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I was born on 17 March 1918, the son of Alfred William Buckley and Eliza Pickett. I was the
eldest of four – my brother, Ernie, was two years younger than me - my sisters, Betty and Edna,
were four and seven years younger than me. My father was described on my birth certificate as
a druggist. My mother was a seamstress by trade but she ceased working when I was about to
arrive. Apparently a druggist, at that period of time, was someone who had been given the
authority and power to control the issue of drugs for a certain part of the country. His area was
North East London and he had the exclusive licence to issue drugs to hospitals, doctors and other
nominated people, who were entitled to use the drugs for medical and therapeutic purposes. It
was obviously quite a coveted position, although the drugs, I think, were pretty simple. My
mother was a strong minded lady who handled the family affairs and I developed a very close
and loving relationship with her. Her advice was very helpful and significantly influenced my
development during my early years.

We lived in 17 Lamb Lane, Hackney, E8, London. Lamb Lane was a small street off Mare Street,
which was a main street going from the district of Bethnal Green out towards Clapton and
Leighton. Most of the public buildings in Hackney were located on this street, including the
Hackney Empire.

17 Lamb Lane was a Victorian, 3-storey terrace house and, like all the other houses in the street,
it was rented. As you entered the house, the first room on the front left hand side, was the
sitting room. It was only used on Sunday afternoons or special days. and in it there was a piano.
Continuing down the hall, there was in front of you, the staircase going up, and then, on the left,
there was a bedroom. Continuing further, there was the living room with a table with four chairs
around it and a comfortable chair by the fire. Next to the living room, was the scullery which had
a gas cooker, a sink with no hot water of course - you had to boil a kettle on the gas stove if you
wanted any hot water. There was also a wash boiler, fired by wood, which my mother used
every Monday. From the kitchen, there was a door leading out to the garden. Outside, there
was the toilet and a walled garden, not a big one, but adequate at the time, and it had on the
right, a shed in which my mother kept chickens and a cockerel, so that most of the time, we had
a supply of fresh eggs. We children helped to collect the eggs and feed the chickens with
varieties of household scraps and, as a special treat, leftovers from the local greengrocer. I have
vivid memories of the cockerel when he was crowing. I‟m sure our neighbours heard it too -
however they didn‟t mind too much, as we occasionally handed over some of the eggs, and even
the chickens when they had ceased laying.

Back to the house itself - On the landing there was another bedroom. This was used
intermittently by a girl who helped my mother with day to day tasks. The girl was provided with
free accommodation and wages which were standard at that time. Occasionally we took in a
lodger to supplement the income. Going up the stairs again, with the same stair pattern, there
were another two bedrooms – the main bedroom and a side bedroom, which was used by my
sisters. In the main bedroom was my parents‟ bed, and a smaller one for my brother and myself.
All the main rooms had coal fires and were furnished appropriately.

More about my parents - My mother‟s father was a drayman for a brewery in Aldgate, East
London. When I visited them in their terrace house in Brick Lane, I was astonished to see that
they were the only non-Jewish family in the street. All the rest of the householders were Jewish.
If I happened to be there on a Friday evening, I would see the Jewish people carrying fowls
upside down, holding them by the feet, ready for the religious ceremony which was then
prevalent and rigorously exercised on that night of the week.

On the other side of the family, my father‟s parents lived in Hoxton. I never saw my grandfather
as he died when I was quite young. From Lamb Lane, we went across London Fields and over
the canal into Hoxton, which was then regarded as a reasonable residential area. My father was
one of six children, four male and two female - he was the youngest. The four males all worked
in the furniture business in a workshop in Curtain Road, Shoreditch. I believe that my
grandfather, who was born in Cork, Ireland, came over with the children and my grandmother,
when he was quite young. He created the workshop, which specialised in handmade furniture,
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based on copies of Victorian style sideboards, tables and chest of drawers. I went to that
workshop from time to time. They employed another six people, experienced in producing
handmade furniture. It was a successful business and provided them all with a reasonable
livelihood. Of the two daughters, one married a man who was in the printing business, which
was then very highly paid, and the other one was single. They had a Victorian semi-detached
house with relatively large rooms, which was four-storeys, including the basement. My
grandmother lived in the front basement rooms and other rooms at the same level were used as
the kitchen and the breakfast room. Also living there, was the younger sister of the daughter‟s
husband – she assisted in the general duties, including the cooking. I used to visit my
grandmother nearly every Sunday, as a matter of routine, to keep in touch with her, on behalf of
the family. I used to dress in my „Sunday best‟ as the representative of the family. My attire
was traditional for the time,, with the appropriate hat and coat etc, depending on time of the
year. My grandmother‟s room was quite small and was almost filled by her double bed. She had
all her meals with her daughter and her daughter‟s children in the adjoining rooms. She was a
very kind and gentle lady and during my normal two hourly visit, I would try to keep her
informed of the weekly events, including my own experiences.

Our home life was much the same as other families in the street - mother looking after the kids
and home. Our family‟s fortunes varied fairly dramatically because my father was a heavy
gambler, drinker and cigar smoker – he rarely came home before 7.30pm, having stopped off at
one or two pubs on the way. Throughout his life he bet on the horses, which meant that the
family had varying degrees of affluence, but we all managed to survive. My father had several
redeeming features which made him very popular. He was essentially a „man‟s man‟ and
preferred mens‟ company, particularly over a few drinks. He once confessed to me that this side
of his character had caused problems on many occasions with my mother. However he stressed
that having relationships with other women was not an activity he had ever indulged in and had
remained, in that sense, truly faithful to his marriage vows. His lifestyle limited the time he spent
in lengthy conversations with his children, but he was always very generous and considerate. His
lifestyle, however, produced problems on many occasions. One of them I recall was on Guy
Fawkes night, when we children were aged between eight and fourteen. My mother had agreed
to a request from us, that we should have a big bonfire and fireworks on that night and invite
some of our friends. My father undertook to buy all the fireworks needed to make the evening
a wonderful occasion. However, unfortunately, as was his usual practice, he stopped off at one
or two pubs on the way and did not arrive until after 8 pm. Bulging from every pocket, were all
sorts of fireworks, but by this time, the fire had virtually died down and the youngest children
were ready for bed. You can imagine how my mother responded to this..

More about my mother - Her relationship with my father was pretty volatile because of his
lifestyle. She was very tolerant on most occasions, but occasionally put her foot down very
forcibly and cut him down to size. She was very protective of us children, and, being the eldest,
I was privy to a few of their minor explosions, and occasionally was part of them. On one
occasion I recall that my father came home quite late in the evening and had obviously met up
with one of his chums and stayed out drinking.. He arrived home in due course, accompanied by
that friend, and told my mother that he was going upstairs to bring down „his darling boy‟ (me),
to meet his pal. I could hear the shouting that was going on and started to go down the stairs.
However, at the bottom, was my mother standing astride the stairs, with arms firmly fixed, one
on the banister and the other on the wall. She told my father that he was in no way going to
disturb me just to please a friend. There were further altercations and I quickly returned to my
bed and pretended I had not heard anything. On another occasions my parents had rows during
the night, which kept me awake. I heard my father apologise for the way he had behaved. One
morning, soon after my father had left for work at around 7 am, my mother came to my room
and asked me to get up and get dressed. She told me that she was worried about my father, as
he was in a very depressed state and talked about committing suicide. She requested that I go
straight to his office before going to school to see how he was. I went to his work and asked to
see him and he finally came out and asked me why I had come. I told him of my mum‟s worry
and that I had come to see if he was alright. He said he had to get back to work and gave me a
great hug and told me how important I was to him.
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My recollection of the sitting room is on winter Sunday afternoons. We would cook crumpets on
the open fire with butter and jam. The room contained the piano I used to play. My mother
gave all the children the opportunity to have piano lessons but unfortunately no-one kept it up.
I persisted and became quite an enthusiastic pupil of a part-time lady teacher. She used to
come to the house once a week for my lesson, which lasted for one and a half hours. She gave
me sheet music , which I was then to practise. I practised most evenings on my return from
school, so that when she next came, I was able to play the pieces reasonably well. This was
not a problem for me, as I enjoyed playing and was anxious to please my teacher and my mum.
From time to time, when my mother invited friends for tea, to my embarrassment, she always
insisted that I would play the piano to entertain her guests. I was never quite sure how delighted
they were – but I was reasonably competent and easy to listen to.

I remember, on odd occasions, my mother would send me off to queue at the Hackney Empire
for a particular concert she wanted to see. She would join me in the queue when she had put the
other children to bed. This queue was for seats in the balcony. I saw many famous music hall
stars of the time, including Louis Armstrong, Max Miller, and some of the old music hall
favourites. I always started queuing very early and so was at the front of the queue ready for
the doors to open. The arrival of my mum a few minutes before the doors opened, to join me at
the head of the queue, was frowned upon by the other people behind us, but my mum usually
shrugged this off and ignored it. Of course the cost of a balcony seat was cheap, as they were at
the top of the building. One of the great delights at interval was to be provided either with a
glass of lemonade or a bar of chocolate and sometimes even both. My siblings, Ernie, Betty and
Edna were looked after by a daughter of one of our neighbours.

As kids we would sometimes go with my father to a football match to watch the Clapton Orient
team. Their homeground was located near the River Lee in Clapton and it was a very highly
rated football club at that time. My father always had a bet on the result. I remember he
usually bet on Clapton Orient winning, if they were playing at home. On one occasion, I was
troubled when it was obvious that not only had Clapton Orient lost, but he had also lost. I
endeavoured to express my sorrow but he brushed it aside and said „There‟s always another day
boy, don‟t get fussed about it‟. He was a very active member of the Lansdowne Working Men‟s
Club which was round the corner in Mare Street and could usually be found there on Sunday
lunchtimes and evenings. At the club, there was always an oldtime musical hall on a Sunday
evening. On these occasions, in accordance with the old style music hall tradition, there was
always a senior member of the Club in front of the stage, introducing the artists as they
appeared. My mother went sometimes on a Sunday evening after putting the others to bed,
inviting me along. This was always a very pleasant occasion. At Christmas there was a
pantomime to which all the family went, joining in the singing and receiving Christmas presents.

As a family, Christmas was always very special for us. The preparation of the Christmas pudding
was a particular ritual that started at the beginning of December. My mother would put the
Christmas pudding mixture in several basins and invite each of the children to stir the mix
vigorously. At the same time they were to express their wishes and hopes for Father Christmas.
It was one of the few events in which my father took an active interest. He also indulged in the
stirring, adding brandy and sherry, to provide it with an appropriate flavour. The decoration of
the Christmas tree and house was enthusiastically undertaken by all the children, working
together with occasional guidance by our mother. The belief in Father Christmas was very strong
and remained with me until I was about twelve years old, when I accidentally found out the truth
one Christmas Eve. Our stockings were hung in our bedrooms so that Father Christmas could fill
them up with a variety of goodies. Christmas was also a time that my father was at home on
Christmas Day and Boxing Day and he often had friends around during that period.

I don‟t think we ever went anywhere on holiday other than Southend and Brighton, although on
special occasions, we did go to Yarmouth. We went by train from Liverpool Street Station or
Victoria Station, having taken a bus from the stop at the end of our street. We went on holiday
for a week in August and stayed at a boarding house and spent the day usually on the beach. In
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the evenings we would walk in the town before going to bed. We occasionally had an additional
holiday which coincided with the Yarmouth race calendar. Then, my father was always in a
cheerful, talkative mood, particularly as some of his bookmaker friends were there and chatted
and drank with him. One was a great friend of his and gave him some useful tips from time to
time. My mother was not a sporty lady and spent most of her time, when on holiday, sitting in a
deckchair on the beach and playing sandcastles with my sisters. My brother and I were more
adventurous and often played football and cricket with other children who had a similar passion
for ball games.

Lamb Lane led in the other direction to London Fields, a public green fields area, not terribly big,
on which we used to play. There was a football pitch, cricket pitch and some tennis courts. I
used to walk across there every morning to go to Gayhurst School in Gayhurst Road.

My brother Ernie and I did not have a very relaxed and easy relationship. This was partly due to
my success at school and the praise I received from my parents. He obviously got fed up at
times with not receiving the same attention, and he occasionally showed his feelings in
aggression towards me. We shared a bed and if the row was still ongoing, it continued in bed
until my mother came up and threatened us with all sorts of penalties, if we did not behave.
However, when I reflect on this period of my life, I can well understand the reasons for the
occasional problems we had, most of which were probably my fault any way. Ernie‟s school
career was pretty standard - he went to another state school in Eleanor Road which was not
regarded as the top of the tree, and his academic interest was limited. He left school in the
normal way at the age of fourteen and became an apprentice tailor, serving for three years.
Eventually, in his thirties, he started on his own, and became a very highly skilled and respected
tailor with a workshop in the West End of London. His clients were part of the Saville Row elite.
His speciality was tailoring trousers and he made them for several famous people, including the
religious leader Haile Selassi of Ethiopia, who used to order twelve pairs every year.

My sisters, Betty and Edna, went to the normal state girls‟ school. They left school at fourteen
and worked in administration and held several senior positions with insurance companies before
retiring. We were a very close family and shared the same interests. My sisters stayed at home
with my mother and father during their teens and continued to share the same house as my
parents (in different locations) as they grew older. It was always a detached house with
sufficient accommodation for all of them. When my eldest sister, Betty, married and had a son,
they all moved to a larger detached house in Leytonstone, North East London. One of the of
houses they lived in for many years, was large enough to provide separate sitting rooms and
dining rooms for my mother and father and my younger sister at one end on the ground floor
and my eldest sister‟s family at the other end. The only joint arrangement was the kitchen where
they took it in turns to cook the meal. My brother, who lived with his family in South East
London, made regular visits to them and also maintained a close relationship.

I went to school, across London Fields, to Gayhurst in Gayhurst Road, which is in what was then
described as Hackney Downs. It was a good school – I presume it‟s a comprehensive now but it
wasn‟t then. It was all male and the headmaster was a Mr Ross and my teacher was a Mr Evans.
He was a Welshman, who, apart from teaching the standard curriculum, was also a keen
musician and played the piano very well. I had, from my early days, developed a great interest
and love of music, and under Mr Evans‟ guidance, was given several opportunities to indulge in
this love. He taught me how to sing popular ballads and gave me confidence to sing these songs
to the rest of the class.

The curriculum gave you an opportunity to qualify for the local grammar school, which was very
well established and very highly respected. I was very near the top of the class. I qualified for
entrance into that grammar school when I was about ten years old. But, during the period I
was at Gayhurst, one of the things that gave me a lot of pleasure, was the fact that each year
with Evans running the show, we put on Gilbert & Sullivan operas in co-operation with the local
girls‟ school. This was the only time of course that one had any communication (in a school
sense) with the opposite sex. I appeared in three shows – I was in the chorus in The Pirates of
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Penzance and Iolanthe and was a principal in The Gondoliers - I was Giuseppe and that was a
lot of fun. One thing I have always remembered about them, was that the lyrics of those operas
were so terribly good.

The annual opera event became very well known to the local community and the performances
were well attended. My family gave me every encouragement to practise and assisted in any
way they could. The costumes for the show were provided by the school and the cost involved
was met from contributions from the school staff and some of the families. These costs,
however, were largely recovered from the sale of tickets to the concert. The show would run for
four nights.

After leaving the school, I kept in touch with Mr Evans. He was actively involved with various
local music and drama societies. These society members varied in age, but mainly people were
in their twenties, thirties, or forties. Occasionally they needed a very junior person to play a
special part. I remember on one occasion I was invited to join in a performance of the Mikado,
which was very flattering.

As we children got older, our social and political patterns became increasingly diverse. My father
remained fairly apolitical, expressing views towards the liberal wing of the political climate,
prevailing at the time. I remember, for example, that our house was used as a base by Herbert
Morrison when the elections for the London County Council took place. As a result, he met
Morrison on several occasions and subsequently when Morrison became mayor of the LCC. My
brother Ernie,on the other hand, took a more extreme left wing view of how society should
progress and became an active member of the Communist Party. He was significantly influenced
in this course by the girl he met and fell in love with when he was eighteen years of age, who
was an ardent supporter of the red flag. This led to significant clashes within the family from
time to time, particularly between Ernie and myself. Whilst at that time I was not an active
member of any political party, I certainly supported very strongly opportunities to encourage
enterprise and freedom of expression.

My social life between the ages of sixteen and twenty one - Sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen
year olds were not nearly as mature as they are today and I was very ignorant about sexual
relationships and so on. Since you had no sex education and your mum and dad never discussed
the subject, you either learnt it wrongly from rumours or eventually by actual education of a
fairly minimal standard. Sport was the overriding factor in the life of a youth. I had a crowd of
male friends and we all participated in cricket, tennis and football in the summer, and table
tennis in the winter. I joined a club called Hoxton Manor and there I spent a significant amount
of time with my buddies trying to improve our standards in the above sports.

I took up the opportunity to go to the grammar school, although my father was not at all happy
with this. He felt the education was too academic and, whilst it would lead to entry into a
university of academic excellence, he was firmly of the view that my best future lay in
engineering. After further discussion, I was invited to transfer from the grammar school to the
Hackney Technical Institute, where the educational process was very definitely geared towards
electrical, mechanical and civil engineering. There I succeeded in passing at the top in the final
exam. I finished the educational process, which in those days was at the age of 16. I had taken
exams in Maths, English, History, Engineering drawing, Chemistry and Physics. As a result of my
success, I had several offers of employment and chose one with a firm of reinforced concrete
contractors and engineers. They were called Concrete Limited and were located at Charing
Cross. I worked in a junior capacity in the design and drawing office and I recall that, although
the calculations were done by the designers, they never finished the equation once they set
down the various structural formulae. They then passed it to me to do the arithmetic and I
suppose one of the virtues of that experience is that I have always been able to add up much
more quickly than most people and also know my squares and all the other basic arithmetic.
These disciplines have been useful from time to time and I find today that people are so
dependent on calculators and, even then, don‟t always get it right. However, after about six
months, I had an opportunity to become a pupil at a firm of consulting engineers, Rendel Palmer
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& Tritton. There, I moved on to the drawing board and doing structural drawings and some of
the basic calculations for the designs of structures. I was there for eighteen months in an office
in Victoria Street. While there, I met Wally Rowland, who was four years older than me and took
me under his wing. When he moved to another firm of consulting engineers, he persuaded me
to join them too. It was the initial structural engineering practice set up by W S Atkins. This,
from a very small beginning, grew to become one of the largest consulting engineering
organisations in the world.

Bill Atkins had left a firm of structural engineers – I think they were called Smith Walker – where
he was Head of the Drawing Office and had started on his own, with an objective to concentrate
on the design of reinforced concrete structures, some of which proved to be quite complicated. I
was with Atkins for two and a half years and it was in this period, that I gained the experience
and the knowledge to do the actual designs and handle one or two projects on my own, under
the overall supervision of Atkins as the Chief Engineer. I recall designing a development in
Aldgate, which included shopping units at the bottom and offices above, and also subsequently
the design of buildings at Luton for Vauxhall Motors. The ability to do this also helped me in my
quest to pass - by that time I must have been eighteen – the preliminary exam for entrance to
the Institution of Civil Engineers which included French, Maths, Physics and Chemistry. I then
continued on with Section A of the Institution, or the next stage of the quest, to get fully
qualified. In order to pass these exams and gain the necessary knowledge, I enrolled as an
evening student at Northampton Technical Institute, which was in Bloomsbury near the Sadler‟s
Wells Theatre. I used to go there four nights a week during the term period, which seems rather
extraordinary at this stage. I used to leave Victoria Street around 5.30 pm and get to the
Institute by 6.30 pm, when the lessons commenced. They would finish at 9 pm, so that it was
nearer 10 pm when I got home on four out of the seven nights. This left very little time for social
life, but I will come to that later. However, it did enable me to pass the first section, section A of
the qualifying process. At this stage, I moved on from Atkins to a civil engineering contractor. I
decided to do this because I wanted the experience of supervising actual construction, whereas
hitherto I had only been involved in putting plans on a drawing board and passed the drawings
and the details onto others to actually build it.

Speight & Partners was a private company and specialised in bridge building and general civil
engineering works like sewerage and water treatment plants. I was lucky in that I applied for a
job and cheated a bit about my age and was offered an appointment – I think I must have said I
was at least eighteen months older than I actually was – but Walter Dutton, who later became a
friend, obviously felt I could fulfil the job he wanted and so he appointed me. My first
appointment was as a site engineer in Wapping, where the company was involved in building a
bridge across the docks. We were responsible for constructing the civil engineering works,
mainly the foundations, and also the deck of the structural steel bridge which was a smaller
edition of the Tower Bridge, although it only had one leaf - a single leaf was to enable river craft
to pass through to the docklands. It was a very interesting experience. I was regarded as a very
young, inexperienced site engineer, but fortunately my general foreman, who was in his fifties ,
was very experienced and helped me in many respects when I clearly had not had the experience
necessary.

Walter Dutton was an extraordinary man. He used to visit the site every week and was very
formidable. One thing that amazed me was that he smoked a pipe but inhaled the tobacco and
blew out a vast waft of smoke as a result. He would arrive in his Rolls Royce and called me
„Buckley‟. I remember on one occasion going over the site with him – I was very nervous as you
can imagine – and under pressure I gave him the wrong information. We had installed three
pumps where we were building the foundations, to enable the work to proceed with the masses
of water that would otherwise be around within a coffer dam. I reported to Dutton, during the
tour that one of the pumps had broken down and that was why we were having problems.
However under pressure, in response to his questioning, I told him the wrong pump. When we
finished our tour he asked „Why did you tell me it was that particular pump when it obviously was
not ?‟ I replied „ Yes, I‟m sorry about that, I realised as soon as I said it that I had given you the
wrong information but I did not want to appear to be a fool‟. His response to that was „Buckley-it
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is better to be a fool rather than a liar‟. He then got into his chauffeur driven Rolls Royce and off
he went. The period following this unfortunate episode, went on without any major incidents
and I gained an immense amount of experience as a result. However the work aspect was not
the only, or even the major experience I gained as a result of my eighteen months travelling
daily to Wapping. In those days, Wapping was an essential part of „Cockney Land‟ and had its
own culture and family lifestyle. The citizens had a fairly rigid lifestyle and conduct independent
of the other areas of London. The pub was a major focus for the male population. During the
week, I rarely saw many females, on the occasions when I stopped off for a drink on my way
home. Some pubs were open from 7.30 am until 11 am and reopened in the early evening. The
family structure followed a fairly strict pattern, the husband earning the money, mainly employed
in the docks, and the wife looking after the family and the household. There was a pretty happy
atmosphere all the time and, once we got used to each other, I was made quite welcome by the
local people. It was a pleasant experience which I have cherished for many years.

I then spent the period up to the war as a site engineer on the bridge that goes across the River
Thames at the entrance to Maidenhead. Again, Speight & Partners were the civil engineering
contractors doing the approach works to the bridge, foundations and other parts of it. It was an
interesting experience in that it was the first time I had lived away from home. I stayed in a
gardener‟s cottage in Bray in Berkshire which was adjacent to the bridge. I had my own room
and all meals with the family, for about 50 shillings a week. It was also there that I used to go
to the local Simmonds Pub in the village, sometimes with my landlord . We used to play various
card games, dominoes and other games and drink bitter beer by the pint for about tuppence. I
think that more or less brings me up to the time when the war broke out and covers, in the
preliminary sense the business side of my career up to that time. When the war broke out I had
just reached my twentieth birthday.

During my time with Speight & Partners, I took Section B of the Institution exams which involved
Geology, Geodesy, Engineering drawing and higher Maths. I also had to do, which I found very
tough, Soil Mechanics and Geology. For Geodesy, the surveying qualification, there was a school
on Hampstead Heath which was supervised by a retired major in the Royal Engineers. Here, you
learned how to use a level and a theodolite and other surveying instruments. I used to do that on
a Saturday afternoon as it was the only time when I was not working. I continued to take the
other exams at Northampton Institute and also took a correspondence course which was
specifically designed for aspiring civil engineers. It was of great assistance to me when I finally
took the exams and passed Section B.

My mother, who exercised a great influence on me, advised that whilst commitment to sport had
great benefits, there were social attributes that I needed to cultivate, to build up a broader
understanding of life. One of the assets she said I needed to gain, was to become a reasonable
performer on the dance floor. I informed my close pals of my mum‟s views and researched and
found a highly respected private dancing school in Stoke Newington which was run by a husband
and wife team. He was a past world tango champion and she had gained many prizes on the
general dance floor. My pals and I used to go there every Sunday afternoon for lessons on the
waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, rumba, and tango. The four of us, who regarded ourselves at the top
of the tree in football, cricket, and tennis, were ready to embrace the special abilities of the
dancing world in the hope and expectation that such ability would be readily recognised by the
opposite sex. Our focus was on the girls of our age who were enthusiastic attendees of the local
dance halls. After several months of practice, my pals and I felt we were really good dancers
and ready to demonstrate our expertise on the dance floor. Inevitably, the flattering view we
had of ourselves was not shared by the other participants in the dancing sessions, and as a
consequence, our egos were severely dented from time to time. One big blow to our ego
occurred on our first visit to Mornington Hall, Islington, which had special dancing sessions every
Sunday afternoon. When we arrived, we saw that the men were all standing on one side of the
dance floor and the ladies on the other and when the band commenced to play (it was a three-
piece – sax, bass and keyboard), the men walked smartly across and invited one of the girls to
dance with them. We, in due course, having watched the proceedings, did the same and
danced, as we thought, reasonably well. Having escorted back the girl with whom I danced, I
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waited for the next dance. I then walked across and asked another girl within that group for the
pleasure of a dance. To my astonishment, I got a negative response. Another girl, who saw that
I was clearly embarrassed and shaken by this, offered to dance with me as a replacement.
During the dance she told me that they were all very keen dancers and some of them had
aspirations to become professional. She tactfully stated that I was not yet up to the standard
normally provided by the male partners at that dance club and suggested that it would be a good
idea to have more lessons if I was going to become a regular participant at Mornington Hall.
Having recovered from the shock of being rejected, I went back to have more lessons and
practised quite intensively over the next couple of months. Having then been told by my
teachers that I was a good dancer, I returned to Mornington Hall and was very relieved to find
myself acceptable amongst the dancing elite and I was never short of a partner. It was normal
practice, in those days, to go to dancehalls like Hammersmith Palais, Tottenham Palais, Hornsley
Palais, and Islington Town Hall, which would have regular Saturday night dances with bands like
Joe Loss and Victor Sylvester. Both females and males generally went unaccompanied by the
opposite sex. So it was the big social event of the week for the two sexes to meet up and
develop relationships. As a result of my regular attendance at these dances as a teenager, I
formed a close relationship with several of the girls. The most important one was the lady I
eventually married, Marion. She was a regular attendee at some of the dance halls I went to and
was a good dancer with a bubbly personality. She was also a very independent lady and took
the opportunity to cut you down to size when she felt it was necessary.

Marion was born in Burnley, Lancashire, and her parents came to London in the thirties. At that
period of time there was a general depression which particularly affected the cotton towns of
Lancashire. Her parents came to London in search of employment in order to support a
reasonable standard of living. Her father was severely wounded in the First
World War and worked only intermittently, mainly as a stall owner in the Ridley Road market in
Dorston, East London. Her mother worked as a seamstress in a clothing factory, as did Marion.
Marion and I gradually became closer and closer and I used to visit her once during the week
and then go out dancing with her on a Saturday night. As our relationship grew closer, her
father seemed to take a stronger and stronger view on the time we would be allowed to be on
our own in the house. The house was two storeys and you went up the stairs to go to the
entrance. I remember that, when I used to say goodnight, we would kiss and hug on the steps
going out of the house. But the time for such a loving interlude was strictly limited, as far as her
father Wilfred was concerned, much to my irritation. For, after what seemed like only five
minutes, but was probably fifteen, he would shout „Marion, bedtime‟, and if you ignored that he
would say it even more stridently two minutes later, so one rather gave up the uneven battle.
Marion was not a sports minded person and so my efforts to make her into a tennis player did
not meet with great success, except that she appeared, on those occasions when we did go to
the tennis court, immaculately dressed for tennis in the latest fashion. However, I had another
idea which was that, as we had bicycles, I thought it would be good to buy a tandem and go off
into the countryside from time to time. This I did, but it was not a great success – Marion would
emerge at the door when I came round with the tandem, dressed more suitably for the tennis
court rather than the bicycle. As we were in the centre of London, we normally went east to the
Epping Forest area. There were trams in those days, and, if you were to make progress, you had
to duck in and out of the trams. This terrified her. The other problem was that towards the end
of the journey out, one went up significant hills. I occasionally questioned whether she was
doing any pedalling at all – the bike was quite big and I certainly struggled in the front, trying to
cope with the inclines. She, of course, indignantly denied these allegations and the result
sometimes meant that we did not speak for an hour or two after the incident. However, we kept
that going for about a year. My relationship with the boys still carried on, albeit not so frequently
as before. Two of my friends who were two or three years older than me, were brothers Harry
and Wally Tasker. Their parents owned a pub at Hackney Wick and that was one of the places on
the odd night in the week where we would meet and have a few drinks and a chat.

At this period of time, the signs of war became increasingly ominous and in September 1939 war
was declared after Hitler invaded Poland. The British were quite ill-equipped for this war, partly
because for some years, there had been a considerable anti-war ethos in the political field and
9
therefore the production of war weapons was fairly minimal and our numbers in the armed forces
were quite small. In order to increase the number significantly, all men and, I think , some
women, were conscripted, on the basis of alphabetical order and age, to join up. There were,
however, exceptions and one of them was for people like myself, who had passed exams and
had finished their pupillage as civil engineers. They were excluded on the grounds that it was an
occupation needed to create airfields and air-raid shelters etc and therefore those people who
could contribute to that would be more useful doing that than joining the armed forces. I
therefore was excluded from the call-up ranks but felt a bit guilty from time to time when some
of my other friends were called up. This came to a head one night when I was in the pub with
Harry and Wally Tasker. It was about half an hours walk to the pub from my house and very
often one of them would accompany me for most of the way back. On this particular evening,
Harry came back with me and we discussed the the call-up procedures. Harry was three years
older than me and didn‟t have a reserved occupation in the normal sense, but had the
opportunity to engage in a particular type of work which would exclude him from being
conscripted. However, on the way back, we talked about the war and how we both felt unhappy
or guilty at being able to avoid being called up. We also felt, absurd as it was, that the war
would only last another year and so that made it easier to take a view that one ought not to opt
out. So at the end of that walk, at around midnight, we both decided to volunteer. Harry
volunteered for the Air Force and I volunteered to join the Royal Engineers as a Sapper. That
was in December 1939. I, finally, after considerable hesitation, informed my parents of the
action I had taken. Their initial reaction was that I did not really need to volunteer, but, on the
other hand, they understood that I felt very guilty when some of my friends were compulsorily
enlisted and that this played heavily on my conscience. I also informed my employer, who made
similar comments, but said that he was very proud of my action albeit sorry that I would be
leaving the company. Harry and I both got called up towards the end of February 1940 – I as a
Sapper in the Royal Engineers and Harry in the Air Force. We had a great night out, with
consequent hangovers, just before we both went off. I never saw Harry again because, sadly,
after another fifteen months, he was dead – he had volunteered to be an active member of an
Air Force crew and the aircraft was shot down. At that time, the Germans totally dominated the
skies and so the number of casualties on the British side was very significant.

When the war broke out, my brother was conscripted, like almost everybody his age and joined
the Royal Artillery. During the war years, my parents spent most of their nights in a dug out in
the garden where they used to seek shelter in those periods when the Germans were trying to
destroy London completely. They had one or two narrow escapes – our house did get damaged
but there was no direct hit (the nearest hit was in fact about fifty yards away) but the explosion
and resulting debris did damage our roof. However none of my family, except myself, suffered
any injuries during the war. We were all reunited after the war quite unscathed, at least from
the physical point of view. From other points of view, they came back older and in various
respects, sadder people. Ernie came back, as far as one could tell, the same easy going kindly
sole. Edna however, got engaged to an American pilot, who was killed before the end of the
war. Betty, like me, married and her husband left immediately after their marriage to go to the
Far East to fight the war against the Japanese. He came back in a reasonable state of health. I
suppose, taking things overall, we were a fairly lucky family.

When I talk about my parents spending time in a bunker, I mean an air-raid shelter. These were
made from pre-fabricated corrugated iron, supplied by the local authority to each householder in
the area.

When I was called up, I was instructed to go to Waterloo Station. Obviously there were
significant emotional feelings expressed by all and heartfelt wishes for the future, from the
family. I was told to arrive there at around midday and join others and we would catch a train to
Shoeness where the barracks of the Royal Engineers Training Unit was based. When I got to
Waterloo I met about forty chaps - six, including myself, were volunteers. Most of the volunteers
were chaps in their late twenties, early thirties, so I was much younger than the others.
However, I chummed up with a chap called Robert Harmond and, when we got to the barracks,
we were allotted adjacent beds in a dormitory which housed about 24 people. We were the only
10
two volunteers in that particular dormitory. I remember it was a bit of a shock because the
Sergeant who took us there and allocated everything treated us as if we were schoolboys. He
told me that in the morning he expected me to clean two windows on either side of our beds.
Harmond had to clean up the stove, which was located in the middle of the dormitory to provide
some warmth, and stack it up for the evening. The bed consisted of three large cushions called
„biscuits‟ and blankets – there weren‟t any sheets. I remember we both undressed and chatted
away, as we had beds next to each other, and put on pyjamas. But one of the other chaps from
the far end shouted to the others „Look at those two sissies wearing pyjamas‟ and they looked
with some degree of disbelief at the sight of Harmond and I getting into our pyjamas. Needless
to add, that was the last night we wore pyjamas otherwise we would have been totally
segregated and isolated. After that, we went to bed in our vests like all the rest of them.

It was quite a shock in some ways - alot of the time was spent on the range drilling and learning
how to shoot with a rifle or an anti-tank gun. As engineers, of course, we had to learn and
practise manual skills. As part of this learning curve, we went off to the sea to learn about
aspects of boating. Generally we were taught the various army disciplines that are part of the
day-to-day life of a soldier. We also had to do various written exams to make sure that we
understood all the points that we had been taught. In due course, after about four months,
there was a selection process for potential officers and Harmond and I were selected as potential
officer cadets. We were told that when a vacancy arrived, we would be sent to an Officer Cadet
Training Unit for training as a Sapper Officer. However, that was some months ahead, and by
this time the war had reached a very crucial stage. Churchill was in command. The Germans
were totally dominant in the air and, having conquered most of Europe within weeks, were
preparing themselves to invade England. When we had finished our minimal training, our unit
was sent to occupy an area near Folkestone. Equipped with rifles and anti-tank guns, from our
temporary shelters, mainly below ground, we were prepared to repel the German army should it
land in that part of England. There were about fifty of us, commanded by a very keen Second
Lieutenant and a couple of sergeants. There was also, of course, a cook. The cooking was pretty
basic – a fireplace was built by making two short brick walls and spanning across them iron bars
then lighting wood underneath. The pots were placed on the iron bars and eventually the food
was produced. It was mainly porridge for breakfast and stews with boiled potatoes for dinner.
Harmond and I were the only two officer candidates amongst the group, so we had a certain
influence with our commanding officer. As time went on, we became increasingly fed up with
the quality of the cooking and we complained to the officer on behalf of our fellow soldiers. He
listened sympathetically to the complaint and then staggered us by saying „Well why don‟t you
and Harmond take over as cooks‟. I had no real experience but Harmond fortunately did. We
took over the cooking and, whilst it meant getting up at 5.30 am in order to provide breakfast at
7 am, then working away, Harmond had quite a skill. So the chaps were quite appreciative of
the changes in the kitchen. The officer, who felt that the whole of the safety of Britain was in
our hands, had the chaps on guard almost continuously. Sometimes it was two hours on and four
hours off, but he sometimes made it three hours on and three hours off - so it was all very
demanding. But, because Harmond and I got up early in the morning, he excused us from guard
duties and allowed us to slip out at nights and walk into the town. Sometimes we‟d grab a lift
from a passing car and we would have the odd drink at one of the pubs and occasionally go to
Folkestone pier. We even went dancing on the odd occasion, so life was made quite bearable.
However, after a period of three months of this, we went back to barracks and resumed our
training. Then I was posted to the Officer Cadet Training Unit at Aldershot, Hampshire, for a six
months training period. I learned the duties and responsibilities of a Second Llieutenant in the
Royal Engineers. This was a demanding programme physically and mentally, but particularly
physically. We had to pass certain exams and, at the end, when we had qualified, were posted
to an active unit. I remember that ,on passing the tests and qualifying as an officer, we were
given an opportunity to state which branch of the Royal Engineers we wanted to join, by making
a written declaration. There was, for example, transport, bomb disposal, active units and
probably signals. Anyway, I remember putting down for bomb disposal. You were also invited to
state if there was any particular geographical location preferred. Since Marion by that time was
back in Lancashire, I opted to go there. I was not jumping over the moon when I was finally told
that I had to join 272 Field Company, an active field company, which at that time was stationed
11
in Bury St Edmunds and was preparing to go overseas. However, there was nothing one could
do about it so I eventually went off and met my commanding officer, Major Knott, and the
second in command, Captain Evans.

A field company in those days consisted of a Major in command, a second in command, an

intelligence officer and three other officers and two hundred and sixty five other ranks comprising
sergeants, corporals and sappers. There was also a sergeant major who was the senior NCO in
the unit. I was assigned to a squad commanding sixty five men. After a relatively short time, we
were shipped off to the the desert, to fight against the Germans, who were lead by their hero,
Field Marshall Rommel.

The journey over by boat was a new experience for me. As an officer, I had the luxury of a
cabin, whereas my chaps (whom I used to visit at night to ensure that they were reasonably
comfortable) were all huddled together on made up beds in the cargo area. Obviously, with the
dangers of „U‟ boats and German aircraft, one was in a fairly nervous state throughout the
journey. But we finally arrived at Alexandria in Egypt without incident. Prior to our embarkation,
the company commander, Major Knott, was transferred to another unit and was replaced by the
second in command, Captain Ken Evans. Ken Evans was a very good rugby player and had
represented his country, Wales, in international matches. He was certainly a very lively and
energetic character. Almost immediately after our arrival in Egypt, we were pushed straight into
the line to support the infantry. The German Luftwaffe were in total control of the airspace and
we were constantly faced with aerial attacks. Sadly, on one of these occasions, a bomb landed
close to where Ken Evans was working and killed him. This was of course a great shock to me
and the others. It was compounded by the fact that I was asked to write to Ken‟s wife,
expressing, on behalf of the unit, our condolences and deep sorrow at this tragic event. In due
course I got a response from his wife thanking me and the unit for our concern. In that letter
she informed us that she was about to give birth to Ken‟s child, having conceived just prior to our
overseas departure.

We, together with the infantry, because of German air superiority, hardly moved out at all during
the daylight. We, as sappers in support of the infantry, weren‟t at the front all the time, but back
a mile or so from the front line. Just before darkness we would move and meet up with the front
line infantry. The infantry used to hide in wadies in the desert during the daylight. I remember
talking to the colonel in charge of the Guards battalion that we were supporting. He made very
complimentary remarks about the job we were doing and how he would much rather have his
job than mine. I commented that, at least doing my tasks, I was only exposed for a few hours
every night in the darkness - whereas he had to sit in a wadi, without any respite, change of
clothes, or washing for over twenty four hours. Our job, once it was dark, was to lay anti
personnel mines in front of the areas where the English infantry were harboured. Sometimes, if
there was a German tank that had been damaged during the day, we would be requested to
place explosives in the tank and activate them. Hopefully, this would at least damage the tank
sufficiently to make it impossible for the Germans to retrieve and repair it. We had limited
success in that.

When we went out each night, I only took about half a dozen chaps with me, including a
sergeant. Although I could do a rota for the chaps , one of my sergeants and I had to go out
each time. This became a very stressful ordeal once you had done it for several days. Once,
while we were waiting in the dusk in a wadi, with the Germans firing shells and mortars in front
of us, I was feeling particularlyl tired and nervous. By my side, my sergeant was singing away as
if he were on a Bank Holiday spree. After a time I got really fed up with this, since it was so
alien to the way I felt. So I told him „For god sake Sergeant Barnes, at least change the tune
even if you can‟t stop singing‟. He replied „Well sir, I feel very sorry for you‟, I said „Yes I feel a
bit sorry for myself, but why in particular?‟. „Well the difference between you and me‟, he said,
„Is that you are obviously a very imaginative chap and think of all the possibilities that could
occur in the next couple of hours, whereas I have no imagination whatsoever‟. I‟m not sure that
was absolutely true but it certainly was quite an asset.
12
Under military law, for security reasons, part of my responsibility as a subaltern in charge of sixty
five chaps, was that I had to read any correspondence they sent home. They reluctantly
accepted this and I obviously made no comments to any of them as to the contents of their
letters. It was a bit of an education at times. One of the chaps for example used to write two
letters – one to his wife and one to his girlfriend - and made it clear to me to ensure that I kept
the letters totally separate and that they went back in the right envelope. Another, who wasn‟t
married but was a frequent inhabitant of his local village pub (most of the chaps came from
South Yorkshire and Leicestershire), regaled his old drinking friends with rather extravagant
dramas concerning his participation in the day‟s events – he certainly was a very imaginative
bloke and undoubtedly entertained his pub friends with a variety of stories.

The war continued and under the leadership of Montgomery we started to turn the tide. It was
about this time (this was in the 8th army), that the 1st army landed in Algeria and started to move
Eastward through Tunisia and Libya. My unit was transferred and placed under the command of
the 1st Army, together with the brigade of Guards we supported. We created a pincer movement
with the 8th army against the German forces. This was a very successful operation, although it
involved lots of casualties, including some of my chaps. However, we eventually won the battle
and my unit occupied a farmhouse about twenty miles from Tunis. My chaps had great vocal
skills and I remember we settled into this empty farmhouse . My chaps put up their beds in the
cow sheds and I remember sitting in the farmhouse thinking of all sorts of things, relieved, that
at least for the time being, our war was over. I listened to them singing their various songs, one
of which I will never forget, which is called „You are my Sunshine‟. They were sufficiently expert
at harmonising to make it quite a concert.

Now that the war in Tunisia was over, the French farmers and their Italian staff started to return
to their original homes. Eventually the son of the owner of the farmhouse arrived and he then
told us something of the background of the French occupation of Tunisia. It was still very much,
as far as numbers were concerned, Italian territory. We became good friends and he said that as
soon as the city of Tunis was open to other than military personnel, he would organise a party
and introduce me to his friends. He kept his promise and we enjoyed a couple of evenings
together with his various male and female friends, assisted by liberal quantities of pernod and a
much treasured gramophone with a variety of music. He was quite a charmer and introduced me
to several of his very charming girlfriends. I remember one of them was a palmist - she
predicted a pretty pleasurable future for me except that I would be unlikely to live longer than
fifty years of age due to various lines on my hand.

Through these contacts, I developed a relationship with a local girl from Tunis for a short period,
and met her parents. They escaped from Russia during the communist revolution, the father
having been a member of the Tzar‟s army services. He obtained a job in Tunis as a gang leader
in a local construction company. On one occasion I was invited to their house and met, quite
unexpectedly, the brother of the father. He was an NCO in the French Foreign Legion. To my
embarrassment, when he saw me, he immediately stood to attention and saluted as I was always
in uniform. In spite of my request not to, he continued to stand to attention whilst I was escorted
to a chair and had some coffee.

It was at about this time that I was informed by the army command that I was going to be
promoted and made a staff officer to the chief engineer of 5 Corps. I was promoted to captain
and joined the
5 Corps RE headquarters. It was a very small unit with a brigadier, Brigadier Caldwell, who was
known as „Hindy‟. He had been a teacher at the RE college at Sandhurst in the old days and was
regarded with some terror and nicknamed „Hindenburg‟ after some legendary German officer
from the 1st World War. His main staff officer was a regular officer with the rank of Major and I
joined as his number two with the rank of Captain.

We landed at Salerno and advanced into the area of Bari and Brindisi. We then captured Naples,
moved on and then captured Cascerta, which is about 20-30 miles north of Naples. At this point,
the advance came to a halt. My Division was taken out of the line, replaced by another, and we
13
returned to south of Naples for rest and recuperation. We were there for six weeks or so. It was
for me, an education in Roman history, and gave me an opportunity to visit the ancient parts like
Herculanium, Pompeii, the Sorrento peninsular and Capri.
Pompeii was a great experience. It gave me an insight into the relatively high standard of living
that existed for a privileged class of people, more than two thousand years ago. The facilities
such as the baths, which were available to the Pompeians all those years ago, were certainly
grander than those I was used to in my childhood in Hackney.

I really enjoyed my short time in Positano, and as a result of that, went back, for many years
after the war, on a regular basis - it was quite special. It was quite surprising in one way and
exciting in another, that going round the peninsular between Naples and Salerno, there were
many places of great beauty and historical interest. One of , on the Salerno side of the
peninsular, is Ravello, which is situated above the town of Amalfi. On one occasion I received an
invitation from the then English owner of the Villa Timbroni. It dated back to Nero‟s time. In
fact, I believe it was owned and loved by Nero. I stayed there for a brief period of four days,
pure holiday. Another place of similar interest was Positano. I was always struck by the
magnificence of the vista and the countryside and also there was the famous Sorrento, the
equally famous Island of Capri and other historical landmarks.

At that time the island became front line news in the UK, since it became the home of one of
England‟s singing stars, Gracie Fields. She expressed her delight very vigorously on the beauty
of the island, and that encouraged me to make a visit. Following a day on the island, I
understood why she thought it was so marvellous.

I also remember receiving an invitation to go to look at parts of old Naples, which although was
suffering very badly from war damage, still had several points of significant interest. I visited
many months later when the war had moved on much further north.

After about five weeks of rest, we went back in the line and continued the battle in the north in
support of the battalion that was part of the brigade of guards. Our task was made easier by the
fact that we now had air dominance, certainly at least parity, which made things less hazardous
for us in making temporary crossings. We made good progress and finally captured Florence and
on the Adriatic side, we reached Forli. After months of battling, incurring significant casualties,
my Division was relieved by another. This enabled us to withdraw from the front line and we
went back to safety, sorting ourselves out and dealing with the reconstruction and reorganisation
of the units. My company settled in a farm near Foggibonsi. It was comfortable, in spite of being
badly damaged by the battles that had preceded our arrival. Over the several months of co-
operation, I got to know the brigadier in charge of the brigade of guards fairly well, since my
company was supporting him. It was his battalion for whom we did most of the work in river
crossings. He visited us at our headquarters and subsequently we received an invitation to spend
an evening at the officers‟ mess. On the set date, my six officers and I arrived at their location.
My second in command was Captain Brian Fane, born in Peckham, South London. Because he
was second in command, he was a sort of back-room boy, looking after the administration and
support a mile or so back from the front line. So he did not have contact with the battalion
officers to the extent that my other officers did. When we arrived, the Guard‟s Colonel met Brian
for the first time. I introduced Fane to the Colonel (he was a very decent bloke but a terrible
snob), who immediately asked Brian whether he was one of the Dorset Fanes or the Somerset
Fanes. Brian looked quite blank and I quickly intercepted and said „Colonel you have to realise
that you are now in the company of cockneys – I am a cockney. I don‟t know where Brian came
from but I don‟t think it‟s terribly relevant‟. He looked a bit embarrassed and shocked with the
idea that I was a cockney (I don‟t think he quite knew what a cockney was), but that was the
end of that discussion. This was in fact a gross understatement and my many officers came from
very diverse backgrounds. One had an uncle who was an Admiral in the Fleet and was serving
with me as a subaltern.
14
After a further few weeks rest, we had to prepare to go back into the firing line. We duly
prepared but twenty four hours before we were due to go, I was called to a secret meeting by
the Divisional Commander. He told me that we weren‟t going into the line but were to go to the
Adriatic coast to board tank landing craft bound for Greece. It was all terribly secret and so
instead of going north as we thought, we had to turn round and head for Taranto to board these
landing craft. Then across the Adriatic to Patras, which was one of the biggest ports on the Greek
Adriatic coast. It was a stormy crossing and I remember one of my officers was very sick and as
a result he lost his false teeth, which made life very miserable. The reason for this sudden
transfer of activity was because a civil war had broken out in Greece between the Elas and the
Royalists. The British were supporting the Royalists. The Royalists had always supported the
Allied cause and were anti German whereas the Elas was a communist regime. We duly arrived
at Patras with some difficulty. During our short stop at the base, suffered casualties when,
suddenly from a crowd dressed in civilian clothes, guns were produced and were shot at us.
Neither the Elas nor the Royalists were uniformed ,so you didn‟t know who was friendly and who
was hostile. However we managed to stabilise our immediate area and were instructed by the
Brigade Commander to go along the Gulf of Corinth and occupy a small town called Vahrati? We
were to deal with any rebel uprising by the Elas and take control and get things back to normal.
We arrived at this small town and I remember to this day, at the centre, was a major crossroad,
with cafes on two of the corners. My unit consisted of two hundred and sixty personnel - six
officers, about twenty NCOs and the rest were sappers - plus sixty five vehicles. On arrival, we
discovered that the word had got round, and the locals started to come out of their houses. They
were obviously very, very pleased to see us and there was a great deal of cheering and clapping.
My chaps had been now in active service, some of them, since the desert and the others were
replacements for those who had got wounded or killed. So very little drilling or marching on the
parade ground had happened for a considerable period of time. However I instructed them to get
out of their vehicles and line up in the square of this small town, and we did a little march up and
down to the cheers of the local population. I was informed that the mayor and the doctor had
been captured by the Elas and were in the hills a few miles away, so we were greeted by the
priest and by the chief police officer. We finally sorted out where we could sleep – in the church
hall and the school. I was invited to stay in a small farmhouse which was perfectly adequate and
quite comfortable. I remember it had a couple of acres of land and a goat which supplied milk to
the owners of the house. It was a single storey building. We settled in and I sent a whole bunch
of my chaps and a couple of the locals to get the mayor and the doctor released. We reinstated
them in the town and started to re-establish a routine to get things back to normal. This we
largely did, although every now and again, I would suddenly be confronted by some locals
bringing to me men, claiming they had been supporters of the Elas, and had been responsible for
all sorts of crimes against the local community. I arrested the alleged offenders and told the
locals that I would send the prisoners to Athens under escort for trial. This greatly disappointed
the locals who really thought it would be more appropriate if I would execute them as traitors
and shoot them on the spot. I explained that this was not the type of responsibility that we were
expected to discharge and after some reluctance they got used to the idea that this was not
going to happen.

On the social side, we were inundated with invitations by the local people who very generously
offered us meals and drink. I became quite fond of the local wine Retsina, a white wine laced
with resin which was the standard drink for the local community. I think the Greek name for a
major was Tajamarkis? I was invited everywhere. It became quite embarrassing, so I felt it
necessary to have a chat with my fellow officers about the level of invitations to us all. We
therefore agreed a programme whereby we would only accept two invitations in the week and
there would be three for the NCOs and two for the sappers. However I changed that eventually
to making it four or five for NCOs because I found that all my chaps (as they had done in the
past when in rest periods) had created their own social contacts and they didn‟t need any official
invitations. It was great fun. We used to visit houses where there would always be a
gramophone or radio with music. Sometimes there would be individual musicians and the twenty
year olds like us, particularly the females, were quite keen on dancing. I have always been keen
on dancing as I have previously stated. There were usually about ten or twelve young people at
each party, participating in the dancing with the elders (three or four of them) sitting in a corner
15
watching and applauding. The Greek dancing was an open chain of people, doing a standard
sort of cross over step in time to the music. However the leader, depending on how expert he
was, did various semi acrobatic steps. Everybody had to take their turn – mine wasn‟t quite as
acrobatic as some of the local chaps. It was all very successful and very enjoyable but suddenly
it came to an end because of the arrival of Lent. We were suddenly faced with everything ceasing
and it was surprising how quiet it all became. However, after only about six to seven days, to my
surprise, I suddenly got another invitation. On enquiring, I was told that, in spite of the fact that
it was Lent, there were days during this period which were Greek national days which took
precedence. Therefore the religious period got broken up (thank goodness) with the odd day
when you were all on holiday. Everybody was on holiday on these days and so it was all very jolly
and we met in the park. Once the war in Greece had ended, I went to Athens a couple of times
to get a picture of this city and the famous historic parts. It was all very interesting. I was
greatly assisted, by that time by a young public relations adviser. He was a few years younger
than me and spoke English terribly well, enabling me to communicate comfortably, as hardly
anybody spoke English. The Mayor spoke French and, with my knowledge of schoolboy French,
we managed to communicate, which was very important in terms of establishing the right
relationship. Eventually, all good things came to an end, and we were back on tank loading craft
being shipped back to Italy and back onto the war front.

We started preparing for the invasion of Italy???? and this necessitated moving to the
capital,????Algiers, as part of a planning team. ????? Our main task was to study the terrain,
obtain as much information as possible about the rivers, and plan how to cross them. This we
did over a period of about four months, giving me the opportunity to experience French cuisine
at its best, and, in spite of security problems, to lead a relatively relaxed life. Towards the end, I
decided to take a few days holiday and with my batman/driver took a jeep on the coast road
from Algiers to Tunis. It was a very beautiful and interesting coastline with lots of fruit farms.
Our daily diet included, when we stopped for a meal, fresh figs, which were delicious.
Unfortunately, when we arrived at Tunis to spend two or three days with some friends there, I
found there was a message from my Brigadier advising of a change of plan, necessitating my
immediate return to Algiers. It was arranged that I would go by military aircraft back to base.
When I got back I realised that my holiday was over and a new war was about to begin.

On the day that the joint British and American invasion took place, security was not what it
should have been, and the beach landings, in our case Salerno, were anticipated and the
Germans well prepared for our arrival. So we had great difficulty in landing and suffered
significant casualties, but finally succeeded after a horrific couple of days. During that time, our
Brigadier Hindy had been caught by a shell which set fire to the building he was in. He was
badly burned and sadly died in hospital a few days later. The major and I did our best to carry
out the responsibilities of the chief engineer until a replacement was sent. The British and
Americans made steady progress throughout Italy but from the sappers point of view it was a
nightmare. The Italian terrain is covered with rivers and a central mountain range goes right
across the spine of the country. The engineering units were constantly having to devise means
to cross the rivers. This varied from a rope to a pontoon, which would enable the infantry to get
across and establish themselves in a new area. They did this successfully, although it took a
significant period of time.
?????confused re top 2 paragraphs – Algiers? French food ? Italy?
The Commander of the British Forces was General, later Field Marshall Montgomery. He was a
hero in the desert, having fought a successful campaign against the German Commander,
General Rommel. Rommel had, by that time, acquired tremendous prestige from his previously
successful campaigns. The operations were helped considerably by the fact that the British now
had air supremacy in Italy. The artillery squadrons were an integral part of the Montgomery
campaign. We progressed only when the Air Force had bombed and raided the immediate area
occupied by the Germans and the field artillery was brought up to within striking distance.
Inevitably progress was dictated to a significant degree by these factors. I remember one event
very vividly in our progress northwards. We arrived at the River Sangro and occupied the area
south of the river. Over the next four to five weeks the artillery was installed in various locations
16
to enable it to pour shell and mortar fire over the immediate area on either side of the river. My
Division was given the task of making the opening crossing. In preparation for this, we crossed
with the aid of a rope, inspect the state of the river and the find the easiest place to land on the
other side. However, at the time ordered for the crossing to take place, the weather changed
and it rained solidly for over twenty-four hours. This changed the river from being relatively
quiet and slow moving, into a raging torrent. The result was that we had the greatest difficulty
in getting over the simplest of crossings, except for infantry. In spite of the fact that the Air
Force had bombarded the enemy side for most of the night and the day, and the artillery
likewise, we found to our astonishment, that there were several German units active, when we
finally got across. We had to make a hurried retreat, using ropes as the only means of getting
the infantry back. The result of this setback was that some senior officers of the Division were
suspended and in some cases replaced.

A few months after this event, I received another promotion. I was appointed Commanding
Officer of 273 Field Part Company which was the RE equipment company RE unit in 46th Division.
The Field Part Company stored and provided all the equipment, mainly bridging equipment -
pontoons, mine detectors etc - that supported the infantry in their advance against the Germans.
We were based about a mile behind the combat lines. However we occasionally got into great
difficulty due to the terrain or the key personnel leading us to the launching point got off the
correct track. However the war rolled on, and we finally arrived at Florence, where my division
was taken out of the line, and given a rest which lasted for a month.

The allies advanced and they arrived at the River Girigliano(?). Located above an enormous cliff
was the famous Casino monastery. This dominated the landscape and the Germans who
occupied it could see and control the valley. It was extremely dangerous to go out during the
day. The only time of my army career in which I lived for six weeks in a dugout, was Casino.
These so called dugouts had been carved out of the face of the cliff. With half a dozen of my
unit, I spent all day in there, and then went out at night to create a pathway clear of land mines
and other hazards, for the infantry to pursue their reconnaissance. That went on for about six
weeks and was very demanding. Then we were moved and the Polish division took over. During
the six weeks, we enjoyed, if that‟s the right word, significant quantities of Army rum and
Benevento gin, supplied by the Divisional Headquarters. We drank the rum usually in the
evening, prior to commencing the trek in the dark across enemy country. We tried the gin but
thankfully did not like the taste and therefore restricted ourselves to the rum. On these nightly
trips, I occasionally went in my armoured vehicle with a driver, to reconnoitre the route. The
Germans were usually active with their mortar fire in the evenings, even though it was to some
degree indiscriminate fire. I remember that on one of my return trips with my driver, during a
period of mortar fire, he suddenly started to sing. He had never done so before, and in less than
a minute, I realised that he had lost his nerve and before I could do anything, we had gone over
the track and straight down towards the valley. Fortunately, the vehicle hit a tree and stopped.
Although we were shaken and bruised, we managed to get out, and eventually, with great
difficulty, arrived back on the track. I saw a jeep coming down the track and stopped it. There
were four people inside and it was impossible to get in. So I had to lie on my stomach across the
bonnet and somehow hang on and, in spite of the bumpy road and near accidents, we arrived at
the bottom. In subsequent years, when I remember this exercise, I wonder how I managed to
do I,t but I suppose if you are in great fear and stress, these things can be achieved.

My Division made the final assault across the river and suffered significant casualties as a result.
However, we got through and then we moved on pretty fast until we were within about 80-100
km of the River Poe. This was really the final battle of the Italian campaign. However, during the
ensuing period between Casino and arriving near to the River Poe, the Company Commander of
271 Field Company got killed and I was immediately moved from the Field Part Company to the
271 Field Company, to take over. 271 Field Company was the engineering unit that supported
the infantry and tank troops that mounted the initial assault. It was therefore in the very front
line wherever the assault was made, particularly if it required the crossing of a river. Inevitably
the company suffered considerable casualties in discharging the various tasks assigned to it. We
moved on in support of the infantry and we got within 50-60 km of the River Poe and I set up my
17
headquarters in a farmhouse. The farmhouse was obviously unoccupied, but it appeared to offer
a relatively safe haven from the regular shelling and bombing, which was the German‟s defensive
response to our advance. We settled into what we hoped would be an environment which would
enable us to have a relatively safe night. But the farmhouse was suddenly hit and parts of it
collapsed on the occupants, including myself, who were trying to sleep. I was severely concussed
and had the odd broken bone. Some of my chaps were killed, but over the next three to four
days, I struggled on under tremendous strain. I collapsed again and was taken off to the
emergency medical unit. I then moved on from there down to a base hospital in the south of
Italy where I stayed for the next 6 months, most of which in a darkened room. At first they did
not correctly diagnose the reason for my severe headaches, but eventually they succeeded. I
was diagnosed as having a subaranoid haemorrhage and severe pressure on my eyes. The
treatment was pretty basic, probably because of the lack of experience and knowledge of the
doctors available in the front line medical units. These were set up to deal with limb and bone
damage rather than problems associated with the sensory and mental system. Since I suffered
head pains and other signs of stress, the medical solution was to place me in an isolated ward in
semi darkness. Every four hours, I was given a dose of aspirin and water. I deduced from this,
that the doctor‟s solution was that time under this routine would eventually result in my
recovering sufficiently well to be moved back to the UK by hospital ship, for more specialist
treatment. I was eventually moved back to England by hospital ship to a hospital in Winnick,
near Warrington, Lancashire. The Winnick Hospital was actually a temporary one to cater for
war wounded who had either suffered wounds causing paralysis or head damage. I thought it
ironic and typical of the army that it was actually part of a mental asylum - they had moved the
inmates out somewhere and set up a medical unit. You can hardly imagine anything less suitable
for people suffering with those injuries. I, for example, as a Major and therefore a Field Office,r
was automatically allotted a room on my own - a padded cell, which was the only single room
available.

Promotion in certain units where there were heavy casualties was quite rapid, and I rose from
being a subaltern to a major within a couple of years. Having been promoted from Captain to
Major, following my appointment as CO to the Field Company of 265 officers and their ranks just
two months before I was wounded, I received quite a shock during my treatment in hospital.
This was a visit by the Chief Medical Officer to say that he wanted to have a private talk with me.
He prefaced it by saying that he was embarrassed and horrified at what he had been asked to
transmit, which effectively was that under army counsel instructions an officer has to serve
continuously to maintain his rank. If, for any reason, he is unable to do so for more than six
months, then he loses his temporary rank and reverts to the one he previously held. At the time
of the meeting with the CMO I was an acting major, temporary captain and war substantive
lieutenant. He said that under army counsel instructions he had been informed that Major
Buckley would now on a certain date (which was the six months date), revert to his rank as
temporary Captain. To tell somebody this who was in a very serious state of health was not
exactly a morale booster and he was very embarrassed and apologetic. Since I was bed ridden,
the practical consequences apart from morale were negligible. However, when I did nine months
later, move from the hospital in Italy to the hospital in Lancashire, I still had my crowns on my
uniform and was still addressed by everybody as Major Buckley, regardless of the ruling. After
several months at Winnick Hospital, the neurosurgeon said that he was still very unhappy with
the fact that my blood and eye pressure was abnormally high and he feared that the injuries
sustained had resulted in a tumour. To deal with a tumour (I don‟t know whether it is the same
now) they used to open the top of the skull, in order to remove the tumour. He further stated
that he was reluctant to carry out this operation unless it was essential and suggested that I
went on indefinite leave, a minimum of six maximum of nine months, in the hope that the
pressures would significantly ease. I therefore left the hospital and went on indefinite leave.
However after about a month, I became very fed up with doing nothing, even though of course I
was delighted to be sharing a home with my wife Marion again. We continued to live in
Hackney, next door to my parents in No. 19. I bought the house for a very minimum cost of less
than £2000. With the tremendous damage caused by the bombing throughout the war, finding
somewhere to live in London was a very difficult task at this point in time. It was a pretty basic
house, made more so by the fact that the ground floor was rented and they had six months still
18
to run on their lease before they could be asked to leave. Our accommodation therefore,
consisted of a bedroom, living room, small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom, which only
included a wash basin and a toilet. At that time, our first child, Christine Jennifer, was born –
there were complications, necessitating Marion having to give birth at the Hackney Hospital.
Marion had contracted a virus in the latter stages of pregnancy, or as part of the birth, I can‟t
quite remember. However, both mother and child recovered and were none the worse for that
experience.

Reverting to being fed up - I decided that I should go to the war office and see whether there
was a suitable job available for a person of my status and experience. I went to AG7, the
Department at the War Office dealing with senior officers in the Royal Engineers. I was in full
uniform with my crowns on and had a meeting with the Colonel in Charge of the Department. I
told him of my background and also that I really didn‟t want to spend the next six to nine months
doing nothing and would there not be a suitable job available. He told me that there was a
vacancy for an officer with the rank of Major, commanding a unit at the Royal Engineer Depot in
Halifax, Yorkshire. The job mainly involved handling returning soldiers and shipping others as
replacements. He said he would put me on the list – he had already sent there, three majors
who were looking for a job, but as far as he was concerned if I wanted to go, that was fine. So I
went to Halifax and was interviewed by the Brigadier in command of the RE unit. For some
reason, I felt I had not done very well and of the four I was the least likely to be appointed. I
therefore took some days to go back to my home in London visiting friends in Yorkshire and
Lancashire on the way back. To my surprise, when I arrived at back , my wife informed me that
there had been phone calls and various messages in an effort to contact me to tell me that I had
been selected and appointed to the vacant position as Commander. Marion and I moved North
and rented a house in Sowerby Bridge and I took over command two weeks later. One by-
product, which occurred some months later, was an Army Council instruction to the Brigadier in
Charge of everything at the depot, informing him that Captain Buckley, on his appointment as OC
RE depot had been reinstated as a Major RE. Since I had continued to wear my crowns and had
never discussed rank at the depot, this raised some eyebrows and some leg pulling.

Finally, I was discharged as a Major by the army as being unfit for military service and given a
pension for my war wounds which I still get paid today. This was about a £1 a week as a major
– can you imagine what a private would get ? The 30% award which they judged appropriate
for my wounds was, I discovered, one of the assessments they made and they had a schedule of
percentages. 30% was if you lost a leg or an eye and an arm, so you could imagine that it was
taken very seriously when I returned to civilian life.

What I haven‟t mentioned is that when I volunteered for service and was enrolled as a sapper
and trained at Shorncliffe, meeting Marion was not very easy. She used to come down to the
barracks occasionally at weekends, whenever she could, and so we maintained a very close and
loving relationship. Her family by that time had moved, or were in the process of moving, back
to Lancashire since the life in London with the nightly bombing and so on made it a nightmare.
When I was at the Officer Cadet Training Unit in Aldershot and I knew that I was going to a
company that would go abroad very soon, we decided to get married and so two months before
the 272 Field Company RE actually moved abroad we got married in Burnley, Lancashire and had
four or five days honeymoon in the Lake District. I didn‟t see her again until after the war.
During the war, she joined the fire service and stayed in Lancashire, so of course when I came
back to Warrington, we met up once again and although things were obviously strained or
strange after so many years apart we quickly re-established our relationship and went on to lead
a normal, happily married life.

We moved back to London because that was obviously where my future business prospects were
based. When I came out of hospital and was discharged from military service, I went back to my
old construction company only to find that it had been taken over by a Scottish house building
company, James Miller & Partners Ltd. This company had grown significantly during the war,
building airfields and accommodation for military staff and equipment. As previously stated Miller
& Partners was basically a house-builder, however during the war it grew in the civil engineering
19
field. By the time the war was over, it could claim to cover a wide range of construction
activities. I met the owner, the head of the business, James Miller, and his brothers John and
Lawrence. James‟ and John‟s background was in the building business and, with Lawrence as a
lawyer, they made a very effective combination. I was treated like a hero, as were all returning
soldiers at that time. However, whilst I was Major Buckley to everybody for several months, I
decided at the end, that those days would be better put into the past and become just Mr
Buckley again. They were very friendly, very courteous, very praise worthy and very flattering –
they had a contract to build a jetty at Gravesend in Kent for Henleys Telegraph and proposed
that I should manage and execute this project. I accepted the proposal and they offered me a
company car in view of the travel responsibilities that would obviously arise. It was all very, very
friendly but they did not mention remuneration and I forgot to ask them for details of the
financial terms– amazing as this may seem. However, on the due day, a few weeks later, I
arrived at their office in London and was given this very clapped out little Ford 8 which was not
quite what I had imagined. When I spoke to the Director and asked him „Well we haven‟t
discussed salary – how much am I going to be paid?‟, he said „Well we are going to pay you £600
a year, £50 a month‟. I said that that was extraordinary – as a Major I was getting £1000 a year.
He said „Well Mr Buckley, you have been away from civilian life and civilian work for several years
now and you have really got to start all over again‟. That was a rude awakening but I accepted it
for a short period and went and spent my days in Gravesend building the jetty. As time went on,
I managed to make the right sort of impression with my employers and when they had a much
larger contract in the docklands area of Silvertown, East London, I was invited to go over and
take charge of that. This was really a major rebuilding of the dock walls and certain dock-side
premises. I took the opportunity at the meeting to say that whilst I accepted the new
responsibilities for this project, the financial terms must be significantly different from what I had
received to date. They then discussed the matter privately amongst themselves and returned to
offer me a 50% increase to £900 and I worked at carrying out the project in Wapping over the
next couple of years. They expanded my role and promoted me to be a contract manager in the
civil engineering department. We then did other works of a civil engineering nature in the
London area. After a period of discharging these responsibilities, I was invited to become a
director of James Miller & Partners Hayes Limited, a subsidiary of the parent which they specially
set up in order to create the base for a civil engineering construction business and to satisfy me
as a director with appropriate monetary status. We took over some premises at Hayes in
Middlesex and the actual offices were in a disused garage and the workshop, plant shop and
plant yard were about half a mile along the road. The business grew and was quite successful
and I became increasingly respected by the Miller family. The result of that was that they agreed
that I should become a shareholder in JM&P Hayes Limited which I did. I had one third
shareholding and they had two thirds. That situation remained for the next five or seven years,
by which time the company had grown into a successful and profitable business in the civil
engineering and construction field, so my role as Managing Director obviously was increasingly
important. For a variety of reasons, since their background was in housing, they were not able
to offer much help or advice in the growth of this business and I became increasingly unhappy, if
that‟s not too grand a word, with the input or lack of it that they were providing. The ultimate
result of several discussions on this subject was that I finally bought them out and paid for their
shareholding with the support of Natwest Bank (as it is now called) and we moved to new
premises adjacent to Hayes railway station. To recognise this in the public sense, we renamed
the parent company Buckley Investments Ltd, and the subsidiaries such as civil engineering,
plant hire, precast concrete & building as Miller Buckley Civil Engineering. I developed some very
good company client relationships with some of the biggest companies. General Electric was one
and Ford was another and, as a result of the relationship I established, we were awarded
contracts of great substance both at Ford in Dagenham and GEC at Ruby and Stafford.

The structure of the overall parent company and its development was significantly assisted by
friendships that I had in the non business world with eminent and successful people operating in
totally different fields. One of course was a major figure in the brewery and institutional field
and another was a partner in a major chartered surveying partnership. They of course had a
wide range of interests including one being a member of the Church Commissioners and odd
20
conversations I had with him on that score were quite educational in terms of understanding the
range and scope of the management of the Christian empire.

Our civil engineering company (Miller Buckley Civil Engineering) had particular expertise in the
sewerage disposal field, which enabled them to be awarded several contracts of national interest.
In recognition of the work experience I had gained, I became a member of the unit that was set
up by the then government to plan the creation of Milton Keynes. It was one of the new towns
that needed to be built in order to relieve the pressure from accommodation and service facilities
that existed in London. We used to meet every month to proceed with the various proposals and
overall plans that were necessary in order to start the development process. At that time, the
value of these towns had already been established with the creation of Stevenage, Bracknell etc.
It also gave me an opportunity to meet a wide range of able people who were appointed
members of the committee who were experienced mainly in the political and administrative
world. There were some very interesting personalities who subsequently became national figures
(at least one of them as a senior minister in the government) and also through them, doors were
opened to the various activities that construction companies were anxious to operate.

As far as the building company (Miller Buckley Construction) was concerned, its contracts in the
UK over a wide range of buildings, included some very interesting developments. For example,
the Shakespeare Centre at Stratford-on-Avon, which was opened by Princess Anne. One of the
most interesting contracts, in a field that was quite new, was that of the building of the John
Lewis automated warehouse at Bracknell in Berkshire. This was the main warehouse for the
storage and distribution of the supplies to the John Lewis stores all over the country and still
exists today in its present form.

With the growth of the business, the strength of the management and staff at all levels were
essential elements. Fortunately, we at different stages, engaged the services of a variety of
young executives who were ambitious, intelligent and formed a very successful unit. Several of
them ultimately became directors of the company, and worked in different capacities such as
chartered secretaries, managing directors of subsidiary companies, finance directors and so on.

With all companies, I recognised the necessity to keep the staff duly informed at all levels. As
part of the information process, we established our own in-house magazine, „Hayes News‟.
When we moved our Head Office to Rugby, we renamed the magazine to „The Miller Buckley
News‟ and it quickly became transformed into a glossy quarterly magazine which served several
purposes. The main purpose was to provide staff with news as to what was going on in other
parts of the group. The staff were also encouraged to provide articles for the magazine, together
with the chief executives of the different companies, who produced updates on important
projects and the people we were serving. It included photographs of some of the eminent
people with whom we had contact, including the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. The
magazine also became a significant marketing tool with which we were able to demonstrate the
range of contacts that we had established in various parts of the world.

We, like most private companies, had an annual staff dinner dance as well as a rather special
occasion, which was the Foreman‟s Smoker Dinner. The annual dinner and dance was held in
Coventry and was very well attended by staff and guests and very enthusiastically received. The
Foreman‟s Smoker was an annual event. The guests were all agents and foremen employed by
the company in the various activities, which ranged over most of the country and construction
sites, on which we were engaged. It had a standard procedure. There were usually about one
hundred people who attended, from different parts of the country. Overnight hotel
accommodation was arranged and paid for by the company. The evening started with cocktails
at 6.30 pm in the hotel. The format was that the cocktails, food, cigars and an after dinner
drink at the bar, were paid for by the company. After the meal, short speeches were made by
me and one or two members of the staff in response. After this had all been completed, we then
moved to the bar. The company paid for one more drink and after this time it was entirely up to
the staff to pay for themselves. This did result in several of the staff, once they knew the format
from previous occasions, rushing to the bar and ordering several brandies in order to make sure
21
that they were fully charged for the rest of the evening, without having to pay for their drinks.
The evening also provided an opportunity for some free speaking between myself and some
members of the staff, who took the opportunity to tell me certain things that they did not
necessarily agree with or alternatively, more importantly, suggestions on how to improve the
whole structure and range of the group of companies. This, at times, was quite illuminating.
Normally very quiet members, as far as their relationship with me was concerned, took the
opportunity to talk to me on very much a man to man basis. They gave me some very interesting
and sometimes surprising views, most of them fortunately complimentary, about the progress
and activities of the companies. It was a very important element in building the sort of
relationship that is so important for a group whose diverse activities range over most of the
country. Obviously the Forman‟s Smoker was one of the few opportunities people had to meet
each other again, having worked together in the past, so there was lots of talk about the old
times, the new times and their hopes and expectations of future times which was very amusing
and diverting.

In the field of sport, we had the normal Sports & Social Club which covered various fields of
sport. For example, the football part of the club became part of the Rugby league and achieved
occasional successes. It, of course, strengthened the feeling of all being part of one big family.
22

Odd incidents, facts, events that occurred from time to time which are not directly
related to all of the points that have been noted so far.

Dealing with odd things during my early period in my thirties, I became quite interested in
alternative medicine. This arose partly because I have always had a skin that does get irritated
fairly easily and also I did have at one stage a back problem. I therefore got to know the value
of naturopathic solutions and chiropractors etc. and the contributions they make to resolving
health problems. Naturopaths are still not fully accepted by the traditional medical profession. I,
however, got into a habit, for several years, of going to a naturopathic unit called Enton Hall, in
Godalming in Surrey. I would arrive on the first Sunday in January and stay for about ten days.
It became like a club because the same people booked in also on the first Sunday and remained
for a similar period. Almost all of them, with the exception of myself, were people with
international reputations and well known public figures. Those that come to mind were Vivian
Leigh and Clive Brook from the acting profession, Walter Nightingale a well known racing trainer,
Sir Alfred Beit the diamond king, and ………????……………… a newspaper tycoon.

The treatment was very simple – you did various exercises at odd times during the day – one ate
little or nothing – it was either half an orange, half a lemon or an apple which were the 3 meals
of the day and the rest of the time was spent with massage, heat treatment, hot and cold
showers and exercise. In those days I weighed around eleven stone and I would lose eight or
nine pounds while I was there but came back feeling very much fitter and ready to face a
demanding world once again. On the subject of the lack of respect for alternative medical
treatment, I was regarded by some as very eccentric. I remember coming back to the golf club
on one occasion after my visit to the health spa and meeting two doctors with whom I was on
very friendly terms. On greeting me, one said to the other „Here‟s Gerry, that lunatic who goes
off every year to waste his time and his money on totally ridiculous health solutions‟. Hopefully,
today, views are not so extreme as they were then, although alternative medicine is not exactly
yet regarded with the esteem and respect that some of it justifies.

During these annual visits, I got to know the staff of Enton Hall reasonably well. The principal
came from New Zealand and there was a fairly strong New Zealand/Australian influence amongst
the staff, except the principal‟s deputy who was a Scotsman called Sanderson. He became
increasingly frustrated and unhappy with his life as number two. The reasons for this were partly
ego driven in that as the unit attracted more and more particularly famous people, he felt that all
the acclaim went to the principal and his wife, who was a very capable lady and a big support to
her husband. He talked to me about his unhappiness on several occasions and I said to him
„Well if you are not happy why don‟t you go off and create your own unit, there are plenty of
wealthy and well known clients here - maybe you might get some support from them‟. He
obviously thought about this, because, when I saw him a year later, he had made no progress
and was still deeply upset and asked me for assistance. I said „But I‟m a small boy compared
with these other people that you see around, it‟d be much better if you talked to them‟. No, he
said he thought that someone like me would be able to communicate better any of the famous
would, on the basis that their egos wouldn‟t allow them to go off and search for support. So in
the end I reluctantly said „OK, give me the names of those you think are most enthusiastic and
I‟ll go and talk to them‟. So I went and talked to ………………… who owned several newspapers,
Sir Alfred Beit, Melvil Thompson a very big name in Northern Ireland, and Kenwood. I had some
surprising success. I made personal visits to each of the individuals and explained in some detail
the background and reasons for my visit. They all expressed support and interest in the
objectives and as a result I met them at The Savoy Hotel. As a result of the discussions that
took place over lunch, we agreed to pursue the concept further and it was agreed in principle
that we would get together with the objective of creating a facility with a similar programme to
that available at Enton Hall. In pursuing matters further, I met by accident, one of the lawyers
who participated in the creation of Enton Hall, who had different views on the way it was being
operated and sought his advice as to the best way of setting up the proposed new venture. To
my surprise, he said „Why don‟t you buy Enton Hall ?‟ Apparently he still had a financial interest
23
in it, as did his partner, but the majority stake was held by the principal. However he arranged
for me to meet the principal and we a few meetings, culminating in my having dinner with the
principal and his wife and agreeing to buy Enton Hall for a stated sum (there is some
correspondence in one of my drawers in the dining room which relate to his period which could
be useful to look at). We agreed that we would complete the deal within three months of signing
the contract. I signed the contract with him a few days later and then reported to my colleagues
that I had done so and they seemed astonished and very happy with the whole business.
However, as time went on and as we got nearer to the closing date, I was seeing the Enton Hall
principal fairly often, in order to make sure that the transition would happen as smoothly as
possible and in that context, the principal would become our senior consultant, as would his wife.
However, as we got nearer to the date of completion, he became less and less enthusiastic about
selling his stake. He confessed to me that the fact that he had built Enton Hall from scratch and
had spent his life (he was in his early 60s) in this particular medical world, made it increasingly
difficult for him to contemplate his future without Enton Hall. I reported this to my partners and
they said to me „Gerry as far as we are concerned the transaction is a fun thing and not a great
business, but we will continue to support it. We would not want to go on, if it resulted in great
friction and unhappiness. We should give him the option to go through with the transaction or
withdraw‟. I of course went to see him. At the meeting he said he would like to withdraw and
would compensate us for costs that we had incurred. After further discussions with my partners,
we agreed to cancel the contract. Sanderson, who was kept informed of these events, was
totally horrified, mystified, disappointed to say the least. Relations with us became more
strained, but he did continue to have a relationship with the one of the interested parties. On an
end note about this, about two years later Sanderson did form a unit similar to Enton Hall in the
New Forest. None of my partners expressed any desire to be involved in this new venture.

Marion and I were anxious to find more suitable accommodation and an opportunity arose when
the housing division of James Miller commenced the development of a small cul-de-sac of semi-
detached houses in Sanderstead in Surrey. Employees of the company were given an
opportunity to buy and I purchased one of them as did two other senior executives of the
housing division. They were fairly basic, semi-detached units with a small garden, which was
perfectly adequate for our purpose at that moment in time. However, soon after we arrived, we
had another disaster, or potential disaster, in that our daughter Christine contracted polio. At
that time polio was a real menace in the UK and caused many casualties, some deaths and most
of those who contracted the disease suffered some permanent damage to their body. Christine
was taken to the local hospital and placed in an intensive care unit which everybody outside the
nursing staff was forbidden to enter, so that although we went on a daily basis we could only get
a report and didn‟t see our daughter. That was an absolute nightmare. However, after about six
weeks, she had recovered sufficiently to come home. She did suffer permanent damage to one
of her legs but it is not noticeable and she has totally overcome it.

As the business grew, I wanted to move to the outskirts of London on the west side. One of the
reasons for this was that the office and depot were in Hayes, Middlesex, and in addition, in those
days, one could get into the countryside from Hayes within minutes. We skirted the areas of
Gerrards Cross, Beaconsfield etc which were very expensive and finally settled and purchased a
house in Bourne End – it was called Abbotts Cot. It was part of the Abbotsbrook estate. There
were independent housing units, all in gardens varying between one half and one acre in size.
The accommodation at Abbotts Cot had four bedrooms and the normal sitting room, dining room
etc. and the garden covered about ¾ acre. On the latter you can imagine that, although we had
a gardener for one day a week, a lot of my weekend was spent in keeping it tidy and
presentable. We engaged a German domestic who lived in and assisted in looking after the
children – Guy had now arrived – and assisting with housework etc. The house was situated on
the outskirts of Bourne End on the road to Marlow and near to the River Thames and the local
Yacht Club. I was interested in the idea of having a small river boat and therefore joined the
local yacht club with the intention of purchasing one of the standard yachts that all the members
of the club seemed to have. Howeve, at the same time, I was attracted to the idea of learning to
play golf and this was increased by the fact that up the hill less than a mile away was Flackwell
Heath Golf Club. I therefore also joined this club and started taking lesson with the Pro.
24
However, it became obvious with the increasing demands of the business and the family, that it
was unrealistic to think that I could spend adequate time sailing and golfing – I therefore decided
not to pursue the sailing idea and used such spare time as I had to learn how to play golf.

The next stage on the housing front, was to fulfil a desire I had long had to build my own house,
providing accommodation that I felt would be ideal for my family and myself. I therefore
researched on vacant land and ascertained from the planning department, the parameters under
which a development might take place. I pursued a couple of alternatives and finally settled on
buying a single plot on the hill above Bourne End and got planning permission for a 5 bedroom
house with adequate living accommodation, on a plot of one acre. At this time I had developed a
relationship with a very able architect, Frank Collister. We worked together on several
substantial buildings for General Electric in Rugby, Chelmsford and Stafford and it was therefore
natural for me to get his advice on the architectural design. After eighteen months of planning
permissions and construction, we finally moved into West Winds. It fulfilled all my hopes – it had
a view of the Thames winding its way from Bourne End to Marlow. It was also less than half a
mile to the golf club, so I could walk to the club in 15 minutes or so, whenever I had the
available time. This remained our house for the next twelve years or so, during which time the
family had grown to four children with the arrival of Lizzie and Helen.

The next problem was to find adequate schooling for the children. As far as Christine was
concerned, we settled on her going on a day pupil basis to the Convent School in Maidenhead.
As far as Guy was concerned, he also went there for a short period but then we found a better
school for him at Gerrards Cross. Here he stayed as a weekly boarder and remained there until
he went as a boarder full-time as it were, or term time, to Gordonstoun in Scotland. I selected
Gordonstoun for a variety of reasons, having researched various public schools such as Oundle,
Framlingham, Marlborough and one or two others, but was attracted to Gordonstoun because of
its tough and disciplined approach. It incorporated sport and theatre as well as a good standard
of academic education, which would qualify him for university and so get a degree in whatever
subject that suited his capacity and interest. I add that this decision was made without any
knowledge or prior to the knowledge that Prince Charles was going to be educated there. I had,
of course, read of the history of the German schoolmaster who was imprisoned by Hilter but had
escaped as a result of pressure from the UK and other European countries and founded
Gordonstoun in an area between Lossimouth, Nairn and Elgin. As far as Christine was
concerned, I felt that the convent was not really stimulating and demanding enough and finally
she went to a boarding school near Bognor, which had, extraordinarily enough, a golf course as
part of its set up. Sadly she took little or no advantage of this available amenity, a fact which
has remained a talking point, throughout her adult life. However, as a school it was a great
success and stimulated her to move on to more and more demanding academic qualifications,
providing her with a very acceptable educational experience. As far as Lizzie was concerned,
when she was nine, we decided that it would be appropriate for her to go to a boarding school
and we chose a very successful and prestigious one called Queen Anne‟s which was in
Caversham near Reading, Berkshire. Lizzie was not the easiest of pupils and I spent a fair
amount of my time, when I visited the school on a weekly basis, to ascertain her progress.
Habitually her house mistress regaled me with some new problem that she had with Lizzie.
However, they were not of any great intensity, just that Lizzie didn‟t always follow the standard
rules. She, however, had a great aptitude for sport and represented the school at tennis,
lacrosse and running. I remember going to see her on a sports day and met some of her school
chums. It was a very enjoyable day but I was astonished to learn from Lizzie afterwards that,
while they seemed to think that Lizzie had a nice Dad, they were convinced that he was Burmese
or Chinese on the basis of his eyes being slanted. I rather liked this idea as I thought it made
me different, so I told Lizzie that what probably happened was that my mother met a Burmese
sailor when she was very young and had a marriage which resulted in a child. This of course
was a total figment of imagination as my mother lived a very orthodox lifestyle that was normal
in those days - of looking after the house and her children and husband which, put together, was
a full-time job. Helen went to the local day school and then to a boarding school near Croydon
which was a mixed school. She was the only one of my children that had this experience.
25
I thought that I might catalogue one or two odd things which relate to my early days
in business.

In the late 1950s I was beginning to build up a fairly successful company in civil engineering and
building. However, this was not of great interest to James Miller and it became increasingly
obvious that our paths would need to part, if my ambitions to create something significant were
to be fulfilled. I was helped and encouraged in this objective by a relationship I had developed
with the senior partner of our auditors, Peat Marwick. He was very highly respected in the
business world and one of the reasons I think was that Rolls Royce went into receivership for a
period and he took over, reinstated it and relieved it of its restrictions under receivership. I was
also significantly helped by a relationship which I developed with Hills Samuel, the merchant
bankers, who were very highly regarded in the city. I had several discussions with both of them
about how I could possibly grow and proceed without involving the Miller family which would
inevitably mean some sort of buy out. They were sympathetic to this and made certain
suggestions and one was that I should meet a Mr Isaac Woolfson who was then, and even more
later with his famous GUS (Great Universal Stores) scenario, highly regarded in the city. I think
that Mr Woolfson came to this country as a refugee in the early part of the 20th century and, like
many others, as he explained to me, he established himself in the brick laying Aldgate area,
having arrived under very difficult circumstances as a refugee. It was arranged that I would
meet him to discuss what future relationships might be possible. During our discussion, I told
him of a development project which I was seriously considering in his area, in between Liverpool
Street and Shoreditch, which involved quite a major shopping/office/housing development. He
studied this and then asked me „How have you been able to get this opportunity?‟ I told him it
was given to me by Mr Lazerus. Mr Woolfson‟s response was that Mr Lazerus was a very
successful Jewish developer and he suggested I should consider very seriously that if a successful
Jewish developer is offering a development like this to an aspiring gentile, you have to wonder
what is wrong and what are the downsides of the project. I was, of course, embarrassed by this,
but he was absolutely right and I didn‟t proceed with it and the project, many years later, was
created by a very strong Jewish development organisation.

Continuing with non business matters. In the early 1950s my father was very keen for me
to become a freemason. He felt that the culture and the different type of communication that is
part of freemasonry, would be very useful and add significantly to my lifestyle and so I joined
Filia Unitartis Lodge in London. We used to meet at Freemasons House off Kingsway. I
remained a freemason for the next 20 years in an active capacity. I took the obligations and
commitments seriously and went to the Masonic teaching meetings once a week. The purpose
was to learn the ethics and the ritual. I gradually moved up the ranks and eventually became
Master of Filia Unitartis Lodge. Sadly, there is a lot of criticism about freemasonry, mainly out of
ignorance. It is true that lots of people join it for the wrong reasons because it is felt that as a
club, it can influence many events on a monetary or social basis, and its secrecy is not something
that everybody finds totally laudable. Nevertheless, I have to say that learning the ritual and
following the ritual as far as one reasonably can, was a very good experience. The truth is that if
you really understand and try and follow the ritual you are a better person for doing so because
there are undertakings like „do as you would be done by‟ which can‟t be bad for anybody and the
historic connections going back to Solomon and the masons etc has an interesting historical
background. On the social level of course, we had our monthly meetings and we had our annual
dinners. If you held office, speaking and having to recite the ritual publicly assisted in giving one
confidence when, on other occasions, you were called upon to make a speech. One got used to
short speech making and that was certainly an advantage as far as I was concerned, when
required to speak at business meetings or other social occasions unrelated to freemasonry. The
practice or habit one got into with freemasonry served one in good stead. I did not resign until
the 1970s but in the last 5 years or so I more or less dropped out because I was travelling a lot
and in 1975, I moved to Switzerland and the background to that is a subject in itself.

On a totally different subject, I have never been terribly interested in driving cars or motorcycles
but have accepted that they are essential in a lifestyle that involves every day movement from A
to B. As the business grew, my mileage reached such levels that I could not drive myself
26
backwards and forwards and discharge the business responsibilities effectively. So I decided in
the early 60s to engage the services of a chauffeur. Chauffeurs are often strange characters.
Depending on their background and for whom they have worked, they can be quite snobbish in a
certain sense and credit themselves with some of the status of their employer. However, as far
as I was concerned, I was grateful for them taking over the driving and I didn‟t have to fuss
about looking underneath the bonnet or changing wheels. But on one occasion, after a long day,
we drove into London for me to meet with some business associates for a drink at the RAC Club
in Pall Mall, Whitehall. The meeting was for
6.30-7pm and we arrived on time. However, I decided that in view of the fact that it had been a
long day of work and driving, that I‟d let my chauffeur, John Harrington, go home and that I
would drive back to my home in Bourne End after I‟d had this drink. We parked the car on a side
road of Pall Mall which was on an incline – it was about a couple of hundred meters from the
RAC Club. Harrington went off and I went to the club to meet my business associates. The
meeting was very cordial and I had more than one drink so that I did not leave the club until
about 9 pm. When I got back to the car, I found to my horror, that I had a puncture in the right
hand rear wheel. Having had quite a few drinks, I was not in a very sensible mood and had
obviously taken an optimistic view of my prowess in various directions. I therefore decided that
rather than ring on the telephone for help I would change the wheel. After all that‟s what ninety-
nine out of one hundred people would do. I had never looked to see where the spare wheel and
tools were and so on, but I eventually found them and got the jack out and after lots of trial and
error I finally got the jack to work and got the car lifted up. To my horror, the car moved
backwards before the curb stopped it – I had obviously not put the brake on hard enough. I was
therefore faced with the situation that the jack had got locked into the wheel and in spite of
great efforts, I was unable to extricate it. As I was struggling with this problem a man in a dark
blue raincoat passed by on his motorbike and I shouted at him and he stopped. I asked him if
he could help me – he very graciously said of course and he did. He was much more
experienced on such matters than I, but in spite of that, in the end we still couldn‟t retrieve the
jack. Finally he said to me „The RAC Club is only around the corner, why don‟t you walk round to
them‟. He said confidently they help in a matter of minutes. Well I didn‟t dare tell him that I‟d
spent two and a half hours in the RAC Club earlier on that evening so I said „Yes, OK, thank you
very much officer‟. He said „Why are you calling me an officer?‟, I said „Well I thought you were
a policeman‟ . He had the raincoat that police officers wear on motorbikes. He said „No, I‟m not
a policeman I was just passing by‟. I was so embarrassed and said „Can I do anything to express
my appreciation of your assistance?‟, he said „No that‟s fine‟ and off he went. I walked around to
the RAC Club and within minutes, the breakdown vehicle came round, jacked up the whole of the
back body, changed the wheel and I was on my way and back to Bourne End. The journey back
was fairly unsteady for obvious reasons and I was not very pleased with myself over how I had
handled the evening. I therefore decided the next day, that since such evenings were going to
be a fact of life, I should arrange as far as possible that if I were to have evening drinks or
dinners they would be on a Tuesday and Wednesday evening and I would stay those two nights
each week in London in order to avoid the sort of dangerous nonsense I had undergone once or
twice in the previous year. I settled on the Westbury Hotel in Bond Street and stayed there very
happily as a regular occupant on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and got to know the staff quite well.
However when the General Manager informed me he was leaving to take over as General
Manager of the Carlton Tower Hotel in Cadogan Square, he encouraged me to move on
favourable terms to the Carlton Tower Hotel which proved to be a very relaxed and comfortable
decision. When I didn‟t have outside evening engagements, I would usually eat in the Chelsea
Room, the French Restaurant on the 1st floor. There was a Swiss Restaurant Manager and the
food was good. However, as far as the dinner wine was concerned, I was very disappointed that
a wine from the Loire region, for which I had acquired a great liking, was not available on the
wine list. The wine waiter who spoke in a very French broken accent apologised that this wine
was not available and promised to obtain it. It took some time but finally arrived. I therefore
developed a good and relaxed relationship with the wine waiter and sometimes practised my very
limited French with him for very brief spells during the evening. After a period of a year or so he
informed me that he was going to leave the hotel and retire to Brighton and invited me to come
to his farewell cocktail party in one of the banqueting rooms of the hotel. On the due date I
went and was greeted by him very cordially. I was, however, very surprised with the dramatic
27
change to his tone and speech. On greeting me in a jovial manner he informed me that he was
an Irishman and had cultivated this French accent which he considered necessary if he was going
to make it as a successful senior wine waiter. He further stated that the Irish were guinness
drinkers not wine drinkers and he had changed his character and presentation in order to make a
success of his career in this profession. He was replaced by an experienced sommelier who was
in fact French and had no reason to adopt a different character. He continued to provide me
with the wine I liked and also introduced me to one or two other brands, including red wines
which I had hitherto avoided.
28
ODD SITUATIONS THAT AROSE DURING THE EARLY 60s RELATING MAINLY TO THE
BUSINESS SIDE BUT ALSO THE SOCIAL SIDE OF THE BUSINESS SIDE.

By 1960, the business had become very well established and was a specialist in certain types of
construction. It was recognised as very professional and, in some cases, in advance of the
average contractor. The civil engineering company specialised in the construction of facilities in
concrete – they could be tunnels, sewerage plants, bridges. In particular we received quite a lot
of publicity in using pre-stressed concrete. This avoided the need to provide massive form work
and structural support. As part of this growth process, we also extended the range of activities
in various fields associated with the building industry. As part of this objective, we formed a joint
venture with a major building company and set up a manufacturing unit in the precast concrete
field, called Shawell Precast. This increased, in various ways, our potential market and also
enabled us to utilise the experience we had gained in the field of pre stressed concrete, which
was then in its early stages. We also acquired an old, established building company, J Parnell,
from the family that had owned this for several generations. This company carried out several
important building contracts over a significant period of time including Keble College Chapel
Oxford, Queen Mary‟s dolls house at Windsor Castle, and the monastery at Lindisfarne.
Obviously, this established our construction company in rather upmarket and prestigious
locations and enhanced our status in the building industry. In order to widen this scope and
service of the construction company, we also purchased a prestigious plumbing organisation, S
Gibson, operating in the general field of domestic water and heating services.

As a result of our expertise in this field, we were invited to tender for the new concrete bridge
across the River Trent in Nottingham. When we submitted our tender, we included an alternative
bid in co-operation with specialist consulting engineers. This incorporated new methods of pre-
stressed concrete construction. After lengthy negotiations, we were finally awarded the
contract. It was, and I believe still is, the largest clear span concrete bridge constructed in the
UK . It is called the Clifton Bridge. Having been awarded the contrac, we decided to make quite
sure that we had all the necessary knowledge and support to make sure that the project was
successful. I did some research in Europe where pre-stressed concrete structures had been used
for some years, and so the knowledge of that type of construction was much greater than in the
UK. There were well known specialists in the international field. In France, M. Freyssinet, in
Belgium, M. Magnel and in Germany it was Dykerhoffen & Widman. I decided to go and meet
with these organisations and invite their co-operation and support in the construction of the River
Trent bridge.

I had developed a close working relationship with someone recognised as an expert in creating
the support structures and the framework in which the concrete was deposited. He was much
more advanced in some of his techniques than the normal formwork specialist. Cyril Parry was
an eccentric Welshman with a penchant for expensive cars – he had both a Bentley and a Rolls
Royce at that time and one or two other cars - an almost unique collection in terms of
showmanship and exhibitionism. I invited Cyril to accompany me to Europe, which was readily
accepted. He told me he would bring his lady friend. Cyril was married but parted from his wife
and family and he brought this lady along with him. We started off from London and our first
port of call was in Paris to meet M. Freyssinet. Cyril transported us in his Rolls Royce since that
was a comfortable 4-seater. We set off from London to an airport in Hythe in Kent where there
was an air transport service for cars across the channel to the coast of France. The first incident
was basically that Cyril took umbrage because the customs insisted on us emptying the car. He
became so angry that when they gave the all clear he insisted that they take the wheel hubs off
to demonstrate they were not hiding anything, much to the embarrassment of all the onlookers,
including the customs officers. However we finally got across to the other side and the next day
we saw M. Freyssinet which was useful but not very productive. So we then moved on to
Brussels where we met M. Maniel and we discussed his pre-stressing system and whether it had
an application for the product we were going to create. Again it was fairly inconclusive, so we
then went down to Munich to the headquarters of Dykerhoffen & Widman and met the senior
partner and his director in charge of overseas contracts. Dykerhoffen & Widman were, in those
days, pre-eminent in the bridge building industry and had built almost all the new concrete
29
bridges across the River Rhine, the previous ones being destroyed during the war. We had the
meeting with Dr Finsterwalder and Dr Thormahlen and his construction executive and I think
they obviously regarded us as fairly amateur and rather small fry, however out of courtesy they
invited us to dinner. Having offloaded our luggage at our hotel, we met them at a famous
restaurant in the centre of Munich. The dinner was quite friendly and nothing spectacular but
they were very good hosts and we were plied with a fair degree of wine. This certainly loosened
the tongue of Cyril who was naturally talkative and at a certain point in time he, to my
amazement, started to talk in German. He recited certain passages reputed to have been written
by Goethe. This amazed our German hosts and reawakened their interest, and instead of, as I
anticipated, us shaking hands and saying goodbye, they invited us for further talks the next day.
These talks were quite productive and useful and established a relationship that existed for over
twenty years. They promised to help by giving advice during the period we were constructing
the bridge and did in fact make a couple of visits to the UK and their advice and experience was
very helpful. As the relationship grew I realised that their system of pre-stressed concrete had a
lot to offer in Britain, particularly in the pre-cast concrete factory establishments producing pre-
cast products that were used as sleepers or forms of structural beams. The relationship grew
with mutual confidence by the parties resulting in the establishment of a joint UK company called
Dividag Stressed Concrete Limited. Dividag Stressed Concrete established itself in a fairly wide
ranging field and their expertise was successfully utilised in the Dinoruric Power Station, the
Thames Barriers and the raising of the Mary Rose. The latter created tremendous excitement,
being totally foreign to the other parts of the Dividag activity but just demonstrated how wide the
application and utility of the system stretched. We extended the business by creating a branch
of Dividag Stressed Concrete in Australia which successfully made an impact on the Australian
market.

The relationship became quite strong and we learnt a lot from the experience and knowledge
that Dykerhoffen & Widman and in particular the senior partners had and were willing to provide.

Having developed this association, it gave us the opportunity to gain experience in other parts of
Europe. We were invited by Dykerhoffen & Widman, for example, to join their consortium of
contractors producing a bridge in Ireland and also one in Turkey. I remember at the time that
the then German President Chancellor Adenauer was very supportive of the Dykerhoffen &
Widman effort to gain these contracts.

The other association we formed in the pre-stressed concrete field was with a specialist French
company. In the 60s there was a very significant demand for council apartment blocks and one
of the leaders in Europe was a French organisation called Coignet which had its own pre-stressed
concrete system. I developed an association with Coignet, as a result of which, we formed a
joint company called Coignet Buckley and was involved in several projects in the UK in offering
advice to contractors on the use of pre-stressed concrete systems with particular relevance to
pre-cast work. We did not however obtain many substantial building contracts and after a couple
of years we mutually agreed that there was not a worthwhile market in the UK for such systems.

GROWTH OF THE BUSINESS – 2 DIVISIONS – CIVIL ENGINEERING DIVISION

The business continued to grow and, in order to ensure as far as possible, that the management
structure would enable the group to be efficient and profitable, we established a series of
subsidiary companies, formed in relation to particular expertise and experience. The range
included Miller Buckley Developments, which focused on the growing property market,
particularly in the London area, and operated in a purely development and planning role, the
actual construction being carried out by the building company.

In the construction company there had also been significant growth. We had developed a good
relationship with a number of very substantial organisations, in particular Ford Motor Company,
GEC and other major companies. We were awarded several contracts with developers who were
involved in city centre, office blocks, shopping centres and apartments. I felt that the
introduction of multi-storey car parks was something that we could become involved in. This was
30
confirmed when we approached car parking operators. We set up a company with the objective
of tapping the potential market, which was almost entirely local authority based. It would offer
services in the design and construction of multi-storey car parks, which was a field that was
rapidly growing throughout the major towns in the UK. The actual building work was contracted
to the actual building company.

As the development company grew, and the golf design and construction company grew, there
were clearly occasions when a project included a housing development. We therefore set up a
company called Stratheden Homes which offered a service in the planning and design of the
housing elements of any development and worked together with the golf architectural practice
and the construction company to engage in the total development. In addition it expanded into
the housing field and, for example, carried out a major housing development of one hundred and
fifty units in Saltash, which was a very successful operation.

A significant element of the property development business was controlled by some very
successful entrepreneurs. One of them was a publicly quoted company called Town &
Commercial Properties Limited. The managing director was Johnny Hindes. We carried out
several substantial contracts for T&C and I developed a personal relationship with Johnny. At a
meeting in his offices one day, talking about the contracts we were carrying out on his behalf, he
told me of his ambitions and interests in overseas activities. He informed me that he had now
made several visits to the Caribbean and in particular Barbados and Antigua, and had formed the
view that there was a big potential market waiting to be developed in the Caribbean relating to
the tourist industry. He particularly singled out Barbados and stated that he was proposing to
build one or two hotels of substantial size in that country. He further informed me that he had
great confidence in my organisation and if we set up a building company there, he would
negotiate contracts with us. I thanked him and told him that we would be very pleased to work
with him in any part of the world and it was arranged that I would meet him again to go into
further detail. Immediately I got back to my office, I asked if we had a map of the world, as I
wanted to know where Barbados was – the truth was that I hadn‟t a clue, but having established
its location I then did a bit of research on its background. A week or two later I contacted
Johnny Hindes and told him that when he required our services I would organise a special unit to
go out there to discharge the responsibilities associated with supervising the work. He agreed to
this and as a result I arranged to visit Barbados for the first time. He informed me of the address
of the architects he was proposing to employ, who were of English origin, but had lived in
Barbados for many years. He also gave me the name of the quantity surveyors who had a
similar background. I went to Barbados to meet the professional team he had assigned to the
task and discuss with them the details of the first project. The trip over, in those days, was quite
a longish affair – you went first to Bermuda and there was a stop over of an hour and a half and
then the plane went from there to Trinidad stopping off at Antigua and then Barbados. I found
Bermuda a very interesting island and the business community were engaging and running pretty
profitable businesses under an independent government, even though it was part of the UK.

The situation in political and social terms in Barbados, at that time, was one of transition. The
black community had recently obtained equal voting rights or semi-equal voting rights, which in
view of their numbers enabled them to have a majority in the Barbadian parliament. The political
and social structures were based on it having been a British colony for many years and therefore
followed the British Government structure. The economy at that time was very dependent on the
market provided by the sugar plantations – this was the main source of income that Barbados
derived and of course the owners were all white and the workforce of course were members of
the black community. There was little or no social or cultural contacts between the two and in
fact the white community did not regard the black community as being of the same human stock.
I developed relationships with various members of the Barbados social set as, it being a relatively
small island, my arrival and objectives became fairly well known and I was readily invited to
various social establishments, including the Bridgetown Club in the capital and the Yacht Club in
Carlisle Bay. Needless to add, there were no black members at either club. Some of the
members of these clubs were also members of the ruling party in the parliament. One of them I
got to know fairly well, was awarded a knighthood and elected as the speaker of the house. He
31
was a very nice man and I enjoyed a friendship with him and his family for some time. However,
to emphasise the difference in the class structure, I remember one early evening having been
invited to his house to have a drink and a chat our conversation was interrupted by a knock on
the kitchen door. He therefore left me to go through the kitchen and open the door. I could see
there on the doorstep, was a black man, who started to talk to him at some length. When the
conversation ended and he returned to the room I asked him why he did not invite the person
into the house. His response was an emphatic statement that the only black people to enter this
house were the servants and he didn‟t have any social connections with the black community.
This illustrated his views on the difference between the two races.

On the business front, I visited the site of this proposed first hotel, which was in, at that time
considered, the non fashionable side of Bridgetown the capital. It was 3-4 miles away from
Bridgetown on the coast on the way to the airport. A hotel had recently been built there by the
Hilton group and this new site was on some land that included a jetty some 4-5 miles from
Bridgetown. Having studied the plans, I realised that this was going to be a contract of
substance, since it had 120 bedrooms on the main site as well as several suites at the end of the
jetty, substantial suites which would be very lavishly furnished. I was informed that Johnny
Hindes had negotiated a deal with the Holiday Inn group, who were going to take over
management of the hotel, and through their commercial channels provide the finance. This gave
Johnny great confidence that the project would be profitable.

On my return to the UK, I then commenced assessing who I could send out there as manager
and the team he would need for his supporting staff. It should be realised that my staff,
foreman, agents, surveyors, etc lived and operated on a very local basis and were not travellers.
Most of them had hardly been out of the UK except on odd holidays. However I talked to a few
of my contract managers and finally selected a team and arranged the terms for their
employments on a two year contract. They were invited to take their families with them. I then
began to research reasonable accommodation adjacent to the site. The project had the usual
ups and downs associated with the building industry and was a great learning experience for all
of my staff and myself. This resulted in establishing my building company, Miller Buckley
(Barbados) Limited, becoming an important construction company on the island. We then were
awarded other contracts. One was the creation of a hotel on another part of the island and the
existing building was called Sam Lords Castle. Sam Lord was a famous pirate in the 19 th century,
who based himself in Barbados and carried out his pirating activities from there. It was
interesting that even a pirate like Sam Lord had his slaves. On a tour of the existing building, I
discovered the slaves‟ quarters. There were the chains and shackles by which the slaves were
kept under control and I had to decide whether to incorporate them into the new development or
destroy them.

During the period following the completion of the Holiday Inn project, I got to know the new
Prime Ministe, who was the first black Prime Minister in Barbados. He was a very able fellow who
had been in the British Air Force and had established a substantial reputation in Barbados, even
though he was a member of the black community. However, when it became known in the white
community, that I had developed a close personal friendship with the new Prime Minister, it was
not greeted with acclaim by many of them. The white establishment obviously felt that it
engendered suspicion about me, as it wasn‟t the done thing for a white British person to be seen
to be on very friendly terms with the leading black member of the community. As my experience
grew of the way of life on the island, I became convinced that there were opportunities that had
so far not been offered to the black community, which would benefit the country if this situation
was reversed. The education system, based on British practice, was of a pretty high standard
and embraced the same subjects as those from English schools of academic merit. The growth
of the tourist industry, involving as it did more and more new hotels and tourist sector
developments, presented an increasing problem in finding experienced technical staff such as
architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, construction managers etc. In one of my discussions
with the Prime Minister, I told him I was prepared to help the country to become more self
supporting, with locally qualified building and civil engineering staff - since employing overseas
personnel to discharge these responsibilities was obviously a very expensive business. I
32
proposed to him that I would assist in giving opportunities to some of his citizens approaching
university age with appropriate talents. I offered to arrange for them to enter a suitable
university in the UK to gain qualifications in the subjects associated with the building industry.
The five people would be in the UK for three years. I would pay for their education and the
Barbados government through the High Commissioner would provide accommodation, air travel
and appropriate expenses. This proved to be a great success. Of the 20 that were given the
opportunity, fifteen obtained degrees in either civil engineering, structural engineering or
mechanical engineering and the others all got Higher National Certificates in one of these
disciplines. The students had never been abroad before and certainly had not been to London.
For example, each time my wife met the new intake at the airport with a member of the High
Commissioner‟s staff, she took them on the underground to the High Commissioners office in
Kensington. Apparently some of them were absolutely traumatised with his experience and had
concerns and fears for their safety.

This did of course bring me more and more into the social circle on both sides of the divide
between black and white and I got to understand a sort of lifestyle they both lived. On the white
side, the male was the dominant partner and the female was normally a dutiful wife who looked
after the children and the household (augmented of course by staff), whilst the male had his
clubs and the usual male amenities. On the other side, I got to know some of the black female
staff at the hotel and I remember one chat I had with three of them, who worked as cleaners,
about their day to day life. They were all unmarried, but each had three to four children. In
answer to various questions I posed to them about their daily lifestyle their response was quite
illuminating. They informed me that mother looked after the children and the household while
they went to work. When I asked them about marriage, they unanimously came back very
strongly – why should they marry a man who would take their money and spent it all in the rum
shop ? They said they were much better off looking after mum and the children. It was
expressed in such black and white terms that there was nothing more to say.

We continued to carry out various construction projects on the island – we built an extension to
Sandy Lane Hotel and also a couple of housing estates. There was one golf course on the island
which was quite good, but not sufficiently attractive to make a real impact on the tourist
industry. Some of the wealthier and more powerful members of the local community, one
owning substantial shopping premises in Bridgetown, another the managing director of a big
trading company, that knew of my connections with golf, discussed the tourist market with me
on several occasions. They approached me to discuss building a golf course on a site called
Durants, that was on the road to the airport. We settled on terms whereby I would be paid a fee
for providing the overall management, the design and the construction. I used, as a designer,
because at that time I did not have a golf architectural team, a Londoner based in Watford –
Commander Harris – who had designed several golf courses in various parts of the world.
Having agreed with him the type of golf course, I also went ahead and made a contract with a
firm of established UK building architects to design the clubhouse. Work started on construction
and proceeded normally. I was, however, concerned about getting the appropriate grasses for
greens, tees and fairways. I had, what I thought, was a brilliant idea – I researched and found
that in America there were two or three very good grass farms who specialised in the nurturing
of grasses for golf courses. However the temperature and maturing process was going to be
very difficult in Barbados, taking into account the type of soil and the experience of the local
labour force. My plan was to place a contract with one large supplier based near Atlanta,
Georgia. He would cut turf and I would arrange with an air cargo carrier to take the turf to
Barbados and deposit it in substantial quantities from the aircraft onto various parts of the site. I
would employ sufficient numbers of black ladies to await the arrival of the packages and, when it
had dropped on the ground, to move it into directed locations. The idea was to cut in America
and lay in Barbados in a very short period of time. I fortunately did take the precaution of
informing the Ministry of Agriculture of my plans. I had previously been introduced to the
Minster and was able to meet him and inform him of my plans. He was absolutely horrified and
pointed out to me that the island was still totally dependent on a healthy agricultural economy –
the sugar plantations were the main source of income. He also informed me about fifty to sixty
years previously the sugar plantations had been destroyed by a virus or some malignant attack
33
by locusts, as a result of which, the island reached almost starvation point. During this period
the UK had to send out supplies of food to keep the population alive. After much discussion, he
finally agreed that I could bring a quarter of an acre of greens turf, a quarter of an acre of tee
turf and a half an acre of fairway turf. He insisted that this was then bedded down in a small
area of the golf course and watered and treated with any necessary herbicides for six months
before it could be utilised to build the golf course. After the six months period, the turf was split
into very small pieces and deposited in various parts of the course and allowed to expand over a
period of time. It was finally completed with great celebrations but then new problems began. I
was concerned that the local management resources would not be adequate to deal with the
commercial matters relating to running a golf course, as well as the maintenance requirements
and disciplines. I therefore strongly expressed to the project owners, the need to appoint a
manager from the UK who had great experience in this field of activity. They reluctantly agreed.
The person I chose and with whom I agreed on an employment contract, arrived with his wife,
but unfortunately after three months it was clear that he was not happy with the set up and the
clients were not particularly happy with him. The owners agreed about the termination of his
contract and told me they would make their own arrangements to manage the project. I
therefore decided that my responsibilities were sufficiently diminished and that I could now
resign. Sadly, I have to report, that after a couple of years, it folded and went into receivership.
However I have heard within the last two to three years that it has been purchased by a new
group and the course has now been opened again and is quite successful.

I had now established a successful contracting business in Barbados and therefore I commenced
looking at other areas of the Caribbean for new projects. My first efforts were directed at
Trinidad, where I established a joint venture with a local builder. Our activities were mainly
involved in the construction of various government projects, including schools.

One of the fascinating things about Trinidad was the carnival. I had a good relationship with the
General Manager of Barclays Bank in the area, Charlie Bridge, and was encouraged by him to
take the opportunity to attend the festival in Trinidad. He arranged for us to stay, at what he
described to us, as a suitable hotel. We arrived in the early evening at the airport and I was a
little surprised when the taxi driver did not seem to know the hotel we were going to stay in –
the name of which I had on a piece of paper. However we eventually arrived at a sort of
boarding house, in which we had reserved a suite. In fact we discovered that the toilet and
bathroom facilities that were given to us as part of our suite, adjacent to our bedroom, were
normally used by all the other residents. It also became obvious, when we went for breakfast
the following morning, that all the other residents were long-term boarders, who had local
interests and employment in the capital. The owners of the boarding house were Scottish and
were very friendly and very respectful as were all the residents – it was embarrassing at times –
and even more astonishing when I discovered that the main reason for this attitude towards us
was that Charlie Bridge had given my details as A H Buckley FICE, a Fellow of the Institution of
Civil Engineers. Apparently there was only one other FICE in the whole of Trinidad ( the owner
having become aware of this, had elevated me to a high level, which caused embarrassment to
me and my wife from time to time). However the carnival was fantastic – the drums, the music
was very special and the costumes were flamboyant, imaginative and highly colourful. In
subsequent discussion with well known local people, I was told that once the festival is over, the
costumes are then put on one side and are not used again. For the following festival, it took
most of the year to devise, design and make the costumes. It was a lovely experience which I
have never forgotten.

We also went to Granada, which was experiencing significant political unrest at that time. That
was not a very happy experience.

Another trip we made was to Jamaica, where I had serious discussions with local people on the
creation of a very substantial holiday resort scheme. On my way back to the UK, I would stop
over in Bermuda for discussions with the Managers of my Trust. On one occasion, going back to
Bermuda via Port of Spain, Jamaica, I arrived very late at night – it had been a long day – and to
my dismay the customs at the Bermuda airport were insisting on every bag being opened. I was
34
one of the few non Jamaicans on the flight and had to patiently stand in the queue for twenty
five minutes before I got to the customs officers, who then emptied my bag and repacked it,
having been satisfied that there was nothing illegal in it. I then proceeded to the exit and was
stopped by a policeman – a heavily built man about six foot four in height – who was watching
the people leave the customs area into the arrivals hall. He stopped me and said „Where is the
chalk cross you should have on your bag, having been passed by the customs official?‟ I looked
at my bag and then at others and saw that they indeed did have a chalk cross, but for some
reason, the customs man forgot to put one on mine. I was then told by the policeman that I
would have to go back and get the chalk cross marked before he would let me through. I was so
annoyed at this that I told him „Well why don‟t you get the customs man to come here, or you
take the bag and get the chalk mark on‟. He paused for a minute and then said „Look it‟s about
11.30 pm now and I‟ve only just come on duty and I‟m going to be here until 6.30 am tomorrow
morning. If you want to stay with me until that time, fine, just stay there and don‟t bother about
the chalk cross‟. By this time fortunately, there were several people standing about listening to
this conversation and one of them went back to the customs officer and borrowed the chalk and
put a cross on my bag. I was then let out by the policeman who made some comment about
„Don‟t try to break the rules in the future‟.

The company‟s reputation in the fields of development, construction and civil engineering grew
significantly and opportunities arose to extend the business in various overseas locations. We
had an opportunity to gain access to the Emirate countries and established, in particular, a
relationship in Dubai. Dubai, at that time, was in its very early stages of development, but in
view of the growth of the oil market and the associated wealth that it provided, the ruler, who
was progressive, took advantage of this. At the time there was no main drainage system in the
centre of Dubai and we negotiated a contract with the rulers to carry out the construction of the
main drainage system with plans and specifications provided by eminent consultant engineers. It
was an interesting educational experience for me in one particular respect, in that when we were
awarded the contract, the ruler said that the monthly interim payments would be paid for by the
local bank. This effectively meant that a monthly certificate was passed by us to the bank for
payment rather than direct transmission to the ruling body. Unfortunately for us, the bank was
in no hurry to pay these interim certificates, and as a result, several months took place at times,
between the rendition of the certificate and the actual receipt of the payments. During this
period, the bank also provided us with a facility to enable us to carry out the work, but at an
appropriate interest rate. When we completed the project and finally got paid, I calculated that
the interest that we paid to the bank was almost the same as the profit that we made on the
project. However it was a very interesting experience and we carried on in Dubai for some years
carrying out small but prestigious contracts -Mosques and other public buildings - and enjoyed a
happy relationship for some time.

Another opportunity that came to us was in Nigeria. Through the construction company, we
established a very good relationship with one or two prestigious British architectural practices
that were operating worldwide. Through this association, we managed to bid successfully for a
housing development and schools in northern Nigeria in Kaduna. This is a Muslin state within
Nigeria and again this was an educational experience for me. For example, the office we
installed in Kaduna was owned by a senior civil servant in the Nigerian government, then living in
Lagos. It was a single storey building with three bedrooms, a kitchen, and quite lavish sitting
areas. When I visited the offices for meetings with the member of the building staff who was
running this unit, he showed me around the building and I was astonished to see that the three
bedrooms were identically furnished in every respect. I then learned that the owner had three
wives and each had her own bedroom. I did meet two of the wives on one of my visits. One
was a policewoman and the other worked in the local authority office. The third one I never
saw, but she was much younger and was at university at that time. They seemed to get on quite
well with each other and obviously had established a way of life which was pretty normal in that
Muslim state.

Another unusual aspect of the Nigerian experience was told to me by the staff. They said that
they were awakened early in the morning by loud bangs emanating from the plant equipment
35
that we had in order to carry out the construction work. Apparently, you had to bang very
rigorously on the machines to persuade the snakes that had lodged there overnight to rush off
and leave the machines clear of all animal life, so that the staff could safely go in and start to
operate them.

In the early 1970s, I developed a relationship with the Melia Hotel group, which was owned and
controlled by the Melia family. Their business, which was then based almost entirely in Spain,
was growing as a result of a concept which they described as aparthotels. Basically the concept
was that investors bought an en-suite bedroom and then leased it to Melia management on a
profit sharing, rental basis. This concept moved forward successfully in Spain, managed by the
Melia son, Paco. Paco and I formed a happy relationship and discussed ways and means of
developing this concept further in other countries. We formed a company called Melia Buckley
Aparthotels which was a 50/50 joint venture. We focused on the UK and central South America
for areas in which we considered there would be a profitable market for this concept. I found a
site on the River Thames, immediately adjacent to Blackfriars Bridge, and after several months of
research and negotiation, Melia Buckley Aparthotels Limited acquired a long term lease for the
site and subsequently obtained planning permission. Actually planning permission already
existed – the work that we had to do was to progress this planning permission into a building
permit, which would be the basis for the most prestigious aparthotel to be created in the London
area. We finally obtained a building permit for a two hundred bedroom aparthotel, together with
substantial banqueting and related hotel facilities, including a casino and an indoor leisure facility.
We then began our research in finding partners to finance the project, including construction,
furniture and fittings. Eventually, after months of detailed negotiation, we succeeded in this
purpose, with a consortium led by an American bank. Work commenced and proceeded on a
normal basis for a construction of this magnitude. Obviously, all the procedures that I have
outlined take a considerable period of time, and by the time the actual architectural plans, the
construction contracts etc had been negotiated and work started, some two years had elapsed
from the date of the original concept. Sadly, when we were well advanced in the construction of
the building, there was a downturn in confidence associated with the hotel industry in the London
area. Like most construction, and in particular leisure related activities, this type of business is
subject to flows of optimism and pessimism in the financial markets. Unfortunately, at this time,
there was a general area of uncertainty about the likelihood of us being able to sell the
aparthotel in the commercial market. Obviously, this was not a view that we shared, and both
Melia and I had carried out research on potential purchasers and were very confident that the
market was strong. The banking consortium decided to seek the advice of a chartered surveying
partnership based in London, to obtain their views on the likely commercial success of the
venture. The views the surveyors expressed, as is so often the case, were hedged with various
pluses and minuses, without providing any conclusive evidence but not giving an aggressively
optimistic view of the future of the hotel market in London over the next few years. The result of
this was that the banks tried to renegotiate the terms of the banking arrangements with Melia
and my organisation, requesting us to provide some more equity to reduce the loan previously
made available. We refused, for a variety of reasons, to agree to this and eventually the project
came to a standstill. The impact of this, of , on the market, was not conducive to risking
significantly more equity and so finally the banks looked for alternative clients. One duly arrived,
a substantial publicly quoted company, operating mainly in the shipping world, and made a very
attractive offer to the banking consortium, changing the concept from a hotel to a complex of
shops and offices. As a result of this, our involvement in the project came to an end and was
therefore deleted from the Melia Buckley portfolio. The complex in its new form was, after
considerable delay, completed and is now a major landmark on the South Bank.

During this period, Paco Melia and myself held regular monthly board meetings, alternating
between London and Madrid and explored a variety of potential opportunities for the Melia
Buckley partnership. I did not know Spain terribly well, and in particular Madrid, and did not
know much about the day to day lifestyle of the business and commercial world of Madrid. It
was a great commercial and personal experience. One of the by-products of this was that I
discovered that very few Madrid citizens sat down to dinner in the evening in restaurants before
10.30 pm. This was at least two and a half hours later than I was accustomed to. It had a
36
further complication in that in those days, whilst I did not drink during the day, at 6.30 I usually
had my first whiskey and soda to be followed, of course, by wine over dinner and sometimes
brandy or port after dinner. My programme for the Madrid board meetings (agreed with Paco),
was to arrive in Madrid airport at about 6-6.30 pm and go straight to their main office, which was
adjacent to the hotel, with access by means of a bridge. Our board meeting would normally
commence around 7.30 pm. My aperitif schedule was therefore significantly disrupted and after
the first couple of occasions I told Paco that if I was going to have a board meeting that was to
last until say 10 pm in the evening and then go to dinner with him in the restaurant at 10.30 pm
I would need to have the benefit of the odd glass of whiskey during the course of the board
meeting. From then on, there was always a bottle of whiskey, soda and a glass put on the board
room table adjacent to my seat.

In exploring other possible areas of development, we made several visits to Venezuela and in
particular the capital Caracas and the islands. Melia built a hotel there on the coast and whilst I
was not financially involved in the project, or indeed in the subsequent hotel management, they
made use of my services in a part-time project management capacity and reimbursed me the
expenses plus an appropriate fee.

During the course of my visits, I had the opportunity to meet several of the leading business
people in Caracas. One of the features I did not expect, was that at several of the dinners I went
to, instead of wine and water being laid on the table, there were bottles of Dimple Hague at
various strategic points along the dining table. I learned that the city of Caracas was one of the
biggest importers of quality Scotch whiskey in the world. I never ever doubted it or checked how
accurate this statement was but certainly Dimple Hague was very popular in Caracas.

Much later on, through these associations, and with one of the partners of Paco Melia, I
researched into the apartment development market and found a very attractive site to build fifty
apartments in an up-market suburb of Caracas. With my Spanish partner, we bought the site
using American dollars and eventually got all the necessary permissions, and construction of the
apartments commenced. Work proceeded in a normal way and when it was at the stage of
installing electrical, mechanical and associated services, we had succeeded in selling about two
thirds of the apartments. Under the circumstances, this was a very satisfactory situation. The
currency used for sale purposes was the local currency, Bolivars, and at the current rate of
exchange at the time, would enable us to repay the American dollar loan borrowed from the bank
and obtain a substantial profit. However, over this period, the Venezuelan economy deteriorated,
partly due to problems in the oil markets and partly due to political upheavals, creating significant
stress. At a crucial time, when we were expecting payment by the prospective purchasers, the
currency totally collapsed. The Bolivar fell to one third of its value as compared with the value
when we negotiated the bank loan. This, of course, made the project totally unprofitable and we
had to renegotiate the financing of the project on new terms and finally reached agreement with
the bank, which maintained our credibility and reputation but cost us a significant sum of money.
After this experience, we the left the Venezuelan market bruised and very disappointed and
decided that we should cut our losses and call it a day. I continued to have a good and friendly
business relationship with Melia and his associates and developed various projects in the
residential market in Central Spain.
37
Experiences in the Golfing Arena during 1970s/1980s from a personal/business point
of view.

Towards the end of the 1960s I made a decision to increase the range of activities in which the
company was involved. Golf was a natural avenue to explore, since it had been my main leisure
sport. I had been actively engaged in it since the 50s. This was from the point of view of actual
play and I also followed and explored the activities of the top echelons of the golfing profession.
However, it was an amateur that set the pattern for me and the company in this field. In the 60s
I developed a friendship with Michael Bonallack. Michael had established himself as the best
amateur golfer in the British Isles – his all round long game was good and his putting was
exceptional. He competed in several finals of the British Amateur Championships and one of his
keenest rivals was the Irishman Joe Carr. From memory, I think Joe had been pre-eminent for
several years before Michael came on the scene and on the first couple of occasions that Michael
reached the final to meet Joe, Joe won the encounter. However, as time went on, Michael
became stronger and better and was increasingly fancied to beat Joe eventually. I think it was
the third or fourth occasion that they met in the final, with Joe probably realising that Michael‟s
day had come, he adopted one or two tactics which were obviously designed to make life a little
more difficult for Michael in the final game. On arrival at the 1st tee to commence the match, Joe
having the right to play first, announced that he was playing with a number 6 ball – it was well
known of course that Michael always played with a number 6 ball and had, in fact, hardly any
other numbered balls in his golf bag. This caused some consternation in the Bonallack camp as
they had to go off and get some balls of a different number. There were one or two other minor
activities designed to make life a little more difficult for Michael but in the end it was all in vain
and he won that final and was never beaten afterwards by Joe.

At that time Michael was working for his family business in Essex. They were coachbuilders and
even though Michael spent a significant amount of time on the amateur golfing circuit he still had
an important role to play in the marketing and public relations field on behalf of the company. In
one of the meetings I had with him I told him of my ideas of moving into the golf design
construction and development field – he indicated a significant interest in being associated with
this venture and following further discussions I formed a company called Miller Buckley Leisure
Developments and Michael became the Chief Executive. Soon after he joined we were involved
in the creation of the first two courses in Woburn – The Duke and The Duchess – and the
initiation of Woburn Golf Club. The golf architects engaged on that project were Cotton Pennick
& Partners. This golf architectural practice had been established many, many years ago – I think
in the late 1940s. The senior partners were Charles Lawrie and Frank Pennick. Our company
relationship with Cotton Pennick & Partners developed and after a year or so I was approached
to see whether we would be interested in acquiring the practice. I agreed to do so and we
settled financial terms and the company was then called Cotton Pennick & Partners Limited.
Sadly, very soon after this occurred, Charles Lawrie died and a couple of years later so did Frank
Pennick and that made a big hole in the architectural strengths of the company. However it
recovered and proceeded to do many more commissions during the forthcoming years.

The impact of Michael was significant - he certainly was a major figure in the marketing of the
company. He knew golf clubs in other parts of the world, and in particular the United States of
America. One of those was a famous golf club in the New York area, which had been established
for many, many years and had all the ritual relating to long standing golf clubs, including blazers
and ties being worn by the members. This particular club‟s committee felt that the golf course
and image of the golf club was in need of refurbishment and required a complete new look to
bring it up to modern times. At that time, the famous three professional golfers were Gary
Player, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and under the guidance and management of Mark
McCormack, they had created a new image, world-wide, of golf and increased the pressure on
the old established golf clubs to refurbish themselves and project a modern image. The New
York Golf Club invited us to carry out a study of the existing organisation and make
recommendations as to the way forward. We were obviously delighted to be so privileged since
this projected us into the top echelons of the golfing world. We did our study and, included it,
was a recommendation that they should appoint one of the three mentioned above to be their
38
golf advisor and supervisor of any modernisation scheme. Our approach to Palmer, Player and
Nicklaus was for them to come forward with their own ideas on the best way forward and an
appropriate fee structure to be paid for their services. In carrying out these responsibilities, cwe
got to know Mark and his three stars well and established new long term relationships with all of
them. However, the one that we became most closely associated with was Arnold Palmer, and,
after several meetings, mainly with the IMG staff who looked after Arnold, we formed a joint
company called Arnold Palmer Buckley Developments. The terms of reference was that this
would be a project management entity supervising such work or such projects as we were
awarded. The golfcourse architecture work would be undertaken by Arnold‟s golf architectural
unit, run by Ed See and based in Jacksonville. The company was quite successful, although for
several projects, planning issues made them very long term and sometimes abortive.

The board of Arnold Palmer Buckley consisted of my son and I representing Buckley, and Arnold
and Mark representing Arnold Palmer. Arnold served as Chairman and my son served as Chief
Executive. Regular board meetings were held, almost inevitably wherever Arnold happened to be
playing. That was understandable and perfectly acceptable as far as I was concerned. However,
on one or two occasions, it was not easy for me to meet with Arnold‟s schedule. On one
occasion a meeting was arranged to take place at Bay Hill, Orlando Florida, where Arnold lived at
the time. My wife and I flew from Italy to Orlando, changing planes in New York, and arriving
around 7 pm Florida time. On our arrival at the clubhouse, the receptionist said that she had a
special note for me from Mr Palmer – she gave it to me and I read it and it simply said „The
board meeting will take place tomorrow morning at 7 am‟. My response was to ask her for a
piece of plain paper and the loan of a pen and I wrote „Dear Arnold, I have received your note
about the board meeting tomorrow morning at 7 am, unfortunately I will not be present‟. She
watched me write this note and was visibly shocked, since Arnold was a great idol and a local
god and to receive that sort of response was unprecedented. My wife and I went to our
bedroom which was in an annex to the clubhouse, changed and went into the dining room about
an hour later. There we saw Arnold with two or three of his friends on one table, and Mark with
some of his staff on another. We sat down at a separate table. It became increasingly clear that
the two tables were in active discussion as to how they should proceed and who should take the
initiative. Eventually some of the staff came up with friendly greetings, but no-one talked about
the meeting the next morning, until Mark came and apologised and said that Arnold would
explain. Arnold came up to our table and explained to me that he had been offered a place in
the US PGA Championship as a wild card the next morning which was quite unexpected and that
the start time was very early. It meant that he would have to fly in his own jet to arrive an hour
or two before tee off time. Having said this, he then as a gesture, said that maybe if he arrived
at the US PGA Championship half an hour before his tee time that would give him enough time to
get ready, and, as he had been playing that day, hopefully he wouldn‟t lose too much by not
having a significant practise period. I felt this was a reasonable compromise and so we settled
for the board meeting at 8 am although that was 3 am as far as my body was concerned.

On another occasion, we had a board meeting in a house that was rented for him when he
participated in the World Match Play Championships at Wentworth. Mark and I arrived in the
early evening on the day of the Pro Am to be greeted by a disgruntled Arnold who complained to
Mark that he did not appreciate playing in a Pro Am when the amateur participants were all
dressed in another professional‟s caps and shirts. Our board meeting took place without any
problems. We had an excellent dinner cooked by Arnold‟s wife and, during dinner, a discussion
took place (of which, I was an interested listener), on the future of a very well known golfer on
the pro circuit who was approaching his 50th anniversary. Mark asked Arnold whether he would
agree on the advice he had given this chap, which was that he should join the seniors‟ tour as he
would earn substantial prize money and Arnold readily concurred with this view.

The next day, in the opening round of the World Match Play Tournament, Arnold played Seve
Ballesteros and beat him on the 22nd hole. This was headline news in all the sporting papers.

Arnold Palmer Buckley Developments Limited continued its activities on a growing scale. It
included a very complex project in Washington, which was quite successful and also there were
39
projects in Tennessee and Atlanta. Inevitably, most of them involved complex and controversial
issues of planning permissions on environmentally sensitive sites, which took many years to
resolve. After several years of limited success, we resolved that we should not actively continue
with the company‟s activities but remain friends, which we have done.

I had also by that time, established a relationship in Australia with one of their most famous
golfers, Graham Marsh, who competed in all the major tournaments of the world. At that time,
he had achieved world recognition as a top rank golfer without the assistance or involvement of
Mark McCormack and the IMG organisation. In discussions with me, he stated that if he ever
won the British Open or the American Open, he would probably do so, but until that happened,
he had no interest in forming a direct link with Mark or the IMG group. I therefore did not
discuss with Mark my relationship with Graham, at the request of Graham. This caused me some
embarrassment on one occasion. The incident took place when I was arriving in Melbourne, in
time for the Australian Masters, and I was going there as a guest of Graham. We arranged to
meet at my hotel at about teatime, two days before the tournament started. I arrived and went
to check in and to my astonishment, standing straight in front of me, was Mark McCormack. He
was visibly surprised at seeing me, since he had no knowledge of why I was there, and I was too
embarrassed to tell him, however I managed to pass it off with the odd joke and fortunately was
able to talk about Bernhard Langer who was managed by Mark and who was one of the
favourites competing in the tournament. A week or so later I met Mark over breakfast in Sydney
and we talked about other activities we might do together and he suggested that it would be
worthwhile to form a company with Bernhard Langer to carry out similar activities in Europe to
that which we had done in America with Arnold. I accepted his advice and, at his initiative, a
meeting was arranged with Bernhard Langer and his brother, who acted as a sort of personal
manager to Bernhard. We agreed to form a company which was subsequently called Langer
Buckley, of which the shareholders were Mark, Bernhard and myself. This company undertook
commitments to manage golf related projects and provide the golf architectural team. Langer
Buckley employed the services of Cotton Pennick as golf course designers. They would also
supervise the construction by awarding contracts to suitably qualified golf course construction
companies. It was a very successful business – we carried out projects in Italy, Austria, Germany
and France - but the division of responsibility created some friction from time to time, since the
personal advisers to Bernhard tried to impose certain conditions on the actual day to day
management of the company. However, it had a successful and profitable corporate activity for
several years, but finally we agreed to discontinue the partnership because Bernhard, by that
time, had become very involved, as had Mark and I, in bigger projects of a different nature,
which covered not just golf, but the whole range of leisure related activities.

Being associated with such famous professional golfers as I was at that time, brought me into
contact with people who had ambitions to become major figures in the golfing world. But they
did not have all the necessary skills and experience to fulfil the various tasks that have to be
mastered and coped with in what are often very complex projects. One of the difficulties that
had to be mastered, was financing. Many aspiring golf course empire owners had limited
resources in financial terms and only under exposure did they have to face up to the experience
of dealing with the financial hurdles that inevitably arose. My advice was often sought and
sometimes accepted and sometimes ignored. I remember on one occasion, being telephoned by
the Managing Director of Woburn Golf Club, asking me if I would meet a friend of his who
wanted to build a golf course in Scotland. I said I would be happy to meet with him and we
arranged to have lunch at Woburn Golf Club on the following Sunday. I arrived there a few
minutes before he did from my house nearby. He arrived in his grand Rolls Royce and we went
into the restaurant for lunch. After a few minutes of cordial exchange he said „You don‟t
remember me, do you?‟, and I had to confess that I didn‟t. My eyesight problem did not assist in
this respect, of course, but even so, I doubt whether I would have recognised him. So I had to
confess, no I didn‟t. He informed me that my civil engineering company had employed him and
his bricklaying team on several occasions on major pipeline contracts. He reminded me that the
brick linings were essential for protecting the concrete drains from erosion since these bricks
were very, very hard with a very glossy surface which made them impervious to the various
algae that flow through a sewer. I told him that he had obviously, having regard to the Rolls
40
Royce I had seen outside, moved on significantly since then, which he confirmed. He informed
me that he had major maintenance contracts for two big Borough Councils in the western
outskirts of London, producing a substantial annual income. At that time, my main residence was
in Westminster, London and he offered to take me back from Woburn after our meeting. During
lunch and on the journey back to London, he sought advice on who best to appoint as architect
and whether he should appoint someone also who was internationally famous in golf. I gave him
certain names that I felt would serve him very well, to take over certain specialist responsibilities.
However I did advise him that he was proceeding on a very speculative course and unless he had
very significant financial resources he should think very carefully about it. His response was that
he was very friendly with the laird and there was no great competition in that area and he was
absolutely sure that it would be a major financial success. In spite of my advice he proceeded
with it and did in fact complete it. After two or three years, sadly, the bank put the project into
receivership and he suffered very significant financial burdens.

Relating to finance, it was assumed that I must have very substantial financial resources to have
been able to form joint companies with the stars that I mentioned earlier. I remember on one
occasion, when my secretary told me that Michael Bonallack was going to Majorca as a guest of a
very famous Spanish portrait painter who had painted several portraits of the Spanish Royal
family. In fact Michael in the end didn‟t go, because he informed the Spaniard that he thought it
would be more meaningful if I went instead. My past experience prompted me to say to Michael
„Are you sure this chap has the financial resources?‟ Michael felt very confident that he did. On
that basis my wife and I went to Majorca. When we arrived at the airport, we were greeted by
several people, including our host the artist. We were then taken to the yacht club where we
met several of his friends and dined in a very extravagant manner. I remember the main dish
was swordfish which was carried aloft on several silver trays – the whole fish – and then publicly
dismembered and passed to the various diners on the table. It was very expertly done and was
a great meal. Afterwards, we were taken to a nightclub and arranged to meet again the next
day. On the next day, to my surprise, we were taken to see various places of historic and tourist
interest on the island and again generously entertained. On the third day, I told the
representative of the artist that I really felt, since I was under some pressure to get back to the
UK, we needed to spend time that day at the site to enable me to study the terrain etc with a
view to being able to assess the magnitude of the project and its feasibility. We were taken to
the site, which was located in the centre of the island. It was a very undulating and very
attractive wooded area – masses of olive trees etc. He showed me the area which he thought
would be the right location for a golf course. In addition he showed me the areas for a tourist
and housing development and other leisure related activities. It was quite impressive and
enabled me to get a broad assessment of the financial resources that would be required to carry
out the project. In the evening over dinner, we discussed the various items in further detail
without any mention of finance. Finally, as tactfully as I could, I put it to him that such a project
would cost many millions of peseta and I would therefore like to know the financial resources he
had and who it was that was going to provide finance. His response was quite simple and he
said „I look to you to do that‟. I then informed him that providing finance for the various
interests that I had developed over the years, was not a responsibility which I undertook. I
would obviously help or assist the owner in seeking the best possible terms and guiding him on
the various potential pitfalls that inevitably arise on such projects. I further informed him that
the history of such developments was littered with casualties, including the original promoter,
and that he should not venture on such a project without being certain that the finance resources
were available. I further stated that I would await his further communication on the sources of
finance he had been able to secure. After several communications, he finally admitted that he
had not succeeded in interesting suitable financial entities and would put the project on hold,
which as far as I am aware, it has remained ever since.
41
Odd items to be added into the story which are not of any commercial value but
which it pleased me to have an opportunity to participate.

One of them (in the early 1970s) was as a result of contacts I had with the Royal Society for the
Blind. I established a certain communication with others who were not afflicted with eye
diseases, but were interested in helping blind people by contributions in various ways. I, without
going into all the detail, formed an association to promote a golf day. The people who
approached me, knew of my interest in golf and in fact thought I was a very significant figure in
golf at that time and therefore my support was considered to be important. We organised a
charity golf day at a course in Surrey, for which we were able to charge a substantial fee to enter
a 4-ball competition with a shotgun start. The composition of the four was that the sponsor
would select three of the members of his squad and the organisers would provide the Fourth.
There was a lot of publicity and many quite famous people, mainly in the music and theatrical
world, were interested and wanted to participate. Each contributor was assigned a person who
was famous in the musical/theatrical world to be the fourth member of the squad. Our fourth
member was a famous baritone. At the appropriate time, we started on the shotgun and off we
went. I was playing off 9 and my wife was playing with a handicap of 5. My other friend, who
wanted to contribute towards the blind fund, was a pretty good 11 or 12 handicap. Anyway off
we went, and our distinguished baritone was a big bloke with a handicap of 26. He was pretty
erratic to say the least, and rarely added to the scoring which was worked out on the best two of
the four players. However, with his handicap, as luck turned out, on two of the holes when he
had 2 shots, on one he got a birdie which became an albatross, and on the other one he got a 3
on a par 4 hole which was the equivalent of a hole in one. The end result of it all was that we
managed to win the tournament. However, the main thing I remember about the event, was
that the organisers invited a famous totally blind American golfer to come and spend the
weekend with us and to participate in the competition in order to get the maximum publicity. He
had a handicap of 10 – he was totally blind, a big chap and his partner ,as he called him, was
three or four inches shorter, but they walked arm in arm throughout the 18-holes and the
procedure was quite simple. He would be given the appropriate club, it would be placed on his
behalf behind the ball, he would be told that his feet were in the correct position and that he had
the club face exactly at the point where it needed to be. He then hit the ball with great skill. He
was in the next squad to us and thus followed us throughout the round with his partner and two
big sponsors of the day. I remember looking back and seeing him in a bunker. In this situation
he was allowed to ground the club but had no other advantages over a normal player. For me,
however, the everlasting memory of the occasion was to stop at the 18th when we had finished
and watch them come in to the final hole. He landed on the green (it was a par 4) with his 3 rd
shot and it was about 20 feet away from the hole. He was then led to the hole by his partner
and turned round when he got to the hole and put one foot in front of the other until he reached
the point where his partner told him the ball would be. He placed it and I would guess it was
around 15-20 footsteps and he was a big man. The ball was put down, his partner gave him the
putter, told him „Yes, you‟ve got it right‟ and he holed the putt – absolutely unbelievable.

At the subsequent dinner, whilst as the winners we were applauded enthusiastically, he was
greeted rightly as an absolute star, and since there were many non golfers present there were
auctions of various sorts which produced significant sums of money for the Royal Society for the
Blind, which gave me a lot of satisfaction.
42
PERIOD IN THE EARLY 70s WHICH CREATED FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES IN MY
LIFESTYLE & LIFES WORK

In the early 70s, the political scene in the UK created significant problems for entrepreneurs who
had created over the years successful business activities. The background to it all was the fact
that the then government, a labour government, became obsessed with the idea of punishing
what they described as „the rich‟. You had the then chancellor saying that he would „squeeze
them until the pips squeaked‟, but of course his definition of rich was all embracing and very
shallow. In fact, history would show that the real rich were dented but not seriously affected and
several people, who like me who had by that time created significant businesses, began to feel
persecuted and that their future lay in moving to another country outside the UK. This was
particularly poignant for me having regard to my background, my involvement in the war and the
work I put in to create what was by then a substantial business. The business was increasingly
powerful in the construction world and profits increased year by year on a steady basis. As a
result of those profits, the business steadily grew in terms of staff, turnover and range of activity
without the necessity of having a major loan facility from the bank. As far as my personal life
was concerned, I was not interested in yachts and some of the other manifestations of so called
wealth – I had a perfectly adequate income for my purposes which was mainly concerned with
looking after the family and educating my four children. As far as the children were concerned, I
put a lot of time and effort into choosing schools that I felt were appropriate for their future.
This was not an easy problem to solve as my children were not scholastic stars and had variable
qualities as far as schooling was concerned. This resulted of course in a significant amount of
research being done in order to try and find the right school and decide which would do the best
for them for the future. Reviewing it today, I am pretty satisfied with the results that I achieved
in the context that the schools did provide the right sort of background, education, ambiance and
opportunity for them to maximise their talents and enable them to achieve pretty satisfactory
results at the end of their school time. By the 70s they were all out of school and pursuing
careers in various different activities.
On the business side, the impact of the labour government‟s crude policies began to have a
considerable impact. In about 1973 I had a meeting with a senior partner of Peak Marwick (who
were auditors and accountancy advisors at that time). I had a great regard for Mr Nicholson, the
senior partner, he had achieved fame in various ways and was firmly established as a leading
figure in the accounting and financial sector. At this meeting he reminded me that the company
was, in taxation terms, classified as a „close‟ company since I was the only shareholder and that
close companies were required under taxation law to pay adequate dividends that met certain
criteria – the result of this was of course that payments of dividends by close companies was
very highly taxed by the authorities. I pointed out to him that I was being paid by the company
a fair and reasonable remuneration and that the result of the policies I had worked on was that
the business was very stable and the balance sheet very healthy. He then went back to the tax
authorities to negotiate with them on my behalf a fair and reasonable solution. He finally came
back to me and said that he had to tell me that unless we paid what the tax authorities regarded
as an adequate dividend, they would surcharge me as if it had been paid. I was not terribly
knowledgeable on these matters, but over dinner that evening with one of my non executive
director colleagues (who was a very successful businessman in the commercial world and much
more experienced than myself), he told me that that action was going to result in little or no
income coming to me. I finally reluctantly agreed to accept Peak Marwick‟s advice and I was
paid by the company a dividend of £500,000 in settlement. This resulted in having to pay
£480,000 in tax, leaving me with £20,000 which was all I received. The resul,t as far as the
company was concerned, was that I had to go to our bankers and explain the situation. They
were sympathetic and constructive and agreed to increase our loan facilities in order to enable
the company to continue on its present course. It did however mean that the loan and the
interest we paid on the loan, which in those days was high, became a major element in the
health and welfare of the business. The result of this was that I became very disenchanted and
very pessimistic about the prospects of getting a fair deal in the UK for a person like myself and I
started to think of moving overseas. I checked out various possible tax free havens but decided
that I did not want to go from one extreme to the other as to settle in a tax haven. Purely not to
pay any tax was in my view dishonest and discreditable. I, as I have indicated in these notes
43
was very, very fond of Italy – it had so many of the things that I valued – the culture, the
history, the golf, the personality of the people and therefore my first thought was to go and live
in Italy. After some research, it did not take me long to decide that this was a non starter. The
taxation system was high there, but what was worse, was that crime was at its height. I
discovered, for example, on taking advice, that if I moved to Italy and it became known (as it
would, since I had already achieved some publicity in Northern Italy through my golf interests),
that I could be a target for kidnappers. I would have to have a guard with me permanently if I
took this decision. I finally decided that the best compromise was to explore the possibility of
becoming domiciled in the Italian part of Switzerland. This area, with its fashionable city of
Lugano, and other interesting cities like Mendrezio, became increasingly attractive. Following
various visits, and with the aid of a senior tax advisor in Switzerland, I was able to obtain the
status of domicile in Switzerland. I paid substantial tax, but it was fair. It was called a global tax
and it was arrived at, as far as they were concerned, by examining the activities and the range of
my business and assessing the sort of income and tax bracket that such a business would justify.
At the final meeting, I agreed to this and they duly authorised the documents to be issued. I
then had to decide where to live and initially went to live in Lugano. There I rented an
apartment.

At that time, my personal life also underwent a significant change. My relationship with my then
wife had become less and less close, partly because I frequently travelled abroad and partly
because she did not want to move from the UK. At the same time, this relationship was
undergoing stress because of a new relationship that I had formed with my personal assistant.
She had been working for me for two years, at this particular point in time, and we had
developed an increasingly close relationship. When I decided therefore to move to Switzerland,
to the Ticino as it‟s called, my wife said that she was not at all keen to go and my PA said that
she would love to go. I therefore took the obvious course and she came with me. We went by
car from the UK and finally arrived in Lugano in the middle of the winter after a fairly hazardous
journey. I, in fact, shared the driving because even though I had had macular degeneration for
at least ten years, I was still driving, albeit less frequently than I did before I contracted this
disease. We finally arrived in Lugano and rented the apartment which was quite modest but
perfectly adequate for our needs.

We didn‟t know anybody in Lugano but of course I was reasonably well known in the golfing
world and therefore was made very welcome at Lugano Golf Club and also in the golf clubs in
Northern Italy. It was quite embarrassing at times. I had established a relationship with the
President of the Italian Golf Federation, who, when he knew that I was coming to live in the
Ticino and would therefore be playing most of my golf in Northern Italy, circulated all the clubs in
the area and informed them that I was a person of importance in the golfing world. I should be
invited to be a guest if I arrived and wanted to play. This was very flattering. In practice, the
truth was that there were some courses I would not want to return to, having played them and
others that I liked very much, but felt uncomfortable if I turned up too many times. Finally I
went to the President and informed him that whilst I was very appreciative of his kindness and
hospitality and that of the members of the golf clubs associated with the Italian Federation, I
now felt that I should revert to being just a member of one of the clubs. He understood my
situation and encouraged me to join Villa D‟Este Golf Club, which is situated between Como and
Milan.

Villa D‟Este Golf Club was then (and probably still is) regarded as one of the top golf clubs in Italy
and very highly regarded in the European circuit. At the time, it was owned by a large American
organisation that specialised in health and beauty products and its Chief Executive was a very
keen golfer and great supporter of the ladies professional circuit. It was during his period as
Chief Executive, that the ladies circuit became one of the top of the range of sporting events in
golf and became closely linked to the Chief Executive of that health and beauty company. I
suspect that that was not a very profitable investment and certainly the financial contributions
that they made to the ladies circuit must have had a big impact on their corporate profits. After
an association lasting several years, there was an in-house company revolution in the Board of
the company and the chief executive was sacked and the whole policy of the company changed.
44
The result was that the Villa D‟Este Golf Club was no longer wanted by the company and was put
up for sale. At the time I talked with Mark McCormack, Chief Executive of IMG, as to whether we
try and buy it. As will be evidenced in other parts of this story, Mark and I were very close, and
we did have discussions with the new Board with a view to buying it. However the price we were
prepared to pay was substantially less than an alternative offer they received from a very wealthy
local industrialist, a significant investor in various activities, and a keen member of the Villa
D‟Este Golf Club. His offer was accepted and we took no further part in negotiations in buying
the club. However, it became an important social centre for me and, in this period of semi-
retirement, I played the course quite frequently. I also rented a house on the golf course facing
the 8th green which was a very comfortable house with 5 bedrooms and splendid sitting areas
both externally and internally. This gave me the opportunity to invite friends from time to time,
including Henry Cotton and his wife. I had known Henry for some time since he was at an earlier
stage the pro at a Forte hotel in Portugal and although no longer playing the circuit, he was fully
occupied giving lessons. When he came to stay with me in Villa D‟Este, he gave group lessons to
the delight of the members. During the period he was there, we played most days, usually 9-
holes but sometimes 18-holes, but always took a golf cart as Henry was not a great walker. I
remember one day his wife decided that she would come with us – she hadn‟t been before and
was astonished to see Henry was sitting in a golf cart. She promptly told him that he should
walk with Gerry and that she would drive the cart. We set off at the 1st tee and I went off on the
yellow tees (the middle tees) and hit the first ball. Henry then put his ball down at the same
point and was embarrassed by a shout from the golf cart from his wife telling him that as a
professional he should play off the white tees. He reluctantly picked up his ball and moved back
to the back tee. The same thing happened on the next hole, whereupon Henry muttered to me
„She still thinks I‟m a 20 year old‟, to which my reply was „Well you‟re a lucky boy and let‟s hope
that she continues to believe that‟. We spent lots of happy times together both in Italy and
Portugal and obviously met from time to time in London.

As far as the golf club itself was concerned, as members we were acknowledged as pretty well
known in the golfing world and treated with a considerable degree of respect and affection.
From time to time we were entertained pretty generously by several of the members. We were
of course trying to learn to speak Italian. I have never been terribly good at languages but was
making a reasonable fist of it and in fact eventually became reasonably fluent. I think Italian is
one of the easier languages for an Englishman, in particular if he or she has a love of music, to
get to understand it and eventually to speak it. My wife, on the other hand was much more
aggressive in terms of mastering the language barrier, as well as having the ability to learn the
language very quickly. She became quite talkative on the odd occasion when we were
entertained to dinner by Italian friends and sometimes with not quite the effect that was
intended. I can remember on one occasion when she was talking about a certain incident that
had happened that day, she muttered the phrase „Non parle il peno‟ – this brought a startled look
to the faces of the half a dozen Italians sitting around the dining table with us and there was a
silence for a few seconds. I sensed that something had misfired and asked the man sitting next
to me at the table, why the silence. He said your wife has just said that it‟s not worth the penis
– she should have said „Non parle la penna‟ which means it‟s not worth the bother, and that was
quickly accepted and the penis bit was deleted from the future conversation, although one of
those present did pull her leg about it on several occasions.

As wonderful as the Swiss/Italian Ticino was, the general environment was subject to
fundamental changes in weather between the winter and the summer, one result of which was
that the golf courses were closed from about the middle of December until middle/late March.
We therefore one had to find other forms of exercise to try and keep reasonably fit and occupied.
My wife and I joined the local ice skating club in Lugano and, whilst we never ever attempted
any of the acrobatics that were on display from time to time on the rinks, I became reasonably
competent and did not have to keep hugging the outside within clutching distance of the wall
that encompassed the rinks. The other winter sport was skiing and I became reasonably
competent on the lower ski slopes but found that the cross country skiing was a much more
satisfying and acceptable form of exercise and entertainment. We used to go fairly regularly at
the weekends from Tremona, through to the ski slopes in Switzerland – it would not be more
45
than two hours from our residence. An hour or so on the cross country route was quite enough
for me, since the course was fairly demanding and certainly quite adequate for my physical
needs.

In residential terms, after a year or so, we had the opportunity to buy a house in the hills
overlooking Mendrisio, at a small town called Tremona. This was a very interesting experience
because it was very rural, very non touristy and very small. In the village of Tremona there was
just one café/pub/restaurant – the restaurant had half a dozen tables – but in the surrounding
villages in the hills, there were similar establishments and we did go quite frequently to them and
enjoy simple but excellent food. The sort of things that one remembers are the pastas of course,
the fondue, the lamb and the Escalope de Vitello Milanaise.

As far as the business was concerned, this resulted in a dramatic change in the management set
up. It was obvious that I would not be able to function from there on a daily basis, as I had
done for the past 25 years. Therefore the realistic thing was for me to resign as Managing
Director and become a non-executive Chairman, with particular interest in certain overseas
activities. I therefore appointed the man who was the in-house chief legal advisor in the
company. We had three lawyers on the staff, handling our various contracts and reshuffled the
pack, as it were, to appoint someone else as chief financial officer. I have to say, in hindsight,
that some of these new appointments were not very successful, although I retained several
senior members of the organisation who had been with me since day one. Their loyalty and
commitment remained as strong and steadfast as ever. I received confirmation of this very
recently, which affected me emotionally very much and gave me great satisfaction. The other
thing, in fairness to them, was the change from my being involved in the minutiae of the
company‟s activities. That ceasing, meant that there was quite a vacuum, which was never
completely filled. However, we can come to that later, but it started a new life for me, as I had
to get used to not interfering in every little point of the company‟s affairs and leave it to the
others.

During this period, I researched and investigated golf related opportunities in the form of project
management consultancies associated with my architectural practice. I also investigated
opportunities for being involved in leisure related projects, which normally included a golf course.
One of them was near Venice – Venice was a city I had been to on many occasions and really
liked – it had a certain magic which, during the periods when I used to go, it never lost and in
fact over the years, it became even more endearing, by virtue of its location on the lakes, the
gondola traffic, the art galleries and the cultural and historic buildings that were around Saint
Marks Square. Arnold Palmer and I had an association with an Italian golf architect, Marco, and
we assisted him in the design of some golf courses in other parts of Italy. As far as Venice was
concerned, he introduced me to a prospective golf course and leisure facility site which was on
the Adriatic coast. From there, on a clear day, you could see part of the coast of what was then
called Yugoslavia. We worked on this together and eventually, between us, were involved in the
design and creation of it. As a result of Marco, I met several of the professional people in Venice
and established some very interesting and worthwhile relationships. I used to go, while this
project was being worked upon, fairly regularly to Venice and usually stayed at the Danielli, a
hotel I loved, located on the Grand Canal. On one occasion, however, Marco had reserved a
room for me in a hotel 200-300 metres away, which was still on the canal and was recognised as
of equal quality. Marco met me at the airport and accompanied me to the hotel. He introduced
me to the Reception Manager and I was given the bedroom key. He went up with me to look at
it. It was certainly a single room but adequate for me as I was only staying two nights. We
returned to Reception and Marco asked the Reception Manager „What are you charging Snr
Buckley for that room?‟ and he replied that it was the Italian equivalent of £200 a night for bed
and breakfast. Marco said that he thought that was ridiculously high for such a small room. The
manager replied „Well what do you think is an appropriate price to charge Snr Buckley?‟. Marco
replied that half of what was proposed would be enough and the Reception Manager immediately
replied „Fine, we will charge Snr Buckley the amount that you consider appropriate‟. Later on, in
the evening I, invited Marco and some of his friends to dinner but left it to Marco to choose the
restaurant. He selected an old established fish restaurant about 400 yards from my hotel, going
46
inland as it were. We had an excellent evening of fish and wine and when the meal was finished
I said to Marco that I would get the bill. He said „No, I will get the bill‟, and if you insist on paying
I will then pass it to you. This he did and when he received it he gave it to me – the punch line
was, that there was a total but immediately underneath the total was 50% discount for Snr
Marco and so I gave Marco half of the proposed total bill and thanked him very much for acting
as my benefactor if that‟s the right word to use. Like many established resorts, there was a price
for the locals and a price for the tourists. It was just that ,in Venice, the discount was very much
greater - or that may have also been due to the fact that Marco‟s family were born and bred in
Venice and his family had a long history of being Venetians. They had a jewellers shop on Saint
Mark‟s Square, which they had had in the family for many years.
47
PERSONAL ASPECTS – LATE 70s

In the late 70s, due to taxation persecution, I moved to Switzerland. The practical result of this,
as I have previously stated, was that I was no longer able to spend the necessary time on the
day to day running of the Group as Chief Executive. I therefore resigned from that post and
appointed a new team to take over from me. I restricted my activities from then onwards, to
various overseas ventures and inevitably left the management of the group to others.

The new team had a lot of ability - it included two chartered accountants and a lawyer. It also
recruited a new finance director. The construction and civil engineering companies continued
under the old leadership but a new Chief Executive of the development company was also
appointed. As a result, my relationship with them became increasingly restricted to overseas
activities and they took control of their own agenda. This was not to say that their agenda was
not a sensible and logical one, but things were not as tightly controlled as hitherto under my
leadership. This was accentuated by new problems in America and subsequently extended to the
Caribbean, resulting in increasing pressure on cash flow. As a result, a request for additional
finance was made to our banking partners, but communication with them was not what it ought
to have been. The deteriorating relationship between some of the bankers and our company,
became increasingly severe, with the bankers sending in a firm of auditors, which ultimately
resulted in the company being put into administration.

It was obviously a tremendous emotional and psychological shock, as well as creating very
considerable financial problems. I was severely self critical of certain aspects – the truth was
that in the years from 1980-86, I had left the business to be run by others. I had not taken steps
at various times during this period, where action could have been taken, to rectify various
decisions that were not in the best interests of the company. I was also self critical because,
during these years, I had several approaches from competing organisations, mainly in the
construction field, who wanted to buy the company. They came to nothing, largely because I
was not really interested in disposing of it. The company was part of me and it never occurred to
me, naïve as it may now seem, that this company would not go on indefinitely. In fact, the other
aspect was that it was a premature decision by the banks. It shocked and angered me, that they
put the company into administration. The proof that this was needless, is that after several years,
it was restored, having repaid its debts to all its creditors and several millions of pounds to
various professional organisations, specialising in this field, in terms of fees. Having achieved
this objective however, it left little or no money for the shareholder. In addition, I had to pay the
penalty of another stupidity, the fact that I never participated in the company pension scheme or
indeed any pension scheme. The company had a very good pension scheme, thank goodness,
and the executives who have since retired are very happy with the ultimate result. As part of the
desire for the staff to feel the continuity of financial security in the business, we established a
work scheme which enabled the hourly paid workers to have a pension. A staff share option
scheme was created, with attractive offers for long serving staff to be shareholders, as well as
management executives.

So, come 1986, there I was at the age of 68, having to start again, if only to obtain sufficient
financial income to enable my wife and I to live in reasonable comfort. We had, of course, a
house in Switzerland and a limited amount of money, but not sufficient to enable us to live in any
reasonable degree of comfort in retirement. The motivating factor was that I needed to re-
establish my own reputation, which had inevitably suffered, to a varying degree, by the collapse
of Buckley Investments. In this I was helped by one or two friends. When something like this
happens, you do find out who your friends are and so it was not surprising that some of them did
not exactly rush around to help. However, one who did, was Mark McCormack of IMG, with
whom I‟d had a relationship for several years as I have previously stated, through Arnold Palmer
Buckley Developments and other activities in America. As a result of a meeting I had with him,
at which my future prospects were discussed, he stated he was keen to form a joint venture
company with me to invest, develop and create leisure related activities including golf. At the
same time I had, with some help from a bank, bought a farm in Portmarnock.
48

Reverting to the McCormack situation, we joined forces in a company called IMG Developments
Limited and I was Chief Executive. The Board consisted of Mark and myself. The opportunities
for this company relied on Mark‟s influence in the leisure market. We established the office in
the IMG headquarters in Chiswick, London, and went to work in various European locations. One
of the first was at Vichy. This was with an organisation that was involved with the famous baths
at Vichy and, in particular, water that emanated from it. Mark and I had the concept to create
an international health spa with leisure related activities, including golf and tennis. We acquired
some land outside the town of Vichy, a farm, and began the process through the laborious
planning and environmental laws and lobbying. These are part of that business and are
particularly tiresome and time-consuming in France, where the bureaucratic process more
cumbersome anyway than it is in the UK. However, we eventually succeeded and went to work
in building this development. We also became involved in Germany, with the same objectives,
and created golf related projects in Stuttgart, Frankfurt and Hamburg. We were also approached
by a French bank, which had a problem with a company that it had financed, that had gone into
receivership. This company had a background of, shall we say, „shady dealing‟ which forced the
bank put it into administration, and it obviously needed some experienced advice as to how to
proceed. It had been informed of the activities of the McCormack Buckley joint venture and I got
a call from them to enquire whether I would be interested in having talks about their project.
The end result of all that, was that we formed a joint 50/50 company with the bank to take over
the project and move on. At the time we were introduced to the project, in the late 1980s, the
9-hole compact course, which was basically a pitch and putt course, was substantially complete
and work had commenced on the 18-hole championship course. We took that over and together
with the golf architect that had been involved, and our own golf architectural team, worked on it
and finally completed it ready for opening.

The Buckley Lectures at Nene College

Dealing with another thought, in the 1980s, my building company constructed a new college at
Northampton ,called Nene College, which subsequently became a university. It was a big
contract with a lot of prestige and we were quite pleased to be part of it. I took particular
interest in the prospects and the objectives of this college as part of the educational process. It
was clear to me that it had an environmental and educational context in the world outside – the
vegetable/animal society that we live with – and the climatic changes that we expect over the
years. I have always had an interest in the rural lifestyle and the world outside and the
implications of climate, forestation and so on, that are an essential element of the world. Having
looked at the curriculum for the education process that Nene College was going to provide, I
thought I could supplement this by introducing a series of lectures by famous people in this
particular field of knowledge, which would be an extra curriculum activity, if that‟s not too grand
a word, for the students of Nene College. In discussions with the governors, I instituted the
Buckley Lecture series. Various famous people were invited to lecture on specific subjects related
to the environment, to the outside world, forestation, jungles, and other fields. David Bellamy
came several times and there were also several other eminent persons in this field who were
equally famous. It became almost an institution, in that I extended it well after the company had
completed all its work on the site, for a period of 21 years. Finally, at the end of 21 years, I
decided that enough was enough – the governors were very appreciative and so on, but they did
eventually agree that the time had come to move on. I used to attend the lecture every year
and the performance of the speakers was of a very high calibre and the theatre at Nene College
was absolutely packed.
49
Portmarnock

In 1989 I was looking for new opportunities and some of them I pursued under the McCormack
Buckley umbrella, and some independently, of which Portmarnock was one.

Leisure related activities incorporating golf courses were to me a natural avenue to explore. At
that time, I played golf fairly regularly and was a member of several golf clubs in various parts of
Europe, some of them very highly rated, with long waiting lists for those wishing to become a
member. I was a member of the ruling body of golf, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St
Andrews, which gave me a certain status in the golfing world, making entrance to prestigious
golf clubs, which had long waiting lists, more accessible. One of the golf clubs of which I was a
member, at that time, and still am, was Portmarnock Golf Club, located by the sea within thirty
minutes from the centre of Dublin. This club is over a hundred years old and has hosted many
international tournaments and continues to do so. I was playing there one day with friends in a
4-ball. At a certain hole, which goes along the side of the boundary, with adjacent land near the
sea, I hit my ball inaccurately and it finished on the other side of the boundary fence. I was not
able to recover the ball, but at least I walked along the fence for quite a bit to try and locate it. I
saw some cows and other farmland animals and was struck by the fact that the farmland,
although quite flat, extended into the dunes and, of course, onto the beach. I was so attracted
to the landscape that it inspired me to pursue enquiries as to who owned the land. A few days
later, I had a short walk over the land to avoid trespassing, and this confirmed my views that
here was a golf course possibility that I should explore. I asked my lawyer to ascertain who
owned the land, which he did. Fortunately, he had a relationship with the lawyer who handled
the business affairs of the farmer, and it was arranged that I would meet with the owner to
discuss my interest. There was a couple of weeks delay and during that period I became much
more knowledgeable about the background of the area. I discovered that Portmarnock Golf Club
had been looking at this land for some time in the hope of buying it to extend its golf course
further and also possibly getting planning permission for residential development which would, of
course, pay for purchasing the land. The meeting with the farmer was duly arranged and took
place at his lawyer‟s office in Dublin. When the farmer arrived, the first surprising thing about
him, was that he was wearing carpet slippers. This, I was subsequently informed, was his
normal footwear, together with traditional farmer‟s trousers and shirt. After our introduction and
courtesies, I told him of my interest in buying the farm and the purpose that I had in mind in so
doing. He then informed me that, coincidentally, he had received an offer from Portmarnock Golf
Club only a few days earlier, to purchase the land. I asked him for details of the offer and he
readily passed over, via his lawyer to my lawyer, the actual offer of purchase that Portmarnock
Golf Club had sent to him. I studied this with my lawyer in a side room for twenty minutes and
then returned to the meeting. A couple of very significant points I noticed in the offer – one was
that it was conditional on a general meeting for the members to give their consent for the
purchase to be approved. The other that it was subject to planning permission for certain
specific objectives. I told him of my experience in the past and quoted two of the costly
experiences that Arnold Palmer and I in the joint company Arnold Palmer Buckley Developments
suffered in the States – one in Texas and the other in Jacksonville. Due to these experiences, I
told him that I was very pessimistic that this particular proposal to purchase his land would
receive the necessary (I think it was about 85% vote), of the members in favour of the
transaction. I also pointed out that it would take some months to get the planning permission,
and one or two of the items they wished to incorporate could be controversial. His lawyer, who
was a golfer, agreed and informed him that it was a conditional contract and that the
reservations I made had substance. After some discussion, I then told him that I would be ready
immediately to sign a legally binding contract, deleting the conditional terms relating to members‟
approval and residential planning permission. I further stated that I would pay him ten percent
deposit right away. He and his lawyer were obviously taken aback at this and asked for the
meeting to be adjourned for a short period while they discussed the offer. They went off to
another room and came back about half an hour later. The lawyer then stated that his client had
been very impressed with my approach and was prepared in view of the conditions incorporated
in the Portmarnock Golf Club offer and his past experience of long discussions with the Club‟s
committee, that if I gave him a cheque and signed an unconditional contract of sale, we could do
50
a deal there and then. I agreed and his lawyer then went off into another room to prepare the
appropriate legal document. We sat there for another couple of hours while that was going on.
During that period, I rang my banker and warned him that I was hopeful within the next couple
of hours of signing a contract for, I think it was, 846,000 Punts which in those days was in excess
of £800,000 and therefore I was going to sign a cheque for £80,000 – there was fortunately
enough money in the account to cover that, but I felt it necessary, or desirable at least, to ring
him up and inform him of what was going on. In due course the contract was signed, and the
cheque representing 10% of the sale price handed over and we left the meeting.

I then spent the next few weeks studying in detail, the layout of the land and the various ways of
creating what I had in mind. I consulted with my building architects and my golf architectural
practice as to how we should best proceed. As far as the golf architectural practice was
concerned, I had recently made significant changes and had recruited three golf architects from
the United States. All of them had qualified at universities in agronomy, drainage and all the
other essential elements that make or break a good golf course. I also had a meeting with my
building architects to discuss the building elements that we had in mind.

In due course, a plan was prepared, setting out the areas for building and for the golf course.
Fortunately at that time, and I was helped significantly in this, there was no planning permission
required for a golf course and the planning authorities, and indeed the local and Government
authorities were quite keen for such developments to take place to encourage tourism in the area
and stimulate employment. I therefore established a good working relationship with the planning
authority – we had several meetings and after a lengthy process I was granted planning
permission for a 176 bedroom hotel with restaurant and bar facilities including a clubhouse,
driving range, practice area and an 18-hole golf course.

So far it had gone very well, but problems were about to arise. My proposals obviously became
very well known in the area and unfortunately there was a small group, who, for a variety of
reasons, totally opposed my plans. One of their objections was that such a project would restrict
their rights of direct access, via the dunes, to the beach which they had used for a number of
years. They simply walked from their house or periphery road across the farm and over the
dunes to the beach. I consulted a variety of professional consultants who knew the area well, as
to how I should respond to their objections. One significant piece of advice was that no rights of
access by local residents across the farm existed, and they were in fact trespassing. However
that did not stop them from being very difficult. For example, every Saturday morning
throughout the construction of the golf course, a group of about twenty of them would walk into
the centre of the land on which the golf course was being created and make a thorough nuisance
of themselves. Furthermore, as far as the hotel building work was concerned, I had to get the
planning permission required. In accordance with standard practice, such building permits have
to be publicly notified in a very positive way, so as to give everybody an opportunity to voice
their views. During the qualifying period, and in particular the latter part of it, several objections
were made regarding the building planning permission, on a variety of grounds. These were
mainly centred on environmental issues. The land was in an area very close to the sea, with the
dunes being part of it and it contained some very rare plants associated with the dunes land.
Approval of the project was required from the statutory authority responsible for dealing with
objections to substantive planning and building proposals, involving environmental issues.
Convening such a meeting is inevitably a slow process, and some six months or so elapsed
before the hearing took place in front of the Board. During that time, I did such work as I could
on starting the golf course. Work which not require planning permission and providing two access
paths at either end of the golf course. This overcame one of their objections, in providing direct
access to the beach. The whole project became quite a major issue within the local community
and also with the local political hierarchy. It became evident that the two major political parties
were in favour of the project, but sadly, the green, labour and environmental parties were
strongly opposed to it. In due course the hearing took place. I was naturally relieved to be
informed that, subject to certain conditions that were not insurmountable, all the permissions
were granted. As a matter of interest, one of the rare plants that lived in the dunes was a Viola
Herta. This was not known by the majority of the objectors but once known, became a further
51
reason for them to object to the project, since it was claimed that the golf course would destroy
these rare plants. We set out the holes on the golf course so that these particular small areas
received more protection than they had ever had and as the years went by plants flourished
under the protective mechanisms we created. The Portmarnock Community Association who had
taken a leading part in this issue was divided, but most supported the project.

Having now got the all clear and proceeding with renewed energy and enthusiasm, I was
suddenly approached with a totally new proposal from the owners of the Portmarnock Country
Club. The club‟s premises were located at the opposite end of the land from the one that I had
selected as the site for the hotel. The Portmarnock Country Club, as it was called, was
established around the original home of the Jamieson family and included a significant
banqueting area, which successfully provided all the amenities for weddings and big receptions.
The Jamieson house itself, on the ground floor had been converted into a pub, a very nice pub,
and on the floor above, had four suites. The owners approached me and, after several
discussions, persuaded me to totally change my plans and change the golf course layout so that
the first hole of the course started at the opposite end of the land to that in my original plan.
The result, after several meetings with the owners, was that they became shareholders in the
project in return for transferring ownership of all the buildings associated with the Portmarnock
Country Club to the company I had created. The new company was known as IMG
Developments (Portmarnock) Limited. As has been previously stated, I had a friendship and
business association with Mark McCormack and the International Management Group. On one of
the regular occasions that we would meet to discuss mutual activities of interest, I told him of
the events and the change of ownership that were proposed with the Portmarnock Country Club.
I invited Mark to participate in this venture, which he readily agreed to do and I then discussed
the project with some of his key advisors and agreed the basis of their association with the
project. At about this time, I also met through our new partners, Tony O‟Reilly, a famous Irish
entrepreneur and very well known as an Irish international rugby player. He in due course also
became a shareholder in the joint company. As a result, we met on several occasions, together
with his charming wife Chryss. One of his many assets was a tremendous memory, particularly
in the historical field. I remember on one occasion when we had dinner together, the subject of
the British monarchy arose. He then proceeded to enlighten me on the past kings and queens of
England, dating back to the 13th century. His detailed knowledge of the strengths and
weaknesses of the various successors to the throne was very interesting.

So off we went under a new corporate structure and a totally new plan for the development.
The new shareholders were very experienced and able members of the Irish business fraternity.
Their views on many aspects of the business were different from mine and several discussions
took place before we arrived at a compromise. However, their experience and knowledge of the
Irish business world was a significant asset and assistance to the business operation. This
resulted in the original plans I had in building the 176 bedroom hotel, clubhouse etc at the
southern end of the site would now be put on hold and we would make the Jamieson House the
focal point for the creation of the hotel, and all the amenities associated with it. The new
planning processes began and eventually we obtained planning permission and building permits
for creating a 104 bedroom hotel with 2 restaurants, significant banqueting suites, a clubhouse,
changing rooms and the other associated golf facilities. At that time, I had a close working
relationship with a famous golf star, Bernhard Langer. In agreement with IMG, Langer Buckley
were appointed as the overall consultants, and the detailed work was carried out by my golf
architectural company, Cotton Pennick. Staff had been significantly strengthened by three
American architects and I arranged that one of them, Stan Eby, would be responsible for the new
design. He had already, from his mobile office on the site, been largely responsible for the
original design and he now set to work to amend that, to take account of the fact that the first
hole would start at the Jamieson end of the site. It went reasonably well in spite of the usual
hiccups and so on that are inevitable with that sort of project.

Therefore, six to seven years after I bought the land, in July 1987, the product was complete and
duly opened for hotel and golf tourists. It quickly became established as a major golf complex
52
and has received many awards. The awards established Portmarnock Hotel & Golf Links as a
hotel with all the amenities required, and recognised as one of the premier facilities in Ireland.

As it became increasingly successful as both a resort hotel and a very high quality golf course,
the awards received confirmed its status. For several years, it was recognised as the best golf
course as part of a hotel complex, and the hotel received many awards both nationally and
internationally. The excellent banqueting and restaurant facilities fronting the Irish sea were
increasingly utilised by clients with diverse interests. Apart from the normal holiday and
corporate market, it became a regular base for visiting rugby international sides, film stars and
the Irish football team. We also established a health spa, which was very popular and offered a
service to residents in providing alternative therapies utilising the spa, masseur and sauna. Our
golf practise area was large and enabled us to set up a football pitch for use by visiting football
professionals.

As time went on, the Board looked at other development opportunities, for which Portmarnock
would provide a springboard. Two or three were given serious consideration, but, for a variety of
reasons, the Board as a whole were never completely in favour. The surrounding land, which
was considered to have opportunities for housing and commercial development, was developed,
albeit at a slow pace. From time to time, we were approached by third parties who were
interested in purchasing the project. There was no great enthusiasm to sell by some of the
shareholders, particularly myself. My justification, or excuse, was partly because when one
creates a project like that, part of you gets locked in and it becomes part of the family.
Eventually, however, an attractive offer was made, which on commercial grounds, I could not
possibly do anything other than agree with the rest of the Board, that we should accept it. There
then ensued several weeks of detailed negotiation and the deal moved up and down as one
would expect. However finally in the early hours of a morning in ……………………….we finally
signed up and handed over the ownership of the Portmarnock project to a property and
construction group, who enthusiastically took over control and the management.

We, the Board, obviously kept the staff fully in the picture, as to the progress of the negotiations.
On occasions like that, one realises how close relationships have developed with the members of
the staff and there were many tearful parties before the deal was completed. Some of the staff
had been with me since the very beginning of the project and our parting evoked many
memories of events over the history of the project. They were a very dedicated and committed
bunch and made a big contribution to the success of the project.
53
History of Provence Country Club

The project came to my notice in 1988-1989. We discovered, through a third party, that Credit
Agricole bank had put into receivership, a golf course development company which was the
creation of a Belgian entrepreneur. We were informed the Belgian used some of the money
provided for the project for other purposes and when Credit Agricole executives discovered this
they pulled the plug and the Belgian fled. At that time, he had completed a pitch and putt 9-hole
course, which he described as a compact course, which was very beautiful and had some very
attractive small holes. He had also commenced construction of an 18-hole championship, par 72,
golf course. The creditors of the company that he used for developing the project, who were
mainly local people, were complaining bitterly as a result of the company going into receivership.
In addition, a certain few locals had paid membership dues to become the first members of the
new facility. There was therefore pressure on Credit Agricole to do something to restore it to
health, but obviously they needed some technical assistance to achieve this. They apparently
contacted one or two people associated with this type of venture, who recommended that Credit
Agricole should contact me to see whether we would be interested in forming an association to
rescue the project from the hands of the receiver, and set in on its course once again. After
several meetings, with hosts of lawyers and other professional advisors, which are an inevitable
result of this sort of involvement, particularly in France, we agreed on a joint venture company
which would be 50% owned by Credit Agricole and 50% owned by IMG Developments Limited,
controlled by a board of four directors.

Credit Agricole‟s appointees were very senior executives, two being main board directors and the
other the director responsible for the management of CA‟s affairs in Provence. One of their
senior executives became the Gerant. IMG Developments also appointed two directors and I was
appointed Project Director. In practice, the Gerant was responsible for the day to day matters
associated with staff, management and administration. I was responsible for the direction and
development of the project, relating to design and execution of the project, including planning
and PR. Included in Credit Agricole‟s administrative responsibilities, were negotiations with the
receiver and associated tasks in order to restore the company to normal good health. One of the
first major steps was to arrange a meeting with the Commune of Saumane, in whose domain the
land was located. My first experience of meeting members of the Commune, twelve in all, was to
find they were equally divided between the communist and socialist parties. Inevitably there
arose areas of conflict of interest internally in the commune. However, the Mayor and what
appeared to us to be the most powerful members, were in favour of the project and indicated
their agreement to granting permission for 20,000 sq meters of building development in addition
to the golf course. The two areas of building land comprised the woodlands situated within the
golf course, which was part of that acreage of about 180 acres and another area of land about a
mile away, which was a fruit and olive farm on very attractive hillside landscape. This process
was pursued pari passu, with the lengthy administrative process restoring the company back to
normality.

Reverting to the golf course, we continued to employ the French golf architect who had initiated
the original design. He was a well known French golf professional, now retired, and his design
was very attractive and fitted in well with the landscape. Our golf architect studied in depth
certain aspects and modified the design on some of the holes, without changing its main
features. One of the major factors that made me enthusiastic about this project was the
possibility of access to adequate water supplies to irrigate the golf course. Without this access
the project would be dead in the water as far as I was concerned. Fortunately a solution was
readily available in the form of a canal. This was the brain child of Napoleon. He decided nearly
two hundred years ago that the „gardeners‟ ,as he called them, needed to be serviced with
adequate water in order for the crops to flourish. This took the form of a canal called Le Canal de
Carpentras. The „gardens‟ being fruit farms or vineyards in the area. We had a series of
negotiations with the executors managing the canal and we reached agreement on a long term
contract for the unlimited supply of water, which of course proved to be absolutely fundamental.
This necessitated the installation of a pumping station, together with a comprehensive irrigation
system for the golf course. In the absence of detailed building permits, we needed to install two
54
portacabins as a temporary clubhouse and decided to locate them adjacent to the practice area
on the compact course. We then proceeded to appoint architects and engineers with the
necessary skills to prepare the documentation to enable us to obtain a building permit for the
20,000 sq metres of building permission, previously agreed in meetings with the commune.
However as time went on, it became increasingly evident that there was intense opposition to the
creation of the necessary buildings that would provide a leisure related golf and sporting facility
that were fundamental to the success of this project. However, in spite of several meetings with
public and politicians, we finally persuaded the commune re our overall plans and planning
permission was granted for 11,500 sq metres in the woodlands adjacent to the golf course and
8,500 sq metres on the land known as Le Luc, which was the other farm land nearby. In
accordance with normal protocol, a two months statutory period was provided for the public to
voice their objections. The law required that notice would be posted and the lengthy legal
process commenced.

In 1994, to add to our problems, Credit Agricole at its main Board level in Paris, made a policy
decision that, in view of their experience in non related banking operations, proving as it was
very expensive and involving them in heavy losses, to withdraw from non banking projects. As a
result, the Credit Agricole director informed me that, regretfully, they had decided that they could
no longer continue in the joint venture as a partner. After several discussions, we finally agreed
on a pro forma. At that time, they had invested in the company Saumane Developments (a
name which we subsequently changed to Provence Country Club) 32.5 million French Francs.
They said that they would be prepared to write off 12.5 m, in return for having a mortgage on
the building land of 20m. We were offered their 50% in the joint venture at a nominal fee. We
finally agreed to this and the necessary legal processes took place and we became 100% owners
of Provence Country Club.

Battles, of course, continued in the courts, regarding the building land and the strength of the
opposition made us increasingly feel pessimistic as to the outcome. We had discussions with
several property developers, mainly French, who were involved in the tourist, housing, rental
development business and reached in principle agreement on two or three occasions with various
interested parties. However, finally, particularly after they had seen the Mayor and his
entourage, and encountered the hostile climate from the anti development lobby, they finally
decided not to proceed further.

After going through various stages of the legal process, we finally arrived at the court of
Marseilles with, I must confess on my part, a fair degree of pessimism as to the likely success of
the court hearing. The court consisted of three judges and a recorder who acted as the
spokesperson on behalf of the court. The Recorder announced that the judges had now
examined all the evidence and all the objections to the granting of the building permit by the
commune and had made the following decisions. Fortunately, he took each objection one by one
and pronounced on each one on its individual merits. Most of them related to acts of non
compliance in connection with the planning process. For example, there were six places around
the perimeter of the hilltop village of Saumane, where the necessary notice should have been
placed. But, over the period for objections to be lodged, maybe some had been removed
deliberately, so only four or five had actually been there for the necessary length of time and this
was in breach of the permit regulations. The Recorder stated that, whilst this was regrettable,
the judges had come to the conclusion that it was not however sufficiently significant to justify
rejection of the permission. Another example was, that the inspector who was required to be in
attendance in the Mayor‟s office from nine to five each week day, to receive objections during the
two month period, very often did not arrive until mid-late morning and often left fairly early on
Friday afternoon. Again the Recorder stated that, although this was regrettable, it was not in
their view of sufficient significance to justify rejection of the planning permission. Finally, after a
two hour hearing, at which each objection was listed and the decision of the court made, he
summarised that the judges had decided that the permit should be granted and that no more
appeals could be made. As you can imagine the court was fairly crowded and there was a
mixture of clapping and booing. I have to confess that the booers were in greater numbers than
the clappers. However the objectors still continued to make life as difficult as possible for us.
55
One incident which illustrates the depths of their feelings, was that on one night, three or four
men appeared and broke into the farmhouse building using a heavy lorry. This is where we kept
our green-keeping equipment, workshops, petrol, oil and other storage supplies. The intruders
emptied the petrol and oil all over the building and machines and set fire to it and within about
two hours the whole building had collapsed and our green-keeping equipment was totally
destroyed. We had to start from scratch again. This was a shattering and alarming experience.

These events inevitably became public knowledge and acted as a considerable disincentive, and
created difficulties for us to find a suitable partner to purchase the acres of land designated in
planning terms for homes and apartments. We initially had several discussions with appropriate
developers experienced in the holiday related housing market over the next couple of years,
including specialist entrepreneurs. On each occasion their concept necessitated meetings with
the appropriate authorities and frustratingly resulted in little or no progress being made. These
were difficult negotiations and were not made easy by the fact that I was accused, on occasions,
by some, of interpreting the rules and regulations imposed by the commune under French law,
as if it was English law.

We continued to persevere to find a suitable partner, but it became obvious to me and eventually
to Credit Agricole that a 20m mortgage on the land was in itself a major deterrent to any
prospective purchaser. After many discussions, I finally persuaded Credit Agricole to have a new
mortgage agreement, effectively writing off some of their debt and mine. The opposition did not
go away and we had continuing cash flow problems at Provence Country Club. The accounts
demonstrated a loss making situation on a continuing basis. When this became evident, the
opposition pressurised the tax authorities to investigate our affairs in some detail. We had to
endure a tax audit, which found very little wrong in fact, but did show substantial sums being
provided by the shareholders and other associated companies on an interest free basis. This
aroused suspicions with the tax authorities, as to the source of funds, and odd talk about money
laundering etc didn‟t help. We therefore had constant pressure, but managed to maintain our
situation.

Efforts continued to find a partner and we ultimately did have some serious talks with a
substantial French organisation based in Paris, but with offices in Avignon. They had the
advantage that they had close connections and influence with the local politicians and the
commune and were able to fast-track certain aspects relating to the development. They also
employed some very able architectural and professional people with good connections with the
planning authorities, state departments and also the commune. With their assistance, we
succeeded eventually in getting a planning permission for 178 apartments on the golf course. All
were either one and a half bedroom or two bedrooms in size, but with very attractive verandas
and so designed to get the maximum benefit of the very dramatic and beautiful landscape and
vistas that surround the golf course. Whilst it was marketed on a European basis, it became
evident that the main market would be in the UK and Ireland. As a result of very efficient estate
agent work, almost all of the apartments were sold off the plan. Included in the design, was the
substantial clubhouse and associated facilities that we had always planned on the site we had
selected many years before. It overlooked the 18th green on the one side and the 1st green on
the other. It incorporated all the buildings possibly required for such a prestigious resort.

The golf club continued to be managed and improved by a very loyal green keeping team and it
became increasingly acknowledged to be one of the premier golf clubs in the south of France.
The culmination was that it all came together and from then onwards, with its good management
team, can justifiably be acknowledged to be a magnificent project.
56
Of course the events I have detailed in Ireland and France have not prevented me from potential
investment in other projects with friends who hold similar objectives. One of the new joint
venture projects, which is in its initial stages is at Guildford, Surrey, and hopefully in the long
term, will follow the pattern of past successes. I have now, of course, to accept the
consequences of age and therefore the limitations that arise.

The arrival of my 90th birthday was a major landmark. One of the great benefits that I have
experienced and continue to do so, is the strength of the family. A great get together with all
the family ensued in the week of my birthday, where we all met at Provence Country Club. Of
tremendous satisfaction, was the friendship that was evidenced by all members of the family and
the numerous messages of goodwill that came to me at the birthday dinner. The dinner was
attended by thirty members of the family and extended family. One of my daughters resides
permanently in Madrid, Spain and another resides permanently in Sydney, Australia. The
Spanish offspring introduce a new flavour and humour into the family „pot‟, this being very
evident at the gathering. I was greeted with complimentary speeches and messages. One that
gave me great satisfaction was that Rosie, my granddaughter, had asked everyone to express in
one word their feelings towards me. In Rosie‟s after dinner speech she informed us all of the
responses from each family group, which I have now included below, because I feel that this is
an appropriate finale to my story and enables me to close this chapter of my life.

“I just wanted to say a few words on behalf of everyone here, all thirty of us who have come
together to celebrate a birthday. But it‟s not just any birthday, it‟s Granddad‟s 90th birthday.
When I say Granddad, he‟s a granddad to me and Mele and our cousins, he‟s also a Great
Granddad, and he‟s a brother, a father and a friend too.

Granddad you are really special, we are all so proud of you, you‟re an amazing man and writing
this little tribute, I realised that even I don‟t have enough adjectives in my repertoire to do you
justice, so I asked everyone here to write a few words or sentences which best describe you.

Here‟s what you mean to us (in no particular order) ……..

Jessie said you were a great dancer, Mele said you love a good debate, Josh said you were quite
funny, sometimes. Helen said you are always there for her when she needs you, Mike said you
are a true entrepreneur and Laurence said you‟ve got lots of interesting stories to tell. Valerie-
Ann thinks you are a debonair romantic and Tee said you‟re sharp and a sharp dresser. Will said
you are a man with an extraordinary capacity to remember detail and have boundless generosity.
Whitley said you are family orientated and Suzie described you as indomitable. Rafael said you
were stubborn. Penny said you are always really interested in the lives of your family, Andrew
said you are indefatigable and mum remembers you as a great letter writer. Ernie & Rebbie said
you were very generous, and Georgie said you are a bit bossy. Lizzie, well she gave me a list; a
dutiful father, generous, an admirable imbiber, inveterate traveler, a bad sleeper and a verbal
stousher. I think of you as my granddad - devoted, sensitive and loving. Louis thinks you‟re
more famous than Bernhard Langer (there is a photograph of Granddad and Bernhard Langer in
the entrance hall at PCC and Louis once asked Caitlin „Who is that man with Gerry?‟), Sean
remarked on your consistent generosity, Jack said you like to be right, Caitlin described you as
the archetypal head of the family, the don. Betty and Edna said in your early days you were very
ambitious and forward looking and you should be very proud of your achievements – from
Barbados to the present day. John thinks of you as kind and generous, Guy said if Eliza and
Alfred are looking down on us this evening from their Wembley heaven, they‟d be immensely
proud to see their four children sitting here and even more proud to see their oldest son reach
the age of 90 after all the things he has gone through in his life so far. Deborah quoted the
artist Louise Bourgeois (she is 95 years old).

“The question isn‟t so much where the inspiration comes from but rather
how the inspiration keeps continuing on”.

I think we should all now raise our glasses to toast Granddad, Happy Birthday”.
57

Debs notes****

Intro page needed.

Title ? “A boy from Gayhurst Road – Memoirs of a Twentieth Century Londoner” ???