March 2021

Noble Warren Investments Ltd

Leave a Comment / 1977 to 1991, Business, Noble Warren Investments Ltd 1977 to 1991 /

How Business Was Done

Choosing the Name.

I could have named my new company as Noble Warren Insurance Brokers, but this would have indicated some coverage of General Insurance products such as motor insurance or household insurance. I saw our growth area in the new unit-linked market, where the new “savings plans” and Single Premium Investment Bonds could offer real returns over inflation.   

IBRC

One of the first things I did was to register NWI as a member of the IBRC – Insurance Brokers Registration Council – set up to regulate Brokers via the new Insurance Brokers Regulation Act 1977 . It was important to me that the company was respected in the Industry, and offered a professional service to its customers.

Agencies

The next thing was to open Agency agreements with the leading providers of UK Insurance products, so that NWI could offer customers a full range of products that were suited to their particular needs – this was also known as Financial Planning. These products included but were not limited to Term Assurance, Health Insurance, Endowment Policies, Savings Plans, Single Premium Investment Bonds, Unit Trusts and Pension schemes. We would also offer assistance with mortgages through connections with Building Societies, particularly those applications that were not straightforward owing to the personal circumstances of the customer – e.g. the self-employed.

Not every Insurance Company had their own sales forces (direct sales): many ot the more established companies – for example Scottish Widows and Standard Life – relied upon selling their products through direct advertising, or business from independent Insurance Brokers. Each Insurance Company had a team of highly trained and professional in-house representatives, who would be responsible for new business connections and new Agencies in their area.

In the first year of trading, I set up multiple agencies with most of the leading and established Insurance Companies of the era – covering the complete range of Life Insurance products. As a guide, Term Assurance (pure life cover) and Private Health Insurance was a matter of “cheapest rates”, but With Profits Endowment Policies could be rated historically as the companies paying out the largest returns to policyholders over the chosen qualifying period – from 10 years to 25 years.
The unit-linked Insurance Industry – with Members such as Merchant Investors – was a new addition to, and a new concept in, the UK Insurance Market, and returns over a period would very much depend upon the underlying choice of fund (or Unit Trust). So the available range of funds would be critical, and this gave rise to another opportunity – the need for some Fund Management advice to be available should customers so choose.

Some of the Insurance Companies and Unit Trust Groups that NWI had agencies with included:

Where I have remembered the main character or principal contact at these various companies, I have included their names above. As can be seen by the links provided, many of these companies have since been acquired or merged with larger financial institutions.

Many of the above companies offered unit-linked products (plans linked to an underlying Unit Trust portfolio). A good example was NEL Brittannia, which was a joint venture company between the more conventional Insurer – National Employers Life – and the Unit Trust Group, Brittannia Arrow. Merchant Banks like Hambros and Hill Samuel were also involved in the new Unit-Linked industry.

Commission and Cashflow Considerations

Indemnity At Merchant Investors, and as a “direct salesman”, I had been used to the payment of Indemnity Commission – commission paid in advance on any successful sale. At NWI, this was not something I could (or wished to) offer to members of my team for all insurance products. Where the Insurance Company concerned offered indemnity terms, I accepted them, but it was not the most important criteria for us as an independent insurance broker. If the company was a unit-linked company, the number of funds available and the ability for our customers to switch between the funds was a more important requirement. Where premiums were paid annually, or for Single Premium products, commission was in any case paid within a few weeks.

Sales Team Commission Members of NWI received 80% of any “initial” commssions payable for any product: for monthly premiums, and where indemnity was not available, this was normally paid to NWI over the first 2 years of the life of the policy. Renewal commissions – which typically were 2 to 2.5% of the premium paid over the life of any policy – were kept by NWI and were later redirected to Warren Noble Investments Ltd, a company formed for this specific purpose.  

Client Account NWI had a client account, as do solicitors, for example. For Single Premium Insurance Bonds and, later, Unit Trust Investments, where there was an initial charge levied by the provider of between 3.5 and 5%, (normally known as the “spread”) the Client Account enabled us to pass on the net amount to the Provider concerned, allowing us to pay our consultant immediately.

Sales Training and Professionalism

Personal – ACII.  After only two or three years personal experience selling Merchant Investor Unit Linked products, I was well aware that there were large gaps in my own knowledge about insurance generally, and that if I was to run a successful insurance brokerage, I would need to correct that. There was an Industry organisation known as the Life Insurance Association (LIA): I did become a Fellow member (FLIA) but at the time the Association catered mainly for those involved in direct selling, and there were no recognised industry qualifications. The most professional Insurance qualification available was as an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute (ACII). The ACII course was comprehensive, dealing with a large number of areas, including Risk, General Insurance and Contract Law, and I found it challenging and informative. I achieved ACII status in approx 1980

Consultant Sales Training I only accepted new members into NWI if they appeared to me to be ethical, had had some years experience in the Insurance Industry, and had received basic training. I was not in a postiton to – and neither did I want to – provide training courses. My consultants had the choice of working from the offices where they had a desk and telephone available, and use of the Boardroom for client meetings – or from home. I did not expect our consultants to qualify for an ACII as I had done, but I encouraged them to become members of the LIA, and I organised in-house advanced training on insurance investment and mortgage products. The best source of this training was from the Agency Inspectors or representatives from the Insurance Companies with whom NWI had agencies, and they were more than willing, as it gave them an opportunity to meet the team, and explain why their particular insurance products should be considered.

Product Suitability Because I wanted to protect NWI’s reputation, and because I knew how important it was to maintain the trust of the customer, I would monitor the majority of new business applications – particularly if the premiums seemed higher than the ordinary. If I had any doubts, I would speak with the consultant concerned, and make sure that the reasons given for the application to proceed were valid. It was better in my opinion to arrange a lower cost insurance product for a customer, which they could comfortably afford, rather than risk an early cancellation and the loss of that customer for good – and possibly a complaint. As a result, I do not remember ever receiving a complaint from a customer in the time that NWI was trading.

How NWI Obtained New Business and New Customers. The method of street canvassing we used at Merchant Investors had been outstandingly successful, but by the time I formed NWI, it was no longer a valid method, probably because of complaints received by the “authorities”: whether this was as a result of professional jealousy, or saturation of the area canvassed in the City of London, or just plain poor technique was a matter of conjecture. However, in my case I had accumulated some 200-300 customers who were loyal and happy to regard me as their financial advisor: my other NWI consultants had also accumulated a solid customer base, and for the most part, business was done by maintaining contact with each customer, reviewing his or her changing financial planning needs on a regular basis, and asking for referrals – i.e. friends or colleagues who may have also been interested in our service. “Cold Calling” was not permitted.
NWI did also run from time to time a small advertising progamme, in some magazines and journals, but this was only for special products. One campaign I remember in particular was in 1990 when Interest Rates were at record highs, and a popular product produced by some of the more innovative companies was the One Year Guaranteed Income Bond: for example, Liberty Life produced such a product, guaranteeing a return of 19.1 per cent.

UK Regulation – IFA In 1988 the UK Government enacted legislation to distinguish between financial advisers working independently for their clients, and those who were in reality representing one Insurance Company. Rather naively as it turned out, I welcomed the new regime, as I had long thought that clients would be better served by an independent firm – or Insurance Broker – and this was one of the main reasons why I had formed NWI . The new required “status” of Independent Financial Advisor did not seem to me to be a problem because most of the requirements – such as “fact finds” for new clients – were already in place and part of the NWI culture.

NWI Personalities and Key Members

When NWI started in 1977, we had very few consultants: the team grew slowly over a number of years. However, there were three personalities who were either special to me, or were influential.

Peter Clarke Dec’d: Peter came with me from Merchant Investors: he was at the time in his ’50s, “old school” and ex-army, overweight and with a moustache, and smoked incessantly, In fact I think it was his bad influence that led to me smoking cigars in the office, even first thing in the morning. He was a “lovable rogue” and very partial to alcohol and the good life, which was unfortunate for his long suffering and faithful wife, Pam: but he was charming and always positive no matter what his financial circumstances were – and they were often dire. I helped him as much as I could, and he was a good friend.

Simon Brewer: I was researching the internet to see if I could track down Simon, but true to form, the only reference I could find was a report on his society wedding in 2011 to a very tall girl called Rebecca Steels. I would never describe Simon as a friend, more as a colleague, but his involvement at NWI was important as he did bring in a lot of business. A few years younger than myself and educated at Eton, he was permanently based in London’s Fulham (where else, my dear?). I was always aware that he did not consider me as a social equal, but NWI was useful to him as an acceptable way of making a living by persuading his rich friends to make investments: in this regard, he reminded me of Rai Hamilton, formerly at Merchant Investors.  Having said that, I was invited to tea at Claridges on one occasion to meet his mother – a charming lady. Like Peter Clarke, Simon was a bad influence on me, and we often disappeared together to Morton’s or one of the other clubs or local winebars: in fact, it was because of these excursions from the office that I invested in one of the first commercially available mobile phones (it was a Panasonic and cost £1700 and was extremely heavy) so that I could keep a check on unit prices and Julia – my PA – could call me with any important message, 

Julia: My Personal Assistant and married to Chris, one of our consultants, and to my lasting regret, I cannot remember her surname. She ran the Maddox Street office and had responsibility for most of the administration, which she carried out brilliantly. Most importantly she “had my back” – I owe her a huge debt of gratitude for her long-term professionalism and loyalty.

Hargreaves Landsown - A Success Story

Hargreaves Lansdowne is a company whose progress I have monitored for many years, and with some envy.

The two entrepeneurs were based in Bristol and their business started modestly from a bedroom a few years after NWI in 1981. They followed the same rationale as I did, with the same objective of providing “information to clients on unit trusts and tax planning matters”

They avoided the problems NWI faced in 1991 and have become hugely successful, with a quotation on the London Stock Exchange in 2007. They obviously “did it right”, and almost certainly had better advice and business funding than I did. All credit to them, but it does show what was possible and what could have been achieved without the draconian intervention of the Financial Regulators.

So What Went Wrong?

The short answer is that some 30 years on, I still do not know for sure.

We were closed down following the appropriate notice and an unsuccessful Tribunal Hearing with the Securities and Investment Board (SIB), who from 1985 had taken over Regulatory duties for Financial Services in the UK.

Background

Some weeks or months before this “bombshell” we had had what I had thought was a routine visit or inspection at the 50 Maddox Street offices, with a team of five or six individuals representing the SIB: I was totally confident that NWI would come through without a problem. After all, in my opinion and as can be seen from the previous description of how NWI operated, together with the fact that we had no customer complaints and that NWI provided an independent and professional service to our clients as required by the new “regime”, this should have been enough to have guaranteed our survival.
The inspection took two or three days and seemed to go well – although Julia (my PA and in charge of office administration) did mention that the SIB were somewhat arrogant and heavy-handed, and were not too familiar with insurance products, particularly in the unit-linked sector. Apparently the leader of the SIB “team” was employed by a Buiding Society only six months previously.
As a direct result of this visit, and much to my surprise and shock, the SIB sent correspondence indicating that NWI would not be granted continuing status as an IFA (Independent Financial Advisor)

SIB Tribunal Hearing

My only appeal process was via a Tribunal Hearing, which I duly applied for: we were the first company to appear before such a Tribunal, which was conducted as a quasi Court Hearing with members of the SIB hierarchy sitting in judgement. As I recall, there were no independent adjudicators and no further right of Appeal.

We were represented by Christopher Monckton after Simon Brewer’s specific recommendation to me. After both sides had produced whatever evidence they had, we lost the Appeal, and as far as I was concerned the “baby was thrown out with the bathwater“.

The Mistakes I Made

My first mistake was that I should not have been so confident in our passing the SIB inspection, and should have paid more attention to the paperwork and procedures that these regulatory bodies or bureaucrats are so fond of inflicting. Our loss at the Tribunal was apparently down to some failures in this area, rather than anything more serious such as misleading customers.

The second mistake that I made was in not appreciating that since our Tribunal Hearing was the first public occasion to judge the effectiveness or otherwise of the new SIB regime, they were not going to want to lose.

The third and major mistake I made was in appointing Christopher Monckton: I now know his background was in journalism, and he was a “political advisor” to the Conservative Party. He was not a lawyer and had no previous experience in similar matters. I should not have trusted Simon Bewer’s judgement and should have appointed “proper counsel”. Our defence was shambolic and pretty much non-existent – for example, we could have produced many customers as character witnesses, or produced written evidence. We could have called many of the Insurance Companies with whom we had agencies to provide confirmation of our independence and professionalism. None of this was done, but I am sure he appreciated the £10,000 up front fee.

Final Word
I do often wonder if NWI had been unfairly targeted, or competitors were jealous, or perhaps I had been too vocal in the local industry Press. We were a small company doing a professional job, with financial planning for our customers: we were not a Barlow Clowes or a Norton Warburg. However, the damage was done, the business destroyed, our staff laid off, our customers were left without advisers, and I was deprived of my livelihood. So much for Regulators.

Note: The SIB became the FSA (Financial Services Authority) in 2001, until approx 2012 when closed down by the UK Government due to its total failure in preventing the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis.  

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50 Maddox Street London Offices

Leave a Comment / 1977 to 1991, 50 Maddox Street London W1, Business /
50 Maddox Street

Choosing our Offices

After some searching, I  found a suitable Headquarters for my new Insurance Brokerage. This was at 50 Maddox Street and was a commercial property owned by the Corporation of London: it was a good address in London’s West End within easy reach of the Central Line and Jubilee Line underground stations of Oxford Circus and Bond Street respectively.  The rent was reasonably low and the property in reasonable condition.

I started with the top floor of the building, which was essentially a house in the period style with 5 floors and a basement, each floor consisting of one large room overlooking the street and one other smaller room at the back – which had no view as such! There was no lift – a slight drawback – and stairs connected the first and subsequent floors via a secure front door, with an intercom system for each floor. When I  started, there were other tenants on the first three floors, and the ground floor (with street frontage) and basement was occupied by an upmarket Hair Stylist called Carvers: I see that the business name with owner Vivienne Baum remains to this day, but Carvers 2020 has a different clientele.

The small room on the top floor became my personal office, and the larger room was “open plan” for my small team at the time and a waiting room area for customers. As the business grew, I gradually took over all the upper floors, with our admin staff and Reception Area and Boardroom on the first floor, and the second and third floors available for the expanding sales team. We used a Panasonic telephone system to interconnect between floors and make outside calls.

Close by were Hanover Square Berkeley Square and Grosvenor Square,  pleasant places to have a walk or relax, and Bond Street and Oxford Street were five minutes on foot. Directly opposite our offices was an Italian Restaurant (unimaginatively) called the “57” but it was an excellent place to have lunch – particularly the menu item known as stuffed chicken with garlic butter , which meant that “after lunch” meetings could be hazardous for other attendees!

At full strength, Noble Warren Investments Ltd had a staff on P.A.Y.E. of three girls – one of whom was also my PA – and a sales team of 20 to 30 sales “commission only” consultants.

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Special Friends and Special People

Leave a Comment / Special Friends and Special People /

Foreword - An Apology

This is dedicated to the special friends and relatives in my life, who have either kept in touch or tried to keep in touch with me over the last 10 years or so, when I have been going through a bit of a personal crisis.

Looking back, the start of this “personal crisis” coincided with the beginnings of the break-up of my marriage to Michele, and it is always difficult to explain to mutual friends why this happened. I did not want to put anyone in the awkward position of “taking sides”. Because I was the one to initiate the divorce, and also the one to leave the UK for a new life in Crete, it did not seem right to me to give good friends this dilema, and so – rightly or wrongly – I avoided keeping in contact.

For this, please accept my sincere apologies. 

Chris and Jenny Efstratiou

I have known Chris (CJ) and Jenny from our earliest days together at Merchant Investors in 1974. They are my oldest friends and have been incredibly generous over many years to me and my family. They have three children, Melissa, Marcus and Rowena, and I was honoured to be asked to become Godfather to Marcus (probaly the worst Godfather in history): I have followed the progress of Marcus via LinkedIn and am proud to see that he is a very successful copywriter – despite receiving no assistance from me!

Chris qualified as a Chartered Accountant, but in true entrepeneurial fashion, he eschewed this in favour of making his own way in life. Originally from East London, and a Greek Cypriot, his background was about as different to Jenny as it could possibly be!

Jenny is a tall and very attractive girl, whose parents were what you might call upper class. Some branch of her Scottish family tree still owns an ancestral castle, linked to the Hay Clan. Jenny spent a number of years in Kenya, when her father was posted abroad, and so we had something in common, with our childhood spent in Africa.

I do not know the full story of how they met, but as teenagers they were dance partners, and became incredibly successful together – ranking very highly in the UK National Amateur Ballroom championships.

At Merchant Investors, Chris – with Jenny’s help – was probably the most successful salesman we had, and went on to run his own Insurance operation, Berkeley  Walbrook, in the late ’70s.
Chris was a gifted businessman, and while I spent money on a flashy Etype, he and Jenny “made do” with a Mercedes 450SL and bought a London flat at Westbourne Terrace, London W2 – their first property. Getting started early on the property ladder was probably the best move they could have made.

As their business continued to do well, in the early ’80s they bought a superb new holiday apartment in Puerto Banus, near Marbella Spain, and they were most generous hosts when Michele and I visited them.

Their next property move was a big financial stretch to buy what has been their family home for many years – a beautiful Manor House with large grounds at Stadhampton, in Oxfordshire. Again, my family visited often, sometimes staying overnight, and enjoying their hospitality on so many occasions. 

At about the same time as the insurance industry became more difficult to work in, because of government regulation, Chris turned his attention to Commercial Property, using his business skills to leverage funds. Starting with retail properties in Oxford, he later turned his attention to Wanganui in New Zealand, where Jenny’s parents had retired.

Jenny also had her own business interests, and together they have always made a formidable but “low profile” team.

Researching Google for anything about CJ is not very productive but I was amused to read an article from a local paper in New Zealand in 2011. Like me, Chris and Jenny have an instinctive dislike for the Press, and any form of publicity which is business related.

But to their friends, they are most generous, and two of the nicest people you could meet. I love them both!

Tony and Nona Haslam

I first met Tony in about 1985 when we joined the Riverside Club. 

Tony was the Club Manager, and knew the Beckwith Brothers personally: they could not in my opinion have made a better choice, because Tony ran a “very happy ship” and made the Riverside Club a special place.

Tony is ex-army, and utterly charming: if you give him half a chance, he will rattle off half a dozen hilarious stories about his time in the Regiment. A natural comedian and raconteur, he is the “life and soul of the party” – but perfectly capable of switching into “serious” mode when required.

Nona is also tremendous fun and was previously a soloist at the Royal Festival Ballet. She continued to  maintain her love of dance  by volunteering to work with the Royal Ballet, and Michele and I were lucky enough to attend some performances together at Covent Garden. However when she first met Michele and I as new Riverside Club Members, she was unhappily married. 

It soon became apparent to us that there was a definite attraction between Tony and Nona – I believe Tony was also going through a divorce at the time, made more awkward because of the children involved. To cut a long but romantic story short, we became great friends and socialised together, and were honoured to be witnesses at their Registry Office marriage some 30 years ago.

Unluckily for all of us at The Riverside Club, Tony resigned circa 1994 after “falling out” with the Board: however the Haslams continued to lived locally, and they remained the closest of friends for many years, even to the extent of regularly supporting our various amateur dramatic events! 

The O'Connor Family

On my father’s side of the family were two cousins, Shirley and Betty, both lovely people. Shirley married Tom O’Connor, who was a successful architect living in Essex, and they set up home first in Southend. As Tom’s career progressed, they then moved to a large house in Hockley, Essex with about 10 acres of ground, where they brought up their family of four daughters, all very attractive and with different personalities.

I first met them when I was 12 and about to start at King’s Canterbury – my parents organised a trip to the UK from Uganda to be with me and organise things like the school uniform etc. – and we visited the O’Connor family at their home in Southend.

I remember being totally stunned by Carol, the oldest daughter who was 16 at the time, beautiful vivacious and blond: if I remember correctly, she had a bit of a reputation as a “wild child”, and of course it was 1960, when “flower power and revolution” was in the air! The second daughter was Patsy, who went on to become an actress, the third was Dianne – about my age – and the youngest was Maralyn.

When I started at Cranwell, and had my own transport, in the early ’70s, my parents were living many miles away near Bristol, and I was invited on several occasions to the O’Connors home in Hockley, which became for me a “second home”. I loved going there. Tom was tall and extremely intelligent, but had five women in the house to “contend with”: he would talk extremely quickly and switch subjects at a moment’s notice, which could be disconcerting – until I got used to it. Shirley was very special – a gentle person, nothing phased her and she had a smile all the time.

By this time, Carol was married to Philip – a local Chartered Surveyor and amateur rugby player and  all-round good bloke – and Patsy was busy in London doing theatrical things. So the two girls I came to know the best were Dianne and Maralyn: Dianne was terrific with a great sense of humour and a gift for languages, and Maralyn was for most of this period still at school. For me, it was like having two sisters, and I very much appreciated the welcome I received whenever I visited. And it was at the O’Connors house that I met Rosie, my first wife.

All the girls later married extremely nice and interesting “guys” with different careers, and had families together. Tom and Shirley moved to Mere in Wiltshire in the late ’80s – I think – and I seem to remember that I was invited to give a speech there at Maralyn’s wedding to Jeff Levett.

Patsy married Peter, a talented artist: Dianne married Keith who was/is in agriculture and farming, and I visited them several times at their home in Winchester. The couple I got to know best were Jeff and Maralyn, who moved to Camberley in Surrey, and we socialised together on many occasions over many years, latterly with my second wife Michele. They have two children – Amy (who is a talented singer) and Patrick.

David Day

I first met David about 20 years ago – he was one of the remarkable group of actors in the Barnes Community Players (BCP): he had also attended the Richmond Adult Community College, where he was involved with courses designed to help professional singers.

Happily married to Bridget for some 50 years, an “out and out” Labour Party supporter and former fireman (London Fire Brigade), with an interest in sailing, cooking and music of all types, David is one of the nicest people you could meet, with a great sense of humour and extremely modest dispositon.

Apart from being a fine actor – our performance together as King and Prime Minister respectively in one of the BCP Pantomimes springs to mind – he is a very  talented singer, and was very active on the SW London “pub” circuit as well as in our local Musical Theatre venues. He is also a fine amateur painter!

Always positive, he encouraged my lesser talents and we did perform together on several occasions at the same venues – usually a favourite pub in the Barnes or Chiswick area, or sometimes at our “open mic”

David is the only friend who has visited us in Crete, and therefore knows more about my new life than most. Some years ago, he moved home from Barnes in London, to Ashford in Kent, where he is involved in local “amdram” and jazz clubs – and still singing. He is very active on Facebook, and we remain very much in touch.

Charles Geoffrey Arnold Sayer

Charlie or (CGAS) is a complex character, and has been part of my business and social life for longer than anyone else. In his current LinkedIn profile he describes himself as a Direct Marketing Specialist

I first met Charles in the ’70s when I formed Noble Warren Investments – he was a potential addition to my sales team, but never committed to joining me. 20 years later, he supported me in the formation of the various telecom companies I founded, for which I am very grateful.

Charles is a bit of a “butterfly”, by which I mean he is happier flitting from project to project without being too involved in the hard graft, which most entrepeneurs need to go through before becoming successful. He sees himself as a “business angel”, identifying interesting projects and then putting the right people together to “make it happen”. CGAS was luckier than most of us because there was money in the family, and he was never going to have to struggle financially: he was also very cautious when it came to spending his own money or making investments.

I met both his parents on several occasions, and they were charming: Charlie’s father was in International Banking and had returned to London after many years living in Hong Kong, with a very successful career with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. Charles was brought up in HongKong, and so we shared the experience of a former colonial life in childhood. I did detect a little family disappointment that Charles had not followed in his father’s footsteps, and did not seem to “have a proper job”!

When I moved to my Thames Village property in 1987, although I loved the location, it was a small flat on the ground floor. I had plans to also acquire the upper floor flat if it ever became available which would then have made one property of a decent size. Sure enough, after 10 years or so, it became available but I was in no position to afford to buy it at the time, and so I persuaded Charles to purchase the flat on the understanding that I would have an option to buy it from him in the future. Charles was at the time looking for a permanent home, and did not need much persuading. And so we became neighbours and I see that he is still in residence there.

I remember two “charlie inspired” business ideas that I was involved with when my own business was in a state of flux. The first involved Life Settlements, and a friend of his called Ian Dike who was running an insurance business in Hampshire: I have covered this elsewhere in the Blog, but it did involve a joint trip to Fort Myers in Florida. The second involved a 10 day trip to Sri Lanka where we stayed near Colombo in a very pleasant hotel, formerly the Governor’s Residence. Ostensibly this trip was to investigate the possibiltiy of setting up an import business for items of well known branded clothing/sportswear from Sri Lanka factories, where labour costs were low, and we did visit a few of the factiories in the local area. In reality, I think Charlie hoped to develop his relationship with the attractive Sri Lankan girl who had suggested the idea to him.

As neighbours, we were both members of the Riverside Club and played a fair amount of social tennis together. Charles became a director of and modest shareholder in easy-dial Ltd, and shared our offices in Richmond for some years. Although we have not been in touch for some time now, I will always remember our shared penchant for a nice pub lunch – for example at the Bull’s Head or Annie’s in Chiswick  – with a pleasant bottle of wine or two.

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