The Day Job T
hough Murray is famous for his motor sport commentating, he actually had a very successful, and demanding, career in the 'real' world. It is quite extraordinary how he managed to combine the two, without compromising either. As we have seen, he won a scholarship awarded by the Dunlop Rubber Company and joined the firm for a year or so before being called up in 1942 and serving with distinction in the Royal Scots Greys. Unlike his mother, Murray really liked Birmingham with its conglomeration of great motor cycle manufacturers and so managed to obtain a position back at Dunlop. Specifically, he became assistant to the Tyre Division Advertising Manager, based once again at imposing Fort Dunlop. During this time, Murray enjoyed his foray into motor cycle competitions, before having his commentating breakthrough at Shelsley Walsh. The Dunlop job, for which he was paid a salary of £350 a year, was not stretching Murray, even though he had been promoted to HQ in St James's Street in the heart of London's Piccadilly and now reported to the group's PR supremo. Bored again, he gladly accepted an offer to join the Allied Group Advertising Department and became Advertising Manager for various specialist rubber divisions. After seven years with Dunlop, he felt he needed to broaden his horizons. Through an interview with Masius and Ferguson, an ambitious London advertising agency, he was offered a job with Aspro, manufacturers of the world-famous analgesic, as a copywriter. His salary was now £1000 a year. Soon he found himself travelling around India and Pakistan, promoting 'the wonder cure'. After various promotions, Murray was lured away from Aspro by McCann Erickson, then the world's largest advertising agency, and they doubled his salary and put him to work on the Esso account. After two years, he was less than enthralled by the work and had a yearning to join Masius, where he had made various friends. This agency was clearly going places. Murray's new clients were Mars, who are famous for confectionary, but were venturing into something entirely new – pet food. Sold in cans, this was a new concept when people had always fed their cats and dogs on leftovers and such like. As with most innovative ideas, there was considerable resistance to be overcome because people were not accustomed to spending money on feeding their pets. To prove to sceptical retailers that the tins contained wholesome food, the company reps, and Murray who often accompanied them, would open a tin and sample it themselves! In 1964 Murray's charismatic Chairman, Jack Wynne-Williams, made four employees, whom he considered to be his rising stars and the next generation of senior management, an offer. Each could buy £30,000 worth of shares, an enormous sum which Warburg, the company's bankers, would lend at a rate of 10% per annum. Murray discussed it with Elizabeth, whom he had married in 1959, and they decided to go ahead, risky though it was. The decision would prove to be one of the best they ever made. At that time, the agency had offices in London and Hamburg. When Murray left in 1982, it was a 53-office organisation with branches in 27 countries worldwide, including four in Australia, and an annual billing of more than one billion pounds.
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"Snappy sports coat. Yellow sweater. Smart cravat. You're lovely!”
"In 1947 the British Motor Cycle Racing Club held its first post-war Dinner, which I attended in my Captain's uniform. With his inevitable pipe in hand, my father stands behind me. On the other side, behind me, is family friend and ex-Brooklands star, Vic Horsman, whilst to my right, drink in hand, is Ruben Harveyson, great friend of TT star, Jimmy Simpson.”
Murray Walker Scrapbook