Each crew represented a guild and I was allotted to the flower growers. Lunch was made largely of flowers in a salad, plus river fish. Their crew’s costumes were scarlet tunics and sarongs, with pale blue conical hats. They won their first race and lost the second. Late in the afternoon the final produced a dead heat. The crews were given an hour to rest for a re-row. At the start everything was tense. Both crews rounded the curve under perfect control. As they drew away they matched each other stroke for rapid stroke, the drums and cym-bals clattering and banging, the men’s voices hoarse and at the end of their energy. The result was another dead heat, watched at the finish-ing line by the King himself. It was all too much. Everyone knew the Communist takeover was only weeks away and that this would be the last boat race. The crews leapt into the water. They went for each other, fists flying, despite the presence of the monks, the Lord Abbot and their sovereign. It was too awful an end to kingship in the land of a thousand elephants.
The tiny Sultanate of Brunei is an oil-rich country at peace with itself and its neighbours. Oil was not the curse it so often is. I had met the retired sultan in Nairobi when staying with Malcolm MacDonald. He had handed over as head of state to his elder son. The royal family endlessly spoilt its lackadaisical population. They were all subsidised with free television sets, even the ones who lived in the atap village houses on stilts in the middle of the river. Every year the government spent a million pounds at Spinks in St James’s, London, on orders, medals and decorations, to be solemnly pinned by the young Sultan in golden regalia on the breasts of dozens and dozens of men, seemingly just for being good subjects.
I looked forward to seeing the High Commissioner, Jim Davidson. Julian and I had known him when he was Deputy High Commissioner in Bangladesh. He had bristling eyebrows, suitable for an actor playing the role of an admiral. He had won the young Sultan’s admiration for presenting his credentials not in a tropical suit, but in the full fig of Royal Ascot, handing in his top hat and rolled umbrella to a flunky on entry.
He beetled his brows in friendly welcome as I entered his office. I told him that De La Rue had the passport and airline ticket business, but were after the banknote business supplied by Bradbury. He did not take sides. He said the best man to meet was the Pehin Issa, who ran just about everything.
He had a call put through.
He sat back with the phone to his ear: ‘Issa,’ he said familiarly. A slight pause, then an all-embracing smile and a resonant ‘Jim!’
There was a pause. His brows knotted and he leant forward adroitly. ‘Jim Davidson!’
Oh the humiliation, and how easy for Pehin Issa to score points against such a benign man.
A few years later we did secure the banknote business.
Meanwhile De La Rue received a strong letter from the new Commu-nist government of unified Vietnam, repudiating all contact with us. One came from Cambodia too. With the loss of two such significant customers, and Julian Wethered’s main customer the Philippines now scheduled for us to construct their own state printing works, it was felt that I could combine the rest of his region with mine.
I went to Singapore for a couple of days to meet our Chairman, Sir Arthur Norman, DFC and bar. Gerry to his colleagues and friends. He was a wonderful man, with De La Rue from the start, and recently head of the Confederation of British Industries. He was of solid stature, and when his green eyes were at their most focused one almost felt sorry for the Luftwaffe. I introduced him to the Currency Board, the Chairman of the Central Bank, and Singapore National Printers (SNP) who were interested in forming some sort of association with us. After lunch he wanted to see my flat and have a lie down. There I gave him a copy of my book. We dined with the directors of SNP.
Next day there were more bankers and lunch with the local head of HSBC. That afternoon I had made an appointment for him to meet Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew from 2.30 to 4 o’clock. He took my book with him which he was enjoying and wanted to show the Presi-dent when he introduced me. On the way he wondered whether I could write about De La Rue. I felt that a book of that description should be by an author who was a master of the flat style called for, while I could not help but be flamboyant.
Our limousine drove us through the gates and security checks up the green grassy slope and flowerbeds to the white Istana, the President’s official residence. There our licence number was checked and our pass-ports, and we were invited to sit in the waiting room. Our turn came and we both stood. At the office door I was turned away and Gerry went in alone, still with my book. Their discussions centred round Singapore’s desire to enhance its reputation as a financial centre by having its own State Printing Works.
That night we flew to Sydney to meet Julian Wethered for the start of his handing his region over to me. Gerry spent the day there to be with his daughter while Julian took me round the Australian commercial banks, trying to interest them in having us print their traveller’s cheques, a worthwhile business before the advent of credit cards.
Julian’s Aussie friends Mike and Di Nicholas invited the two of us to dinner. They were of the mega-rich Nicholas family which had devel-oped Aspro tablets. Their drawing room had a couple of Italian marble tables, Georgian furniture and a Steinway grand piano. The house was on a slope with terraced flowerbeds leading down to the upper reaches of Sydney harbour, with clear water, a few yachts moored and on the far side a cricket pitch with players in whites. Perfection. The guest of honour was the Chinese pianist Fu Tsong, who had escaped the terrible Cultural Revolution which had killed his parents. The night before he had performed at Sydney Opera House. His wife Hepsibah was the daughter of my old friend the violinist Yehudi Menuhin. There were one or two other men and three attractive single girls in their thirties, one of them Joan Stanbury, a recent Miss Australia, now getting over a vicious divorce. She was lovely. Her long straight scarlet dress was chic and discreet. After dinner, when Fu Tsong had finished playing a Schu-bert Sonata, she gazed at me and asked: ‘Tarquin, what’s it like being an Englishman, in an Australian house, listening to German music, played by a Chinese?’ I was to see more of her.
Julian and I flew on to Auckland with Gerry, staying overnight in a modest hotel. The marina was filled with yachts, more per head than anywhere else in the world. Many of the younger men dressed like colo-nials, in shorts, long socks and sandals; the girls looked much more fun. After dinner Gerry called us up for a drink to have a nightcap. So we sat in our dressing gowns with our Black Label, he with bare feet like the roots of an apple tree, loving being with his front-line troops.
Windy Wellington, the capital, had no vitality, no obvious wealth creation: mainly bureaucrats, politicians, diplomats and students. Four kinds of parasites. The Prime Minister was the oppressive Mr Muldoon. The one good hotel was the James Cook. It was very tall and earthquake-proof, as were a few other buildings, but most were built deliberately squat to be more resistant. The waitresses wore full-length skirts like under-carpet and everything they said sounded comforting. There was a new book by a New Zealander entitled The Passionless People. It said their women aged rather well because they had so few moving parts. Noël Coward had commented: ‘New Zealand? Sixty million sheep can’t all be wrong. The people? Well balanced – chips on both shoulders. The place? Well, quite frankly, it was closed.’
We met the Governor of the Reserve Bank, the chief executives of the National Bank of New Zealand, whose traveller’s cheques we printed, and of the Bank of New Zealand, a government-owned commercial bank of which Gerry was a director to keep an eye on things. Everything was so smooth and rounded and repressive I felt ill at ease. I sensed there was a carbuncle of treachery waiting to burst. I said nothing, lest it make my masters think I was unsuited to look after this prestigious cus-tomer, ours since 1934. I decided that the best approach would be for me to visit every three months on the dot, to become part of the wood-work, and cast my net as wide as their tasteless brown ale would allow. It was as if the Kiwis were descended from Edinburgh’s g
enteel suburbs. I much preferred the rough cockney, the classless vitality and badinage of Australia. So, on the way to New Zealand or on the way back, I would stay in Sydney for a weekend with Joan.
I did, over the years, spend one weekend in Wellington. On Saturday morning I realised I had not packed my hairbrush so I asked where I could buy one. The receptionist said I could take a train to Parapara-mou, then a bus to Pykakareeky (or vice versa, and I am spelling onomatopoeically) where the resort shops were open. As I had nothing planned I went. I even chose a hairbrush, but hadn’t enough money to pay for it. There was a branch bank open but they refused my Ameri-can Express traveller’s cheques because the Reserve Bank was closed and they did not know the day’s rate of exchange. I suggested they pay me 95% of yesterday’s rate, but they refused. Very calm they were. I could have hit them, but put my hands in my pockets and gently wished them all the best.
On the way back I was impressed by the country’s vigour when it came to sport. There were many runners, swimmers in the sea, and dozens of hang-gliders expertly catching the thermals overhead. Next day I was invited water-skiing on a beautiful placid river in the same part of North Island. They let me go first and I slalomed as best I could, at least to my own satisfaction. Then they showed me. The girl jumped in, no ski, and clung on to the bar of the eighteen-metre rope. The boat accelerated to forty miles per hour and she swung increasingly wildly, like a pendulum, from side to side on her stomach. She gave a lurch, turned all the way round and sat on the rushing water, feet in front of her. She gathered her strength and stood. She bare-footed across to the wake and back again. The muscular young man did the same later, and then turned round and bare-footed backwards. Now that was terrific.
Our final destination with Gerry was Hong Kong, where Julian had settled from Manila about a year earlier, with his second wife Antonia and their two tiny boys. We had an appointment to meet the Chairman of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, Michael Sand-berg. That was by far the most important Bradbury Wilkinson customer and of course we were after it.
Julian was the Old Etonian son of an admiral, brought up in a classic house called Remnants, in Marlow, only a few miles from my grand-mother Eva’s house Apple Porch and with a similar atmosphere. He was a fine strategist. He had noticed that the HSBC branch in Manila was approaching its centenary. He persuaded it and the Philippine Post Office to let us print a commemorative stamp to mark the occasion: 1875–1975. It depicted a top-hatted gentleman and long-skirted lady shaking hands, their luggage beside them on a quayside, a tea clipper beyond and some Chinese junks. President Marcos had accepted the invitation for the occasion from HSBC’s Chairman, to be joined in Manila by Sir Arthur Norman and the Earl of Lichfield.
A month before that Julian and I were in Dhaka, in his room, imbib-ing. We received a telex from our Security Print Division, never our favourite, which was in charge of postage stamps. They reported that the colour of the commemorative stamp was unsatisfactory, the perfo-ration wavy, and they wondered whether this was all right. What the hell else could be wrong: cyanide on the back? Julian telexed the Banknote Division to knock everything into shape. The printing was whipped away from our factory in Bogotá, given to Dunstable and all was well.
I went to Singapore to pack everything for my move to Hong Kong. Julian booked me into a suite next to Gerry’s at the Mandarin Hotel. His wife and two little boys had left for England. I went with him and Gerry to meet Michael Sandberg next morning in his grand old office, a few years before the bank’s new building replaced everything with the cantilevers of modernity. There were classic paintings of Hong Kong by the English painter Chinnery.
Michael Sandberg said how impressed he had been in Manila. He then explained HSBC’s embargo against De La Rue. During the riots which had burst upon Hong Kong a number of years earlier there had been a run on banknotes. Bradbury had leapt to the rescue and devoted the whole of their capacity to printing his bank’s notes.
‘Therefore,’ Michael turned to me, ‘we are loyal to Bradbury. While Tarquin may discuss other DLR products and services within the bank, currency is taboo.’
Gerry suggested that maybe one day, like the Philippines, they might opt for local production at their own factory. Michael acknowledged the possibility, almost certainly with Brads at the back of his mind.
He invited us racing at Happy Valley racecourse. I had never been a gambling man, except for poker in the Army, but that day I studied the form in the South China Morning Post. I saw that one jockey, Tse by name, was riding a favourite in one race but a fifty to one outsider in another, so I bet fifty dollars on the outsider.
We sat in the Chairman’s box enjoying Krug champagne (only £6 a bottle in that civilised island). My horse romped home. A messenger came to me with a brown envelope stuffed with two and a half thousand dollars. I was expected to be modest and unassuming, so decided to carry on betting randomly so as to lose most of my winnings. Sometimes I told the messenger the number of a horse I had not even identified by name. Several won. The whole thing became hilarious. At least it more than paid for the expensive suite Julian had put me in, saying it would do me no harm to be next to Gerry in the Mandarin.
Next day Gerry and I went to Julian’s apartment, Riviera Apart-ments on South Bay Road. He had risen at six in the morning to grind all the spices in preparation for the curry lunch he had prepared. ‘What a lovely home,’ Gerry said, ‘and what a love of life to make such a curry.’
Gerry flew back to England after we visited the Chartered Bank and the Mercantile Bank whose notes we did print. Julian and I went on to Manila for a whole week because of the range and number of his contacts. Governor Licarros received us in his office, sitting between Senior Deputy Governor Briñas and the Director Benito Legarda. The two of us looked very different from each other: Julian, with his pale red hair, never suntanned. I, supposedly with someLatin blood, had gone the colour of toast. Julian gave a generous introduction, speaking of my previous associations with the East and how happy I was to return to the Philippines.
‘Like MacArthur?’ One of them asked.
We laughed. Licarros looked at my hands, darker than his own.
‘Are you Indian?’ I waggled my head from side to side like a Bengali, and in their accent said: ‘Nert ixectly.’
They laughed. I asked Ben Legarda if he was related to the Legarda who had recently died. He said it had been his father, who had had me to dinner in 1959 and I recalled playing the piano to him. The other guest had been General Basilio Valdes. That was Ben’s uncle. They all had great respect for Julian in that institution with its endless corridors. A number of new appointments had been made in the bank in view of our forthcoming construction of their state printing works and security print factory, with Johnson Matthey equipping the mint and gold refin-ery. We met them all, and then went elsewhere to see our customers for passports and security print.
Julian returned to Hong Kong to pack and I looked up my own old friends in Manila, the Liboros and Benitezes. After going to a party with them in Andy Liboro’s garden it was as if I had never left. I mentioned to them the name of the De La Rue Giori agent, an Italian banker called Mario D’Urso. They said I should immediately make contact with him because he was influential with Imelda Marcos, whose purlieu included the Central Bank, plus a huge portfolio called ‘Human Settlements’, and much else. There seemed to have been some slur against Mario’s initial approach to us in Basingstoke. Naturally there was a difference of interests worldwide between ourselves as printers and Giori’s machines taking our customers away, but we did have a one-third share in Giori’s company, and now that the joint deal was signed with the Philippines it made sense for me to have Mario as a colleague.
I initiated a number of quiet meetings in the Philippines equivalent of the House of Lords. This was the elite lounge of Wak Wak Golf Club. Yes. It is a country sometimes difficult to take seriously. There I was introduced by Andy Liboro to a series of soft-spoken Filipinos over
pre-lunch drinks. I was contrite and apologetic, for quite what I did not know. They expected Mario back the following month. He worked ostensibly for Lehman Brothers Köhn Loeb in New York. His main activity in Manila was to secure a contract for Fiat to provide a fleet of buses, nationwide. I felt that our plant and equipment activities were vulnerable to corrupt outside interference. It was to prevent this that I needed Mario’s close relationship with Imelda. They understood.
Seventeen
I settled into Julian’s glorious flat overlooking Repulse Bay, its islands and the occasional Chinese junk passing by. He and Antonia had a genius for comfort: a large drawing room, sofa and armchairs, honey-coloured carpet and a fireplace, My long teak dining table and chairs from Singapore were perfect. I had to buy a couple of bedside reading lights and bought exactly the same as Julian’s. I found that thoughts of him and his new family were reassuring.
Being alone again after a couple of weeks of company made me more aware of the increasing pain of arthritis. It helped to lie on the floor when putting on my trousers. My grip was so feeble I had to hold the toothbrush with both hands. It was difficult to open my mouth wide enough to get the thing between upper and lower teeth.
After breakfast I was sitting on the floor putting on my shoes when in came the housekeeper Ada, whom Julian had discovered. She was sixty-four, mainly Chinese, with fractions of English, Portuguese and Jewish, and a range of recipes to match. We chatted about the Wethereds and their boys whom she loved. I said that I too had children but my wife had left, as had Mr Wethered’s first wife. I hoped to marry again, but not quite yet.
I said: ‘In the meantime I do not mean to live like a celibate monk. I mean, for goodness sake, Ada, you’re a woman of the world. You know exactly what I mean.’
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