by Gordon Gray
The cocktail party was a fiasco with coffee, tea, alcohol and peanuts all on offer. Not surprisingly, the only people who came were those coming to the first morning session. People were naturally a bit bemused by a cocktail party at 0930, but thankfully after half an hour, Ted and I gently moved everyone up to the room where we had the radar. After that, the demonstrations actually went quite well. Thankfully, someone must have said something to Raymond as he failed to appear. After Louis had arrived at the end of the following week, we had an interesting meeting with Raymond Leung’s boss – a guy called Tony and a former director of a security business in London. He seemed to be a really nice guy but admitted knowing nothing about handling the Chinese or about the shipping industry. However, Louis, in his gentle but forceful manner, explained the importance of the demonstrations to our company and our frustrations with Mr Leung. The managing director had the grace to accept what we said and apologised for not letting Ted run with it.
Chek Lap Kok
On our last Saturday in Hong Kong, Ted took Louis and I over to Lantau Island for a seafood lunch at a restaurant on the west side of the island. Tai O was a small fishing village built by a muddy river mouth and an inlet of the sea where the fishing community had settled, building their houses on stilts above the tides reach but close enough to their boats. The small family-run restaurant was tucked a couple of rows back from the water but was full of fish tanks with all sorts of fish in them. We sat down and were served a selection of foods that Ted negotiated with the small but fierce lady owner. After a lunch of prawns, crab and other unidentified fish that Ted recommended, all washed down with chilled San Miguel beers, he suggested that we go up into the hills for a walk.
As we climbed higher and looked down at the deserted hills and bays that stretched all the way up the island, he pointed out the area that was due to be flattened and pushed into the sea to make the “new” Hong Kong airport to be called Chek Lap Kok. In 1981, it was a beautiful, remote piece of coastline with steep-sided lush green hills cascading down to an empty sea from their mist-shrouded summits. The area was virtually uninhabited and hidden from the main Hong Kong harbour which lay off the East side of the island. On the face of it, the area was an unlikely site for a major airport. Little did we know then what a difference twenty years would make to the island. Most of these lovely hills were quite literally pushed into the sea to form the reclaimed base for the airport.
Chek Lap Kok is now a vast complex of airport buildings, runways and taxi ways, aircraft support services, hangars, housing and road and rail links to Kowloon. Huge new suspension bridges for the road and rail links now run across to the mainland and hotels and housing for the airport staff are dotted along the coast. Years later, I was to be involved in selling some of the fire detection and airfield security systems for it, but on that warm afternoon on a quiet hillside it all seemed impossibly far-off in the future.
After that fortnight, we began to develop the Hong Kong market and used it as a stepping stone into China. About a year after the demonstrations I was pleased to get promoted to be the Far East Area Manager, so I then spent a lot of time there.
While Racal Decca was looking for a new agent, we met an expat called Vince Hall. Vince had been in Hong Kong for years with Marconi and then set up his own marine electronics service company in Hong Kong. We learnt that Vince actually wanted to sell his company; so Racal Decca ended up buying Vince’s company and investing in new facilities and service workshops. Vince then ran the company as the resident director with his team of service engineers. Racal Decca wanted to use Hong Kong as a base from which to develop the new mainland China market and other parts of the region.
The phone call
On the not-so-happy side, I have some bad memories too. One year, when we were going to have a stand at the Far East’s biggest marine equipment exhibition which was to be held in Hong Kong, I sought out my new boss in the UK, Commercial Director Dave Rodriques, who even looked like a Spanish pirate. He was a swarthy character, always well tanned; a tubby soul with a little goatee beard. He was cheerful but had never worked in the marine industry before and seemed unaware of what international selling was about. He was really one of those who thought that all you had to do was fly in, buy the agent a beer, fly home and the orders would follow. I asked him if it would be OK, if I paid, for my wife, Doreen, to fly out and join me for three or four day holiday in Hong Kong after the exhibition finished and if I could take some leave out there. “Yes, great idea,” he said.
We planned accordingly. This was in the days before budget airlines and cheap flights, so we bought an advance booking, “not very cheap and not very flexible” ticket and she duly arrived the day after the exhibition finished. I collected her at the airport and took her back to the hotel. Once she was settled in the room, I had to go back to the exhibition site to help with the dismantling of the stand, but made sure that she understood my orders before she had a sleep.“Whatever you do, do NOT touch the Mini Bar – especially the Toblerone!”
Our plan was to spend four days in Hong Kong together on leave and then fly home together. Doreen had arrived on a Wednesday. After having been in Hong Kong for the exhibition a few days earlier, Dave had flown up to Korea for meetings with the Korean company with whom we had started working. At 0730 on the Thursday morning, the phone rang in our hotel room and woke us up. It was Dave.
“Gordon, I am having breakfast with Mr Kim of our partner company here. I want you to fly up here today and talk to them about setting up a marine radar service network for the radars that they will be making for us for the Korean fishing industry. What time flight can you get?”
I could not believe this. “Dave, have you forgotten that you agreed that my wife could join me out here? She arrived yesterday and I am now supposed to be on leave with her until next week.”
“Oh never mind that, this is more important. I want you to come to Korea today and sort this out.”
I felt I had been punched. Never mind that my wife would be left in Hong Kong when we were supposed to be on leave together. Never mind that she was now meant to go home on her own. Never mind that you, Mr Director, had agreed to this months ago.
“Dave, I think you must have forgotten our agreement!”
“No, I haven’t, but this is work. Holidays can wait.”
I was really angry now as I knew it should have been a senior service division manager that went up to Korea to talk to them, not a radar salesman. “Should not someone from service division be doing this?”
“You are already here,” he said. “It will save money if you do it.”
“Dave, I am not a service manager, I am a salesman!”
Doreen was listening to this exchange with her face dropping by the second. Either I capitulated to this idiot and felt the fury of my wife, quite rightly, for just meekly saying yes; or I took a stand and risked upsetting a boss who I had no real regard for anyway. He clearly had no regard for me or his agreement with me. Since Racal had bought the Decca Company, no one who had been a Decca employee had been promoted and indeed a number of good Decca senior managers had been made redundant almost overnight. The new senior positions had all been filled by Racal men from somewhere outside our division. I felt I had little to lose.
“Dave, even if I could get a flight today, which I won’t know until the airline offices open, I will not get to Seoul until late tonight. Tomorrow is Friday so nothing will happen anyway, then I will have to wait around all weekend until Monday before they can start to get their guys together. I have not got anything prepared to present or discuss and to be done properly, this needs a service division person to do it. Can’t this wait?”
“I have promised Mr Kim that as you are only in Hong Kong, you will come up today.”
“David, I am not prepared to just leave my wife on her own for four days after this leave has all been agreed, just to spend a weekend in Seoul on my own.” Then, I took my neck back off the block a little. “Look, what I wil
l do is this. We are due to fly home on Monday night. If you insist on me making this visit, then I will just have to put Doreen on the flight home on Monday. Then I will come to Korea on Tuesday after my leave is over.” Dave weakened. He realised that two days was not going to make any difference and agreed.
However, the spell had been broken and the holiday spoiled, all for want of a director who could not stop and think before he picked up a telephone. I did wonder if the gushing bravado and parade ground orders were because he was sitting with Mr Kim at the time. Doreen was naturally very upset as she felt it was her fault somehow. She never, ever came with me, or joined me on a trip, again. No way was I going to put her through that sort of nonsense again and no way was she going to put herself in the position to have that sort of nonsense happen to her.
We managed a pleasant, but spoiled, weekend in Hong Kong while the shadow of Dave’s phone call hung like a black cloud over it all. Both of us knew there were no winners in the argument. Doreen flew home on the Monday night as planned. As she left to go through security, she looked at me and said, “Never mind, if you can’t take a joke!” and winked. All was well again. I flew up to Seoul on the following day. I spent three days with the Koreans discussing the needs of electronic servicing support for the fishing industry, then flew home. The whole episode was a needless upset caused by someone who was obviously trying to impress the Koreans by “whistling in an ‘expert’”.
THE ODD LUNCH
I had a curious experience in Hong Kong with a customer that I have never had before. It was generated by a lateral thinking shipowner. We were following up on the earlier radar demonstrations and one of the marine superintendants from a large shipping company called and invited me to meet him for lunch at a well known restaurant in Kowloon called Jimmy’s Kitchen. When I got there, I saw that the host was sitting at a large table and sitting round it were about six other men. Who were all these people? Then I recognised some, but not all, of the faces. I joined the group and was introduced to all my competitors!
When the last two guys had arrived, the host said simply, “Right you guys. Over the past few months, you have all been telling me why I should buy your radars. Now is your chance to convince me. I want you all to debate whose radar is better, then I can choose which one I will buy.”
I was amazed. Decca was an old and honourable company and I had been taught by Ernie Cast that in Decca we never knocked the competition in front of the customer. This lunch set-up, for that was what it was, was a nonsense. There were four or five competitor companies sitting round a table and this marine super expected us all to ‘debate’ the merits and shortcomings of our product with each other so he could listen and then choose the winner. Two or three of us exchanged glances and obviously thought the same way. Then, the salesman for an American company jumped in and started going on about his radar and why ours and someone else’s was no good. He clearly knew little about our system.
The superintendent looked at the man who represented the German system. “Willy, don’t you want to respond?”
“Yes, I do,” he said, “but I would rather respond in your office in a one to one meeting and not here, if you don’t mind, as we do not like to criticise our competitors in public. I will happily discuss any points at all with you in your office, but I do not want to be involved in an open public debate.” I nodded and a couple of other guys agreed and the discussion died. The American, thinking that we were chickening out, tried to make a few snide hits but no one responded and they fell flat. Then the beer arrived and things relaxed a little, the food came and we all had a friendly and good-natured lunch with little mention of radar! The marine super had actually thought that we were going to do his job for him with one manufacturer slanging off another until, by the time the deserts arrived and after winning a beer-fuelled debate, one company would emerge as the undisputed winner with all the others accepting the outcome and thus a fleet fit order to the winner. He must have realised he had got that one wrong.
CONSULTANTS
Our new Racal masters wanted to ensure that the Hong Kong and Korean markets were going well. One day I was called into the boss’s office and Dave Rodrigues told me that on my next trip to Hong Kong and Korea I would be accompanied by a certain Mr Eric Tyler. He was a ‘personal consultant’ to the chairman. I was suitably impressed and smiled gratefully, but at the same time thinking, “Oh hell, why me?”
A few days later, Eric appeared in our office and introduced himself. He was large and loud with a ruddy complexion and a clearly well-fed stomach. There was no doubting his enthusiasm for the task. For half an hour, he name-dropped about his close friendships with the chairman and senior Racal guys – all of whom were invisible from my level – and what we were going to do in Hong Kong, China and Korea over the next few months. After half an hour of non-stop talking, he finished with the words, “Dont worry, it’s all going to be jolly good fun.” He then got up and vanished out of the office. I don’t think I had said two words the whole time.
We flew out to Hong Kong together a few days later on what was to be the first of a number of trips. On the flight, Eric showed that he could eat and drink for Britain. There was nothing offered on the flight that he did not have, be it food or drink. Eric ate while I tried to sleep.
On one flight out there, not long after take-off from Bahrain for the last leg to Hong Kong, we had just settled down with another drink when Eric said to me, “I was talking to the chairman. We need one of our own men permanently in Hong Kong to oversee things here and in the region. What do you think about doing it?”
“What, as an expat? You want me to move to Hong Kong?”
“Yes, but think about it and give me your answer tomorrow morning, after we arrive.” My mind, though jet lagged and alcohol fuelled, was racing. I had never seen myself as an expat and Doreen was very happy and did not want to give up her flying career. Had we ever had any interest in living abroad, then I was sure that we would have done something about by now. On the other hand, an expat tax-free salary, together with accommodation, car, local expenses, regular golf at the RHK Golf Club at Fanling, dinners at the Hong Kong Yacht Club etc would all be very nice and would mean we could let our UK house for a few years and maybe make a few shillings. Then, after a couple of years of the good times, we could go home with a very healthy bank balance. Also, Doreen would love the shopping. But I realised there were downsides to such a move. I was also aware that once I left the UK to work abroad, getting a job back in the UK, even in the same company, would be increasingly difficult. Would Doreen be able to get back into the airlines at the same level as she had left? Doubtful.
I got used to meeting with the British expats and one evening some of the true feelings about their lives came out. Tony, an old friend from school days, who I met by chance at an exhibition in Hong Kong, had been working overseas for about ten years in different countries. He explained his views about expat life: “You see, Gordon, the trouble with taking an expat job is that it’s a one way ticket. Our salaries are high by UK standards and tax-free so when we arrive out here, or anywhere, we think we can save most of the money and retire early. In fact, it rarely works like that. You soon find that the money goes just as fast out here as it does at home. Maids, drivers, almost daily dinners at the golf club, holidays, air fares back to the UK three times a year, or to get Granny or the kids out here for school holidays. It all soon makes a big hole in any savings pot; so we all end up staying on ‘for just one more year then, just one more year again’.
“It’s not so great for my wife either. While I am at work, she gets bored in the flat as she cannot work out here and the endless round of expat wives’ bloody coffee mornings, all for one charity or another; and where she is expected to take her turn and host them at home and dig deep into her purse at all of them on the basis that ‘It’s all in aid of charity, you know’. Some of the people here are dreadful and not the sort of person you would socialise with at home, but once you are here y
ou are stuck with them whether it’s at a dinner party or by the pool. Dinners at the yacht club every other night get boring as we all know the menu inside out and the food is not that good anyway. Golf in 100 degree heat is not golf; its torture, so I have given it up. The first few weeks in a new place are great fun, but then the routine and boredom set in. Then you discover that you really do not know how the place works. What do you do for a doctor in an emergency with the kids? Are the hospitals OK? Is the International School any good? Who do we call to fix the ancient and totally unreliable air conditioning? All the little petty things, things that at home we take for granted as we have grown up with it.
“Out here, once you have done the tourist bit, there isn’t much to do. We have an Amah, but Julie, my wife, suspects she is nicking stuff – though we cannot prove it. We all miss the UK, of course, especially the good supermarkets – Lakeland and Marks and Spencer. I miss the changing of the seasons and though it sounds stupid, I really miss the cold of a frosty UK winter’s day. We all really look forward to going home but realise that the days of maids, drivers and dinners out four times a week will be over. Also, UK salaries seem pitiful and even finding a job in the UK after any length of time overseas gets increasingly difficult”.
I almost felt sorry for Tony as what he described was not quite the glittering non-stop fun and five-star living that expat life is painted as being.
On the wider front, Hong Kong at that time was a mess for Racal. We had decided to break with our long-time agents Swires, but had not yet finally broken with them and were still in the process of buying Vince’s service company, so we had not got the new Racal company set up with its new service centre and offices. In any event, Vince would be staying on to run it as the resident director and would see himself still as the boss. He certainly knew the marine people in Hong Kong. He also had a small office in Taiwan and claimed to have ‘excellent contacts’ in Korea and mainland China. I had already seen how Vince ingratiated himself to any visiting director by taking them to the “girlie bars” in Taipei and Macau. I tried to work out what my role would be. I could already see problems ahead as Vince seemed to have a rose-tinted view of future sales prospects that Louis and I did not share and Vince had already made it clear that he did not want any direct UK involvement in the running of ‘his company’ or ‘his area’. Nor was he afraid to pick up the phone to the managing director and bypass the existing sales structure. Slowly, I began to see some order from the jumbled thoughts and reactions. From where I sat, any job I was expected to do there would be a loser. If the new company did well, then Vince would claim all the credit. If it failed then he would say that I was interfering and it was all my fault, or I did not pull my weight, or he would find some other reason that it was not his fault. As far as the other countries in the region were concerned, unless I accepted all his contacts then we would be in a constant state of conflict. I had already met a couple of them in Taiwan and was less than impressed. As the other passengers, including Eric, slept, I mulled all this through in my mind.