40s and 50s Memories
P. B. CHARLTON
Bishop fox 1951
The younger of the two Charlton brothers, both
of Bishop Fox House, and in consequence
nicknamed Charley II, Peter Charlton left King's
as School Captain in 1951. Prominent in most
sporting activities, he captained the 1st XV
rugby team. Among the staff, he records Wally
(Sarge) Gooderham as a special favourite.
Particular Bishop Fox friends mentioned
include Chris Everard, Johnny Plant, Dickie
Heyhoe and Tony Facer. While George Morgan
was his Housemaster and chemistry teacher,
mathematics was his best subject and this
proved influential in his later career.
He writes:
After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, I
worked with the firm Jackson Taylor Abernethy
and Co. in London until 1960, at which point
I moved to Toronto for a year with Price
Waterhouse. This led to quite a step change in
my life, and a career with the international giant
Philips.
I remember surviving four hours of psychometric
testing, and four hours of management
interviews before enrolling as a trainee with
Philips in Toronto. It was disconcerting to be
quizzed by one, a Scot I recall, on whether I
liked the opposite sex, but it was a relief to learn
that this had to do with the company needing
assurance on my not being too "footloose and
fancy free." It was here that I encountered the
ultimate in parsimony, how to save tyre wear
on an automobile by balancing a pencil on the
dashboard, and ensuring the pencil does not
fall off when cornering.
Then, before being assigned as administrator in
Ecuador, I was adjudged as needing immersion
in Philips culture in Eindhoven, to which frozen
town I repaired in January 1963. Baths in
Potgieterstraat where I lodged came at 1 guilder
a pop, and transport to work across the ice-rink
streets was offered by company bicycle. As
this dispiriting culture of prudence and frugality
gained ground, reflected in my future income,
it took the fatherly advice of Hugo de Kruyff to
dissuade me from returning to Canada.
Resting near the foot of the Angel Falls, after a two day
journey up the Caroni, Carrao and Churun
rivers in Venezuala
A "Limey" now, and a tender 29 year old only, I
was nonetheless judged fit to represent Philips
in Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Another great
step in my life took place in July 1963 when I
married Lidy, whom I had discovered in wintry
Eindhoven. The civil marriage took place by
proxy, Lidy being in Lagos at the time, and
myself being in Quito, followed by the religious
ceremony in Lima. Thus I became for the three
months of my first take-over in Quito, married
"de jure" and single "de facto".
In 1965, I was posted to Lagos just a few months
before the Biafran war erupted. Paradoxically, it
was good for business, as portable radios and
record players are in demand from soldiery, but
bad in that the Philips record factory at Onitsha
ended up destroyed by liberating forces, on
the illogical grounds that the Biafrans had
previously commandeered and used it.
In 1970, I left Lagos for the land of my birth,
Peru. Here I found office politics in full sway.
The Finance functions, Controller and Treasurer
were to be split, a move toward an American
rather than European business philosophy, with
the further complication of the indigenization
issue coming into play. We lived through a
military dictatorship with massive social
undertones heading towards a covert
nationalization of business. Fortunately this
was stopped after a couple of years by the
same government after foreign investment
began drying up fast. Life continued in South
America with a posting to Venezuela in 1973.
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