My Early Life - An Introduction

My Early Life An Introduction

This differs from other chapters in being autobiographical and based not on research but recollection. Inevitably, a personal and subjective view makes it difficult to follow the imperative of ‘not weighing our merits or pardoning our offences’, but readers themselves must judge. I have written this story for my family and those to come because I think that we should all hand down and share an account of our lives and experiences.

My contemporaries will recognise and relate to much of my story, whilst younger people will perhaps discover how different life was in the twentieth century. Over my lifetime, much has changed, especially in our working life and social customs. The rare has become commonplace, and many pleasant features of life have gone –although most of us now enjoy more comfortable and congenial lives than were possible half a century ago. Whether this has made us all happier is uncertain.

During my working life, I was fortunate in the people that I worked and dealt with, as overwhelmingly, we got on well together, worked hard, and it was a good experience. We faced and dealt with many challenges, but at the same time, we usually managed to have some fun, but sadly I think in the twenty first century this has changed, and fun is in much shorter supply.

I have found life interesting, and I hope that you may find my account so.

My Early Life

I was born in Earls Court, London SW3, on 30 May 1939, four months before the outbreak of World War II, so the first six years of my life were determined by the exigencies of wartime Britain. ………………………………………………………

In 1947 we moved to Stourbridge, to a Victorian semi-detached house with a large garden at 21 Norton Road. My father was now to be a director

of Mark and Moody, the business founded by his great-uncle Thomas Mark. Unfortunately, the business was now owned by the Moody family, with whom he was to have a difficult relationship.

I started at Hill Street primary school, which had a good reputation, Mr Beresford was the headmaster. Miss Bridgwater was my class teacher, and I think there must have been forty or fifty boys in it. Discipline was strict, and a rap over the knuckles with a ruler quite common. This was the local school and had a cross-section of boys from different backgrounds. I think we all got on well together, walking to and from school each day. The most memorable master was Mr Oldman, who taught us history and English and was always interesting. Early on, a teacher realised I couldn’t see the blackboard, and I was sent up to Mr Beresford to have an eye test which was the standard letters on the board. This proved that I had a problem, so I was sent to Mr Peplow, the jeweller and optician, who prescribed national health glasses for my astigmatism.

My best friend was Christopher Woodall, who lived next door and was a year older than me. Others were Andrew Bashforth, whose father was general manager of Round Oak Steelworks at Brierley Hill: he once gave my father and I a tour round the works, and it was an amazing sight, seeing huge red-hot billets of steel being rolled down to sheets. Andrew’s sister Veronica taught me to ride the bicycle which my father had bought me, and we all went cycling around the new Norton housing estate, which was being built. Alan Drury was the son of the Town Clerk, and Alan Osborne’s family ran a smart gentleman’s outfitters shop in Stourbridge. We all had a lot of freedom and roamed around the area without any supervision. We spent a lot of time on the swings and roundabout in Mary Steven’s Park, equipment that would be considered highly dangerous today.

Together with my school friends, I joined the newly formed Gigmill (Fourteenth Stourbridge) Cub Pack. The leader (Akela) was Cliff Adams, a charismatic Welsh ex-miner, who knew instinctively how to interest young boys. Instead of a sheath knife, he had a Gurkha kukri, which fascinated us. The pack meetings were the usual activities of cock-fighting (hopping on one leg and trying to barge over your opponent), British Bulldogs, etc. finishing with the Grand Howl –‘we’ll Dob, Dob, Dob…’. The original meeting room was very makeshift in a virtually derelict cottage. On fine evenings we would walk a mile or so up Norton Road to Norton Covert – a local wood –and play Wide Games and other similar exciting activities. In the summer, we went to camp at Clent. Transport was on the back of a horse-drawn trailer where we all sat with our equipment. Accommodation was in ex-army bell tents on groundsheets with rudimentary equipment, and with rationing, we had to take our own share of food. It was all a great experience.

In 1950, along with the others, I took the 11+ examination for entrance to the grammar school and passed, although it was already planned that I should go to Berkhamsted School.

Berkhamsted School

I duly went to Berkhamsted, boarding in Overton house. We slept in dormitories with communal washrooms, and there was a communal dining room. Food was still rationed, so the menu was limited, but we had enough to eat. We walked down to the junior school every morning carrying our books. I started in class 1B, the alternatives

were 1A and 1C, so I was in a middle rank, where I stayed for most of the time in the junior school, winning the form prize in 3B. The form master, Mr Gausson, had a traditional style. He would say, ‘Read Mark’, the class would then chant, ‘learn and inwardly digest’. One memory is of Mr Longrigg one day reading to us Chester Wilmot’s account of the 1944 Arnhem battle. He pointed out to us the number of ‘in memoriam’ notices in the paper that day, the anniversary of the battle. Of course, this was still recent history, no more than six years before, but it made a big impression on us.

On games afternoons, we walked up the hill to the school playing fields to play football or cricket. On Sundays, there was Chapel for matins and evensong. In the afternoon we went out for a walk in the countryside in pairs. There was plenty to see, such as the canal, working boats and locks, and the beech woods. In our third year at Overton, I discovered that some years before, the boys had put on a play at Christmas, so I decided I would repeat the event. I found a short text, agreed with the housemaster that we would do it, chose the cast, and, as producer, took them through their lines. I got my father to print programmes with a cast list etc. It all went well.

Senior School

After three years in Overton, we moved up to the senior school and, in my case, to Uppers in School House. There was also Lowers, designated by the two dormitory floors. School House was the oldest part of the School, and the Old Hall was where we lived in our spare time and did prep sitting at long benches. Living conditions were basic and communal, the toilet block being a separate outside building. There was no private personal space, just a locker and a place on the bench. However, it didn’t seem too bad at the time, and would have been good training for life in the army or prison. I spent a lot of time reading, both from the school library and the town library.

We had to choose subjects and, perhaps unwisely, I chose German rather than science.

In 1956 we sat O levels, and I took and passed seven subjects – Mathematics, English Language, English Literature, French, German, History, and Latin. I stayed on for one final year in the general sixth form doing a range of subjects, including commerce, bookkeeping and science, which was an undemanding but interesting year. At this point, I was a house prefect, and so shared a study with two others, called the Bear Garden. We had a lot more freedom and space and it was quite congenial. In the evening there was house prayers and prefects had to read the Bible lesson for the day, which was good experience.

I had been in the Scout troop in the junior school, and continued as a Scout in the senior school rather than joining the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) as almost everyone else did. I also continued as a member of the Gigmill troop at home. It provided an interest, and I did my First-Class hike at Stourbridge with a Berkhamsted friend Peter Stafford. This involved following a specified route and camping overnight on a farm, then writing up a logbook for approval. I still have that, and it reads surprisingly well. A good training project, I think. Subsequently, I continued to work for the Queen’s Scout award, which involved passing a specified group of badges. One project which I enjoyed was taking responsibility as Warden for the Scout camp site at Kinver. It was satisfying to feel that you owned the site for a weekend, and a visiting Commissioner wrote a very kind letter to the Stourbridge Commissioner complimenting my performance. The awards were presented at Gilwell, the Scout headquarters in Essex, and this was a weekend camp with a lot of other Queen’s Scouts, so quite memorable. We were also invited to parade on St George’s Day at Windsor, marching past the Queen and attending a church service. I think I was selected for the flag colour party and have an indistinct picture of this. In 1957, the World Scout Jamboree was held in Sutton Park near Birmingham, and I attended as part of the Jamboree Scout police force. This was mostly patrolling the site at night and controlling traffic, but it was an interesting event.

Through Rotary, an exchange with a German boy, Rüdi, was arranged. His family lived near Aachen and managed a coal mine. I went to stay with him and we got on quite well, although my German never really got up to conversational standard. While I was there, we went down the coal mine which was interesting. He subsequently came to stay with us at Stourbridge, and it was arranged that we could go down the Cannock Chase mine which we did. This was amazing, going down in the lift and then progressing through increasingly small tunnels to reach the coal face. The final tunnel was no more than three feet high, so you had to crawl along it. It gave one great respect for the men who worked down there.

London School of Printing and Graphic Arts (LSPGA) 1957-1960

I don’t think I had given much thought to a career, but printing seemed an obvious choice and my father, having visited the London School of Printing, suggested that I should apply for the three-year Printing Management Course. This was generally referred to by the staff as the ‘Master Printers’ sons’ course’ which was a fair description. I went with my father to be interviewed by Ellis Thirkettle, the principal, who seemed generally satisfied with me except for my lack of scientific education. He said I needed to improve this, and in my final year at Berkhamsted, I did some basic physics and chemistry.

Where was I to live for my three years in London? As usual, my godmother, Kay Patterson, came up with a suggestion of the Central YMCA in Tottenham Court Road, which provided rooms for boys in my position. I managed to get a place for a shared room at 30/- a week. It was a big building with several hundred rooms over three floors. It had communal washrooms, individual bathrooms and central heating, and there was a big lounge, rooms for quiet study and a swimming pool and gym in the basement. In the evenings at the YMCA, I usually had supper with my room-mate Peter Morrison, and after the first year, also with Peter Leaver, a medical student at Barts Medical School who was to become an eminent eye consultant. After that, we might go to a rundown cinema and watch westerns, or whatever was on for a shilling. Alternatively, we played bridge, often with just three, so we all bid for dummy unseen.

The YMCA was conveniently about a twenty minute walk from the main LSPGA building at Back Hill, Clerkenwell, where most of the classroom work was done, and which also housed the art, camera and plate-making departments. The machinery and typesetting departments were across the river at Stamford Street. We were a class of about twenty four, about half of us with a family printing firm connection like myself, and mostly ex-public school. We got on well enough together, although we tended to stick in groups. My closest friends were Ian Houston and Peter Denham from Birmingham, Bob Fryer from Woodbridge in Suffolk and Peter Lilley from Watford. The atmosphere was soured by Gordon Shand, a supercilious character who did his best to humiliate some of the less well educated but hard-working technical lecturers. We spent three days a week at Back Hill and two at Stamford Street on practical work such as machine printing, hand composition, and Monotype and Linotype machine composition. For the practical classes, we wore white coats to distinguish us from the printing apprentices who were there on day release from their companies. We didn’t mix with them.

We had an incredibly comprehensive technical training, covering every conceivable department or skill in a printing factory. We achieved reasonable competence in hand-setting type, make up, imposition and composing generally. Later we operated Linotypes and studied and operated Monotype keyboard and casters. We worked on lithographic stones, galley cameras, process engraving equipment, stereotyping and photogravure. We learnt about Imperial paper sizes such as ‘double crown’ and ‘quad demy’ etc, folding machines and the whole process of bookbinding in every style. I still have the ‘spring back’ account book that I made in the class. In the machine room, we operated platen machines, Wharfedale stop cylinder and Miehle machines. This degree of hands-on training would probably be considered unnecessary these days, but after the three years training, we were able to go into any printing company or department, understand immediately what the work involved and talk on even terms to the craftsman about the job. It was great training by some very skilled men. We were taught Monotype by an expert, H O Smith, who was our course leader and the UK prophet of photosetting.1

There was a range of management subjects, including costing and estimating, vital skills for a printing manager. We also studied law, statistics, communications and printing science. For me, these were valuable and interesting skills: learning how to use a slide rule was a revelation, and I developed an interest in industrial psychology and motivation, which remained with me. I found two of the recommended books, Darrell Huff’s How to Lie with Statistics and JAC Brown’s Social Psychology Of Industry, particularly influential.

In 1959, the year of the six-week long national printing strike, I applied for the Howard Hazell scholarship at the British Federation of Master Printers (BFMP), available for young printers. It involved a written examination in the morning and an interview in the afternoon. One of the panel was Elliott Viney, of the Hazel Watson and Viney company of Aylesbury, and I enjoyed talking to him. There were only three applicants, including me, one being Gordon Shand. Following this, I was awarded the scholarship of £100, which was satisfying, although my friend Ian Houston had originally applied but had to work in the family business during the strike and couldn’t attend. This was fortunate for me because he might have won.

1959 I attended a Young Printers conference at Oxford. This was open to young people from the printing industry, both managers and apprentices, and was organised jointly by the printing unions and the BFMP. There were a hundred or so of us, and we stayed in student accommodation in Oriel College, which was a great experience. I always regretted that I missed that traditional university experience, but for my generation, it was only available to the top 10% or so of academic school leavers. The conference itself was good because I met a lot of printers from different backgrounds, including apprentices, and gained a broader view of people in the industry. At the end, there was an open forum, and we were asked to produce questions. I submitted several rather naive questions to the chairman Ellis Thirkettle, and as a result, he asked me to propose a vote of thanks to the panel at the end of the session, which was flattering and good experience.

1 H.O. Pioneer and Apostle of Phototypesetting: the Memoirs of H.O. Smith. Privately printed: The Dorset Press, 1988.

At the end of the course in 1959, I passed out second: I am not sure who was first. It was a formative experience, and although I started the course open-minded as to my aims, by the end, I had a deep interest in the craft and management of printing and was determined to make this my future. My interest encouraged me to work fairly hard as at the end I would need to find employment. I had always expected to be conscripted for two years National Service when I left the LSPGA. Prior to the course, I had been granted deferment for three years, but over the period National Service gradually wound down, with fewer men being taken in. Finally, early in 1959, it was announced that my draft (second quarter 1939) would be the first not to be called at all. This was a relief as it would probably have been a wasted two years, but one always wonders…

The problem was that the course was designed to turn out printing General Managers, but no one wanted to employ a General Manager aged twenty one. We knew a little about almost everything in printing, but not enough to qualify as proficient in any particular skill. The opportunities seemed to be selling, design or work-study, and it was the latter which appealed to me. It was obviously possible that I could join the family business of Mark and Moody, and there were suggestions that I should. However, I could not have worked successfully with my father and any event needed to gain experience in the industry on my own account. Later on, I came across many Master Printer’s sons who had joined the family business without experience elsewhere and were usually unsatisfactory as a result.

In our final year, we had to produce a thesis/ report on some appropriate subject, working in pairs. Peter Lilley and I agreed to work together, and our subject was to be Policy and Trends in the Printing Industry. We would base this on research and interviews with managing directors of notable medium-size printing companies. This seemed like a good way to learn a bit about real-life printing management. The managers concerned (John Hacker, Ivan Heath of Perivan, and Rowley Atterbury of Westerham Press) were very kind and gave us generous interviews. The subsequent report was mostly written by me, but Peter did all the typing. Looking at it again today, I’m surprised about how much of the views and recommendations in the report stayed with me for my management career – such as the importance of management ratios, costing, motivation, communications, strategic thinking, design etc. Happily, this project led to my future career. As with almost every important event in my life, it came from a combination of chance and opportunity. It all started when Peter and I went to Perivan in Southend to interview Ivan Heath, who was then seen as one of the leading British printers. We had an interesting tour of the factory, and Ivan gave us a lot of time and put up with our questions very patiently. He then invited us to have lunch in the canteen, and this was how I first met Ron Norbury. He was then Works Director of Perivan but had previously been Director of Studies at Cranfield School of Work-Study. He was a bit of a revelation to me, as no one had ever cross-examined me quite so rigorously before. When I told him I was interested in a job in work study he suggested that I contact Ernest Harrison of Harrison’s, who he said might be interested in me. Ron was a consultant to Harrison’s in their venture into method study. He was to be an important influence on my early career. I took his advice and saw Ernest, who offered me a job at Harrison’s in St Martin’s Lane London in his new Method Study department at £500 a year, which I was glad to accept. I started work there in September 1960. Peter Lilley also joined Harrison’s as a management trainee at High Wycombe, Harrison’s gravure factory, where they printed the British postage stamps.

Patrick John William Mark (Up ’57)