I assumed that I would be leaving the company, but on being called to Tom Weatherby’s office he made clear that if I left under these circumstances, he knew that Wendy Stump would leave too, and that we would set up a new business together supplying M&S and the group would lose a big slice of their business. He persuaded the chairman to let us stay and we created a new group subsidiary Richard Stump (1979) to supply M&S. We did so on the understanding that if I was selected again to fight a general election, I would not be faced with notice to quit, and on my part every effort would be made to ensure that if likely to be selected, or elected, I would do everything to ensure a smooth handover to a new MD.
To the M&S supplying factory in Nottingham was added the responsibility of a factory in South Wales. That business had been owned by yet another of the faith, who employed a first class factory manager, Conrad Meyer, who had been a German prisoner of war, but who had stayed on and married a Welsh lass. The joke at M&S had always been as to whether the owner- Manning - I don’t know what his original name was, had ever told Conrad that the war was over ! I used to visit once a fortnight to agree programmes and settle production problems. On one occasion a head poked round the door, and Conrad said “yes Fritz?” It turned out he was the factory mechanic, and yet one more who had stayed behind and made a life here in Wales. Whilst saying my goodbyes, another figure was going round checking doors and windows, when Conrad called out “Heinz”, I said, oh surely not another ! I realised then why the factory was so efficient and on the ball. Manning had known what he was doing when he took them on, swallowing whatever reservations he must have had, knowing his background as a refugee from Germany in the thirties.
So it turned out by the time I left the group to enter Parliament following the election in 1983, that nest egg from my share stake allowed me to take a drop of 50% in income, and just about get by with two boys in private day school and a mortgage still to pay. Following the failed 1979 election, the boundaries were adjusted, for the old Nottingham East had, as indicated, been a tiny Labour fiefdom, and the changes made the three Nottingham seats broadly equal. By 1983 the tide which had earlier already begun to turn in Margaret Thatcher’s favour, was boosted by the outcome of the Falklands War, and turned what might have been a small chance of success for me, into a clean sweep of all three City seats, for Michael Knowles in East, Richard Ottaway in North, and myself in what had been renamed South. That seat, the old West Nottingham, not the South that had been won by Norman Fowler in 1970, had only once before in living memory, been won by a Conservative back in1959 when the now Sir Peter Tapsell won it narrowly over a senior trade unionist by a couple of hundred votes. It was said that this unlikely result was down to the fact that Peter was a good looking piece of male cheesecake, and all the women fell for him claiming that the narrow victory was down to them. Certainly the Nottingham hairdressers did well out of that election.
I stayed on as a consultant to the group for a couple of years, in order to ensure the smoothest transition, but the new MD appointed by the main board chairman, only underlined the chairman’s lack of business acumen and knowhow, for the new MD only made losses. It was sad, for in all the thirty years I had been with Rick Stump, and subsequently working with his daughter Wendy who was sales director, we had never failed to make a decent profit.
After I left Parliament in 1992 I did not want to return to work in the manufacturing textile industry, for there was in any case not a lot left in the mass production side of the industry. However I was offered a part time role by some good friends Maurice and Lesley Sananas in their business which included the GB sales side of the French company NAF NAF. My role was as an expert witness in cases of the counterfeiting of their products, and though not a lawyer, thoroughly enjoyed my time giving evidence, explaining how and why the goods that had been seized were counterfeit. Their family had lived for many years in Egypt and ran a successful textile business there. Following the 1956 Suez crisis, they found their business confiscated, and they had to leave Egypt along with a forced exodus of the large Jewish community who had lived there for many generations, and counted themselves as Jewish Egyptians. A few families stayed on, but as restrictions and pressures grew, they too had to leave, often with little but the clothes on their backs, and dependent on Jewish charities to help them find a country that would offer them sanctuary. It is those expulsions from Egypt and other countries in the Middle East, that underline the refusal by the current Israeli Government, to refuse to accept the right of Palestinians to return to their old homes in what is now Israel.
Being part time, it allowed me to return to Local Government, but also to accept the appointment as President of the Amateur Rowing Association, now re-branded as British Rowing. Fortuitously it also allowed Sally and me to buy a tiny cottage in Henley which turned out to be a boon for all our family. That purchase is a tale in itself, for as long as I can remember, I, and then Sally, always expressed wonderment at the crazy prices of property in that delightful town. As President I found myself driving to Henley for meetings in addition to the regattas we had always enjoyed attending. Staying overnight at either Leander Club or in a hotel was not cheap, so when we went out for a curry on the Friday evening prior to the Women’s Henley Regatta in 1996 we could not believe how cheap this delightful, but very old cottage was. I felt sure there had to be something very wrong with it, but having worked out on the back of Sally’s cigarette packet – she doesn’t smoke any more – that in six months I would qualify for some pension bonus and could, with a bit of help from my friendly bank manager, fund its purchase, I agreed that Sally would enquire as to what was wrong with it. She came to the regatta at lunchtime and said we had an appointment at five, and the deal was done. The flaw was the old roof on this 16th century cottage was sagging and since we had re-roofed our old farmhouse in Barton, this did not put us off. Our friendly builder in Nottingham went down with his mate one Monday morning, finished up on the Friday, with the listed buildings inspector quite happy with what we had done. It has given the whole family a lot of pleasure ever since.
Having dumped my pension pot into the purchase of the cottage, I was taken aback when the following year, Sally was having a quiet drink with one of our neighbours whilst I struggled to get a new refrigerator up a ladder, through the bedroom window, and finally into the kitchen. On joining them, Sally said that our friend Daphne was selling her boat, a Shetland four plus two. Sally saw the negative look on my face, for whilst we had always fancied a gin palace on the Thames, I was nervous at the outlay and running costs – and with justification ! However as Sally put it, “How old was your brother Michael when he died, and how old will you be next year. 66, well buy the b***** boat”. She was right of course, and we had great fun for four years with the Shetland, when we swapped it for a bigger craft with an inboard engine, and of course a larger galley for Sally! Only in 2010 when we were both seriously ill, did we accept that it was too great a risk to keep it and sold it to our friends in the next door cottage in September 2011.
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Chapter 5
ROWING DAYS
Having as I’ve said faced up to my lack of hand, foot and eye co-ordination, and taken to rowing and athletics at school, the former became my relaxation, if that’s the right word, from business for thirty years, and politics spanning those years and all subsequent time thereafter.
On leaving school and moving to Nottingham as a trainee manager, I found my greatest need for diversion was satisfied when getting down to Trent Bridge and finding there were three clubs there. The first was the Nottingham and Union Rowing Club, and because I was wearing my Thames Rowing Club tie – shameless advertising – I was collared by the then chief coach Freddie Brooks and the skipper Bobby Swift and agreed to join. The other two clubs were the Nottingham Boat Club and the Nottingham Britannia Rowing Club. The “Boat” had been formed in the late eighteen hundreds because the Rowing Club at that time would not permit rowing on a Sunday. The “Brit” was
formed to provide artisans the chance to take up our sport, since - as artisans - they could not join either the “Boat” or the Rowing Club, those clubs being affiliated to the Amateur Rowing Association. There was friendly competition between the clubs and the University, and I knew I’d joined the right set-up when at the February Head of the Trent long distance time trial in 1953, my club won the Headship, only to be disqualified on a technical objection from the president of the “Brit”.
By then I had put on enough weight, I weighed in at about ten and a half stone, to row rather than Cox, and won a place in the club junior eight planning to race at Chester Regatta. The then classification of junior was not related to age, but what you had won at open regattas. The first stage was Novice, the next Junior, followed by Junior Senior, then Senior and subsequently Elite. Back then there were still crews who rowed on “fixed pins” though most had taken up the modern swivel rowlocks and blades. These fixed pin rowlocks were usually a rectangle formed by a metal base, with two upright metal pins, and a twisted rope across the top to close the rectangle. The blades had a curved leather collar that you drew though the rowlock from the outside, and the curve of the leather collar or button, aided the finish of the stroke. We had no means at that time to take our own racing eight to regattas, and we arranged to borrow a boat from the Royal Chester Rowing Club. We made clear we would bring our own oars for the modern swivel rowlocks, but when we arrived the Chester boatman was, he said on instruction, removing the swivel rowlocks on the boat we were borrowing, and fixing the rectangular rowlocks that could only be used with the old fashioned blades that I and some others had never handled before. Regardless of our protestations, they dismissed us on the basis that since we would certainly lose the first round to the local school, it wasn’t worth leaving the boat with swivel rowlocks in place. Nothing could have wound us up more, and after a couple of outings to try out these old blades which they then provided, we duly thumped the school, went on to win the final, and the faces of the officials at prize-giving simply made our day. We had a bit of a comedian in our crew, Colin McKay, who examining the trophies and winners tankards that morning, remarked to the official setting out the pots that the Junior Eights pots were not engraved – the more senior ones did show the title of the event. With a bit of a sneer, the official said “Well we don’t know you’ve won it yet” When it came to the prize-giving and Colin received his tankard from the same official, everyone heard him say “I told you they should have been engraved this morning”.
Later that year, I wanted to enter the novice sculls at the Bedford Regatta held then in the week after the Royal Regatta at Henley on Thames. It was one of the biggest non-metropolitan regattas in the country, and with the local club and schools, competition was always fierce. Bobby Swift did not think I was up to the right standard and was not prepared to enter me. I offered to pay my own entry fee, which was seven and sixpence old money, and when it turned out that I would have to race five times to win, he offered to return one and sixpence for each heat should I win any. He thought he was safe, but somehow I had other ideas, perhaps it was my ethnic background, but I raced like hell and won the event. Sitting exhausted just after the finish of the final against a local guy Chris Baron, all I could shout across to the celebrating club members, was “Tell Bobby I want my seven and sixpence back”. I don’t mind blowing my own trumpet but I’d busted the course record in each successive heat.
I bought a second hand single scull later in the year, and because of business commitments concentrated on sculling rather than seeking a slot in a crew. Because of my size, I was never going to reach above club level but I did get chances to slot into crews, and over the years won my spurs in sweep oar, and sculling, up to elite level. Slotting into crews became a bit of a habit, for on two occasions we had injuries to members of our Henley Eight, and I dropped in as the only substitute allowed back then.
But of course at under 11 stone, if I came across a Steve Redgrave type, I got my arse kicked in no uncertain manner. Sadly there wasn’t a lightweight classification back then, but even so I would have had a hard time, for we had a brilliant crop of scullers around that time, and whilst I managed to win at Reading, it was my only success on the Thames.
Our club president Gus Darby, was a wonderful old boy, who looked and lived like someone from the Victorian era. He had a river day boat, The White Lady, that would have graced the Royal Regatta, and stepping into his home in the Park estate in the centre of the City was like stepping back into what at club dinners he always described as that glorious Victorian era. I’d joined the club committee, I suppose representing the younger members, and when it was suggested that the club invested in a gas water heater for the showers, he threw up his hands in horror at such a modern unnecessary extravagance.
In 1957 at the age of 25, I was elected Club Captain, something I could never have dreamed of, but in truth there were senior members of the club with their own agenda, and unbeknown to me, I was chosen as a temporary candidate until they could chose someone of their vintage and standing. Other senior members did not like what they saw happening, and a row broke out between these two senior groups, and I wasn’t sufficiently experienced to find a way of nipping it in the bud before it got out of hand. Sadly it did, and five or six of these top guys resigned, including two top athletes Nick Clay and Peter Acred, who were an outstanding pair, and the former perhaps the most outstanding and upcoming single sculler in the country who was quite capable of going all the way to the top.
The Head of the Thames - I’m at No.3
The guy who effectively drove out these members was a past captain Freddy Brooks, and I admit I did not and could not stand up to him at that time. Happily he was posted abroad to Germany and with his presence removed I set about rebuilding the club. There still remained a good spirit in the club, and we steadily rebuilt our numbers, and rebuilding our reputation in the world of provincial club rowing, putting a decent crew into the Royal Regatta in four of my five years in office. The real breakthrough came when two guys from Leicester who rowed as a pair on the canal that ran through that city, wanted to come to Nottingham for the clear opportunities we could provide. One, Peter Bickley stroked the club eight, and his pair partner Richard Waite, eventually won the Wyfold Cup at the Royal in 1963, going on to represent Great Britain at the world Championships that year, and again on other occasions in a pair with Mike Sweeney who stroked Cambridge three times, and who is now the Chairman of Stewards at the Royal. These two were just the catalyst the club needed, and they helped set the example to the rest of the club as to what could be achieved, even by a comparatively small club. Peter stroked the eight at Reading and when the crew beat the much vaunted Eton Eight, we knew we had arrived.
Richard’s career with us was even more outstanding, being part of that 1960 eight, then stroking the club Wyfold Four at Henley for three years, winning in 1963. He raced for the goblets for three years in 64/66, firstly with our Carl Unwin, and twice with Nick Nicholson, who had paired with Marshall from the Britannia club at the Rome Olympics. I arranged for the local boat builder to build a pair for them, for the princely sum of £215, and named it the Sally Anne after my long suffering, but very understanding wife. We sold it some twenty five years later to Newark Rowing club as a training boat for £200. A boat like that today could cost anything between four and six thousand pounds dependant on the standard of competition it was planned for, illustrating how times and costs have changed. In the late summer of 1962, I was lucky enough to drop into a four stroked by Richard ( Dicky) winning the West of England Cup against our friendly rivals from Derby in the final, and again on the Monday at Ross on Wye.
We set up a combined club arrangement in the region in order to give any outstanding oarsman the chance to race at the highest level, creating on the advice of Graham Ricketts, then Chairman of Stewards, firstly a new registered club under the title of Nottingham City Rowing Club, and subsequently Midland Nautilus. Under that latter title they
raced for the top Stewards Trophy at the Royal in 1967, winning it in 1968. I believe they should have won the event in 67, but for the outrageous action of the umpire, John Garton, who allowed the Dutch crew to crowd our four against the booms without issuing any warning, and having as a result lost almost a length, finally lost by half a length. As carefully as I could control my anger at such unfairness, I asked why no action had been taken, to be told by Garton that he decided not to act since he felt the Dutch were the better crew. I replied that I did not think that was the role of the umpire, and so began my years of conflict with him. Our crew should have gone to the Mexico Olympics in 1968, but that is explained later
Rowing Against the Tide - A career in sport and politics Page 6