Alan Bristow

by Alan Bristow

  In the 1950s the aviation industry in Britain had begun to coalesce into two camps – the government-supported publicly subsidised airlines BEA and BOAC, and the independent operators who increasingly found that amalgamation was the only way they could compete with the state. Over the years, Airwork joined together with Transair, Aviation Traders, Morton Air Services, Air Charter, and Channel Air Bridge before the merger with Hunting-Clan Air Transport in 1960, which resulted in the formation of British United Airways. Under the umbrella of Air Holdings Ltd, BUA continued to take over smaller independents like Silver City Airways and British Aviation Services, and by the mid-1960s it was the biggest independent airline in Britain.

  Hunting-Clan had been owned by British and Commonwealth Shipping Ltd, whose chairman Sir Nicholas Cayzer later became chairman of Air Holdings Ltd. In the meantime, Sir Myles Wyatt, who’d been managing director of Airwork, took on the same role at Air Holdings, while Freddie Laker, who had started Channel Air Bridge, became managing director of British United Airways. Bristow Helicopters Ltd always seemed a fairly loose fit in the Air Holdings organisation, but unlike many of the other component companies it made good money, and both Myles Wyatt and Nick Cayzer had a lot of time for companies that made money. They didn’t understand the helicopter business and showed no inclination to learn about it, so I was largely left alone to run my own race.

  The Persian Gulf, Bolivia and the Caribbean were producing good profits for Bristow Helicopters Ltd, but oil exploration was expanding all over the world and I made it my business to know exactly where the company might be needed in years to come. I had a network of contacts that grew over the years in number and seniority. I knew Sheikhs and their extended families, Presidents and Prime Ministers and those who were jockeying to replace them, the senior civil servants in whom the real power is invested, and even those who might conceivably be helpful one day; I had a book full of names and I never threw away a phone number. Most of all I made friends with oil company executives, the men who knew what would be happening two to five years down the line because they would be making it happen. Many of them were Americans, and most were of a type – outdoors men who enjoyed what they call ‘hunting’ and what we know as shooting. I developed my estate at Baynards Park into one of the best pheasant, partridge and duck shoots in England, and to it came Sheikh Zayed and senior figures in the oil industry from around the world.

  Information helpful to Bristow Helicopters Ltd came from all sorts of sources, some obvious, some less so. I read the oil industry press avidly. Oil companies who were embarking on new exploration projects publicised it through press releases to oil industry magazines and wrote stories about it in their house journals. These announcements would come well ahead of any requirement for helicopter services, giving BHL time to analyse costings and present proposals. Many oil companies, drilling firms and major helicopter outfits like Petroleum Helicopters Inc had their own in-house magazines to tell their workforces what they were doing, and these were a priceless source of information. At PHI I had a contact who would send me a copy of their magazine as soon as it was printed, and by reading it I could get a good working understanding of what the company was doing and what it planned to do in the near future. They would write about the helicopters they were ordering, who was moving where, and what a great future the company had, and every little piece of information was a small part of a mosaic that made up the strategic picture that Bristow Helicopters exploited. I knew exactly what equipment they’d be tendering with, how long they’d had it and how far it had been written down, invaluable information when preparing a competitive tender. It was useful to know when there was no change, too – no news was sometimes as valuable as positive news. People were constantly telling me I ought to start a Bristow house magazine, especially Alan Green, but I categorically ruled it out on the grounds that one should never telegraph one’s punches.

  Pilots working in the field fed back information to me at Redhill. I asked them what cargoes they were carrying; if they said core samples, more and more core samples, I would pay closer attention because it usually meant that a worthwhile oil reservoir had been found, and everybody at Redhill was alerted to be ready to gear up the service. Pilots would pass on gossip they heard on rigs and ashore. In isolation these snippets might seem inconsequential but together they could add up to something important. At the very least everybody could work hard to ensure that BHL was on the bidding list of all the oil and drilling companies involved in a project. Just occasionally I would get a letter inviting a bid on a contract of which I had not been fully aware. A classic example was Shell’s invitation to bid for work in Bolivia. As time went on and our early warning network became more sophisticated we were nearly always ahead of the news.

  Between 1960 and 1968 the foundations were laid for Bristow Helicopters’ expansion into a global force in helicopter services. BHL was bidding on oil exploration contracts in Malaysia and Indonesia, in Australia, in Egypt, in Peru and Mozambique. Our existing customers were not neglected while new contracts were won in the Persian Gulf to provide military training and police services. I knew that the Kuwaitis, as ever concerned about an attack from Iraq, were looking to strengthen their own defence forces, and I thought they ought to have a few squadrons of Whirlwinds. Doing business there was unique. Sheikh Mubarak was the decision-maker in matters of military importance, but getting to him seemed impossible. Fortunately Alan Green had made the most unusual contact who was destined to help us enormously. Green told me about him one day when we were discussing the Kuwaiti issue.

  ‘He’s very well connected,’ Green said. ‘He’ll help you get to Mubarak.’

  ‘What does this man do?’ I asked. ‘Is he family?’

  ‘No, he owns a corner shop.’

  I couldn’t hide my incredulity. ‘What do you mean, a corner shop?’

  ‘More of a tobacconists really,’ said Green. ‘I think he’s also a director of a bank, but if you want to meet him, you have to go to his shop.’

  ‘He owns a corner shop and he’s a director of a bank?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Green. ‘They do things differently there.’

  More in hope than expectation I went to meet Green’s contact in his shop. I got there on a hot afternoon, and I would have killed for a drink. Of course, it was not the done thing to consume alcohol in the company of strangers in Kuwait. Green’s man produced a teapot, and poured a couple of fingers of amber liquid into a shot glass.

  ‘Would you like some soda with your tea, Mr Bristow?’ he enquired.

  I caught on quickly. ‘Most kind,’ I said. And we had a congenial meeting.

  I was told that I must go and sit outside Mubarak’s palace early every morning, and if I hadn’t been called in by noon, to return the following morning. It might take many days, but at some point I would be granted an audience. Next morning I joined a motley throng of supplicants outside Mubarak’s palace, and I was the only man there without a burnous. Every so often a Palestinian gofer would come out and point at someone in the group, and he’d be ushered in to meet the Sheikh. This was their way of addressing grievances, resolving problems and asking for favours. There was no queue – some men waited there for ever, others with fixers on the inside got in on the first day. I sat through the first morning, and the second, always worried that I was on a fool’s errand. But on the third morning the gofer’s finger pointed at me, and I was ushered into Mubarak’s presence.

  Mubarak was progressive for a Kuwaiti in those times, and he was very powerful – there were constant rumours that he was going to kick out the Emir and take over – and extraordinarily bloodthirsty. I was riding with him in the back of his Cadillac one day when he shouted to his chauffeur to stop and pulled a machine-gun from the division between the driver and his passengers. The Sheikh opened a window and let fly at a group of gazelles a hundred yards off the road. Having slaughtered them he barked a command to his chauffeur, who drove on. At our first meeting, Mubarak looked down his
nose at me while the Palestinian asked what business I had there. I explained that I was in the helicopter industry, that he may know my company from work we did for the oil concerns in the area, and that I believed they ought to have helicopters in Kuwait for the rescue and evacuation of the Royal Family in time of emergency. Mubarak listened and said nothing; finally he waved his hand and I was ushered out. Was that a yes or a no? I contacted our fixer, who told me to be patient.

  In due course I was visited by an Army officer who asked me to land a Whirlwind in the Emir’s palace to show that it could be done. Sheikh Mubarak was evidently pleased with the outcome, for I received a letter of intent from his department soon afterwards saying there was a requirement to organise a training school to teach Kuwaitis to fly helicopters. In Kuwait, a letter of intent from Mubarak was money in the bank. I introduced Westlands’ sales manager to some senior Kuwaitis and it was agreed that Whirlwinds should be purchased for training. I came to know Mubarak very well, and was also able to sell him Hawker Hunters and Jet Provost trainers. I had a good contact at Hawkers, their chief test pilot Bill Bedford, so it wasn’t difficult to get quotes for deliveries, although drawing up the specifications wasn’t easy because while they were ostensibly training aircraft, they had to be readily convertible to carry rockets, bombs and rapid-firing weapons. I was up to my eyes with work for a while sorting the contract out, and I had to pillage Fison Airwork to get the staff together to service it. My regular lawyer was Charlie Clore’s right-hand-man, Leonard Sainer of Titmuss, Sainer & Webb. He was a great lawyer and a good friend, but being Jewish he would have been a red rag to a bull in Kuwait, so I had to find somebody else to take on this work.

  Getting Kuwaitis to enlist in their new Air Force was difficult. The sons of the most worthy Sheikhs would start their training courses, get bored and not bother to turn up again. They were rich, their families were influential, and they had the attention spans of spoilt children. Bristows were given excellent facilities, air conditioned hangars and well-equipped workshops, and eventually the training programme produced a number of Kuwaitis who could fly the Provosts quite well. But ultimately it was accepted that the Kuwaiti Air Force would have to be run largely by mercenaries. With the introduction of the Hawker Hunters a lot of British pilots were employed as instructors. Unfortunately for me a chap called Edwards turned up in Kuwait selling the English Electric Lightning. The Kuwaitis were very taken with the Lightning, which was bigger, faster and noisier than the Hunter, and it wasn’t long before the Hunters were retired in favour of Lightnings. Bristows continued to do good work there for several years, thanks to Green’s corner shop man who became Bristow Helicopters’ much-respected agent in Kuwait.

  Bristows expanded its service in Abu Dhabi when we were asked by one of the Sheikhs to support their independence policy by helping them establish an Air Force. In order to ensure that it didn’t have too much of a military ring about it, the Ruler proposed to call it the Police Air Wing, although later it became the Air Force of Abu Dhabi. As consultants we recommended the purchase of the Italian SIAI Marchetti fixed-wing planes, and JetRanger and Bell 212 helicopters. We put in the chief pilot and his deputy, both Austrians, who ran the contract. Ultimately they decided to cut Bristow Helicopters out of the picture and take over the contract for themselves. I went out there to dissuade them, but they’d got it all tied up – they were there every day of the week and they’d prepared the ground well. There was nothing I could do to win the business back.

  With most overseas contracts, Bermuda-based companies were used to take on work in the Persian Gulf. It was a post-colonial era when Britain was withdrawing from its overseas territories, and although we didn’t encounter overt anti-British bias, it was clear that some Bristow customers felt more comfortable dealing with a Bermudian company. For each geographical area we formed a separate company – Bristow Helicopters (Malaysia) or Mayne-Bristow Helicopters Pty Ltd in Australia and so forth. This structure meant that our accountants had a much clearer picture of exactly what was going on in each area. A local partner was needed in most places, sometimes by law, sometimes in order to get anything done. It was a precursor of the days when states would simply want us to give them the expertise in order that local companies could take over operations themselves. Here, Air Holdings Ltd was useful. I was introduced by fellow Board member Sir Donald Anderson, Chairman of P&O and Air Holdings director, to Mayne Nickless, as our partners in Australia. Others provided useful information about new territories into which we were expanding. Anderson didn’t like me one bit, but when it came to promoting the interests of the company, personal dislikes were set aside.

  By the mid-1960s BHL had seventy-five helicopters at work around the world, with more on order. The days were gone when a Bell 47 or a Hiller 12 could be delivered by the factory a few weeks after it had been ordered; modern sophisticated machines had to be ordered months and sometimes years in advance, and the pace of the helicopter service industry’s expansion was such that the manufacturers couldn’t keep up. At BHL we attacked the problem by effectively creating our own helicopters – in the mid 1960s Jack Woolley put Bristol Siddeley Gnome turbine engines in the Whirlwinds, thereby introducing what we called the S55 Series 3. A few years later we scored heavily by buying a batch of surplus military S58s in Germany and bringing them back to Redhill, where we put Pratt &Whitney PT6-6 turbine engines in them and gave them the S58ET designation. They were relatively inexpensive, and they served the company well.

  Life was hectic and the days were long. I lived only a few miles from Redhill, and I could get there in seven minutes in the Bell 47 I kept for my personal use – it had been one of the first helicopters bought for the Shell contract in Bolivia, and because it was painted yellow and I was flying it, the staff called it the ‘Yellow Peril’. The helicopter had come from the Bell factory with a yellow paint scheme and we’d been too busy to change it. It had had the original wooden blades replaced with metal blades and a tinted bubble canopy fitted. It pleased me to remember that it had been paid for after four years on the Bolivian contracts and Bristows was still using it forty years later. Many years after I’d left, the company sold it without giving me a chance to buy it, which I thought was wrong. I had joined together with Tommy Sopwith, Kenneth McAlpine and Jock Cameron of British Airways Helicopters to keep a barge on the River Thames next to the Tower of London – we had twenty-five per cent each – and whenever I went up to Cayzer House in the City for Board meetings I could park the Yellow Peril there all day for less than £20.

  On days when bad weather kept the Yellow Peril on the ground Lionel would drive me to work in the Rolls, and I’d use the thirty-five minutes travelling time to Redhill or Gatwick to clarify my mind on the business of the day, whether it be a letter to an oil company, a contract, a bid, or an internal memo. I had a radiophone in the car, but there was little risk of it ringing – very few people had them in those days and I was very careful who I gave the number to. It was for making calls, not taking them. I had a modest office at Redhill with a window overlooking the airfield, from which I could see helicopters being moved in and out of the hangar if I’d had time to sit looking out. My office was next door to that of George Fry, who was a great asset, always very analytical, a quiet man who was a wonderful foil to me. Most of the time we saw things the same way, but if he thought I was proposing something damned silly, he would say so. Everybody liked him, but there was steel in his backbone and he wouldn’t hesitate to sack someone for dishonesty, however minor. One of the accountants had his fingers in the petty cash box to the tune of £39. After he’d repeatedly denied it, evidence came to light that he had in fact helped himself, and George fired him. People used to say I was the decision-maker who did all the firing, but half the time I didn’t know George had sacked someone until after they’d gone. George had a daughter and two sons who worked for us at some stage. He came to me one day and said his son Chris had failed his accountancy exams – was there anything I could do? I
told him we could make a job for him, and Chris Fry became a valued member of the team for many years.

  Invariably, the first item on the agenda each day would be the accident report, and my secretary would have it ready for me as I walked in. Fatal accidents were extremely rare, but often I’d have to deal with minor mishaps where no one had been hurt but there was a risk that schedules could be disrupted. Urgent Telex messages were laid out on my desk. The Telex system arrived in the 1950s and greatly improved our urgent communications, which had relied on telegrams. In the early days at Redhill I had a ham radio in my office, on which chief pilots all over the world would call to a pre-arranged schedule. Senior employees in West Australia or Bolivia would use the radio to request urgent delivery of spare parts or to transmit their figures and projections. The reliability of the HF link varied according to the weather and the time of day, and I was glad when telephone technology caught up. At that time, fax machines were still more than a decade away. Sir Raymond Brown, who founded Racal Electronics with his partner Calder Cunningham – Racal was an abbreviation of their first names – invited me to the Standard Telephone Company’s offices in Morden, south London, in the 1960s to see the first fax machine. The offices were crowded with people sitting at drawing boards. The fax was the size of a small car and had a room to itself, and I think it was using magnetised paper. Sometimes this mighty machine convulsed and gave birth to a piece of paper with a recognisable word on it, sometimes it turned out a hopeless smudge. As is the way of things in modern times, fax machines were ground-breaking, ubiquitous and obsolete in a generation, but in the sixties it looked like science fiction to me. It was a British invention, and Ray Brown was extremely proud of it. Ray was in my shooting syndicate, and had provided the VHF and HF radios for the Hiller 360 on Olympic Challenger.

  By whatever method of communication, chief pilots, and later area managers, made weekly estimates of cash flow and monthly statements of actual cash flow, and there would be weekly finance meetings at Redhill involving myself, George Fry, the company secretary Bill Mayhew, the chief accountant John Howard, and perhaps the pensions man. Management always had a very good grasp of cash flow from one day to the next. I had never had formal tutoring in financial management, but cash flow is a simple matter of determining how much money you’re going to receive under contracts, under ad hoc flying, and under standing contracts like military training, in a given period. Area managers and chief pilots enjoyed a great deal of autonomy and seldom made bad decisions. An iron grip was kept on expenditure and significant capital items had to be referred to Redhill for approval.