ‘I hope and trust I can make ripples for others’…
John Richardson 5th April 2025
Acknowledgements
I had been talking about writing this book for quite a few years before anything happened.
Then on Father’s Day 15th June 2014, 5 weeks after my grandson Frank was born, my son Matthew and his wife Claire presented me with a blank book called “Dear Grandad, from me to you - A journal of a Lifetime”. So, acknowledgments start with them.
As you will have read, events intervened which took priority over the writing of this book. So many thanks to Suzy Stonefield for her ongoing support in recent years in getting me to actually finish it.
Suzy also deserves much credit for her untiring work in the final stages of pre-printing in checking the story for its logical flow and making sure I got my story told, both accurately and in a meaningful way.
Thanks also to Lisa Obi, my daughter in law’s sister for the many hours of her precious time to proof read my early drafts.
Of course, acknowledgements must also all go to those people who have contributed to this story through their own special contributions and actions, without whom there would be no story to tell.
