40s and 50s Memories
34
School for Business Studies. While I was there
it changed its name to the London Business
School. The work was challenging and exciting
and my fellow students were all in their late
thirties and from a number of countries.
On my return to Manchester my company was
taken over by the larger and more profitable
English Sewing Cotton Company. To my
surprise I was appointed MD of the ailing
company Osman Textiles of Bolton, makers
of towels, sheets and furnishing fabrics. With
some rationalising of the manufacturing base
and the use of design and colour on a trade
which always had used white we were able
to transform the fortunes of the company. We
were able to form alliances with a number of
well-known designers which included Yves
St Laurent. By 1976 I was looking after the
Group's home furnishing interests as a main
board director.
I was bringing Mark back to Pyrland after Easter
in 1978 when Roger Trafford told me that a
local firm were in urgent need of an MD. He
asked me if I was interested? Two years later
I was Chief Executive and Deputy Chairman
of the Bridport Gundry Group. This was a very
different type of business but the technology
was similar. I retired in 1993 as Chairman.
During my time in the South West I was actively
involved in the CBI as Regional Chairman. I
was invited at a CBI Conference in Harrogate
to join the Somerset Health Authority as a non-
executive for nine years. My interest in painting
and design led me to a fellowship of the Royal
Society of Arts, of which I was Chairman for
several years. Since retirement I have taken
up painting again and I sold my first painting to
Joyce Padfield, I am not sure if was the sympathy
vote. Through Pitminster Church we got to know
the Padfields well. I was Church-warden for
eight years and I still run two small charities for
the church. I visited Howard regularly towards
the end of his life and I still cherish one of his
sayings "If you are wondering whether to do
something or not, consider whether 4B would
understand it!"
K. R. Day
Woodard 1938
Kenneth Day spent the years between 1933
and 1937 at King's and therefore qualifies as
the earliest representative contributor in this
compilation. As a Pre-40's & 50's school leaver
his inclusion here ensures no time gap exists
between '40's and the previous decade. He left
King's from Woodard House. Of his subsequent
career he writes:
I passed a course to enter management in the
motor industry, which the threat of war ended,
and instead started a career in international
finance.
After service in the RAF I returned to the city
and lectured evening classes for the Institute
of Bankers and the Institute of Export. In 1950
I was offered the opportunity to join the foreign
exchange market then reopening dealing in the
Canadian dollar. This was then followed by the
reopening of dealing in the US dollar and the
main European currencies.
The war ended the City's position as the world's
financial trading and investment centre based on
sterling. The International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank were established and the dollar
became the world's currency. The Marshall
Plan provided dollars for the reconstruction
in Europe and the opening of the Euro-Dollar
market.
In 1960 I joined the first American bank to
open in London after the war. This bank was
restricted by the Bank of England, as all banks
were, in the amount of sterling it could lend.
The availability of dollars however created the
Euro-Dollar market and this in turn extended to
the Euro-Currency market as forward markets
developed. For instance, the financing of North
Sea oil exploration and development was
financed partly in sterling and partly in dollars,
the latter being subject to US law.
After opening in London, the bank I had
joined started expansion into Europe. In 1962
it attempted to extend its New York-based
computer programme by satellite, in order to
place the accounting of the London branch
on its head office machines, but this was