It is Christmas 2020 and I am now 70 years of age and looking back on my life with an ever growing sense of confusion. I have been so fortunate, I have done some amazing things but I have also made some very bad mistakes. Many years ago a wise man told me that fortune and disappointment balance out as you live. When things are good you should foresee a down turn and when things get bad a brighter dawn awaits. Mr Topalian was so very right.

As I have written before my school was an amazing place. A highly selective academic entrance requirement and a staff who were all chosen for their excellence in their subject and all linked to a sporting tradition of excellence. Olympic athletes, International Rugby players and countless masters with First Class degrees from Oxbridge guided my life from 11 to 18. It was a strange oppressive place that took but one benchmark as standard. That of ‘excellence’.

I acted in Shakespearian plays, played sport for some of the best schoolboy teams in the country and rubbed shoulders with countless people who would become Professors, Captains of Industry and the media. However one experience stands out for me as being beyond special.

I was a member of the chapel choir. ‘Head Treble’ in fact so I got to wear a red ribbon around my neck to compliment my blue surplice and stiffly starched white cassock and ruff. The choir was 45 strong and was organised and led by the music master of the school who was quite mad. He looked mad with jam jar bottomed spectacles he acted wholly irrationally and he was called Lawford. His nickname was of course ‘Loonie Lawford’. He was a brilliant organist himself and was passionate about all things music as you might expect. The choir was just exceptional. We appeared on local radio and frequently gave concerts. Loonie had taken us all to watch the Vienna Boys Choir in a concert in Liverpool and he had become infatuated with the sound the boy trebles made. Instead of singing in the ‘head’, that high squeaky sound that is familiar with many cathedral choirs, the boy trebles sang in their chests. The out put was rounder and much fuller and Loonie decided that we would adopt this approach. The results were just spectacular.

Team work is something I love and working in teams has been a hallmark of my life. To sing in a top choir represents the very epitome of teamwork. Fours or even six part harmony creates a wonderful sound when the individual ‘parts’ are put together. On their own they diverge and challenge the singer. Done well a choir singing in harmony is like a wonderful living organism. The bass, tenor alto and treble creating a wonderful noise. Backed up by an organ vibrating the very building you are standing in, the effect is just amazing to both create and listen too.

At this time of year I could choose many carols to represent this time of my life. Our soloist, a boy called Peter Zacharias, went on to get a scholarship to Cambridge to read music. His voice, a tenor of remarkable depth would often lead us in the candle lit church of St Saviours in Oxton Village next to our school when all parents would attend as the school chapel was too small. I remember well leading the choir into the church and reading the first lesson as the candles flickered. No electric lights just hundreds of candles. I also remember singing my Mums favourite carol. ‘Oh Little Town of Bethlehem’. We sang without accompaniment resulting in a sort of eerie silence punctuating the sound we made doing gaps in the verses . The first verse was sung by we trebles only it was just awesome. Somewhere in the congregation I knew my Mum would be sitting and the tears would be rolling down her cheeks. Thanks Mum for everything you did for me.xx

You can find the carol on tube in many versions. It is lovely.

As I mentioned in a previous post one of the very good things that came about when I lived in Northleigh was I became friendly with the local farming community. I have many tales to tell of my interaction with many of them but I will begin by recalling some of my experience with a wonderful man called David Hurford. David was the original owner of most of the area of The Northleigh Valley where we lived although in recent years he had passed on the ownership and management of the land to his sons.

I first met David in the local church at a Sunday service. We took to going to church because a lot of the rest of the village did and it was in, an old fashioned sort of way, how the village came together. There was a sub plot however that in fact ran counter to the last statement. There were a series of Lords and Ladies who lived in the area and they, as a group, would always be in church, sitting together and looking serious. The ‘peasants’ would always avoid sitting in the rows obviously designated as ‘special’ but after the service the ‘have nots’ would ‘bow and scrape’ to the ‘haves’. It was a very interesting sideshow to behold.

Anyway the church verger was David. He lit the candles, ensured the heating was on and would offer the warmest of smiles to new comers. On my third visit to the church, I think it was a Harvest Festival as the church was full, David approached me just as the service was starting and placed the collection bag in my hand. ‘You do the right of the church’ was his order. No choice given I performed my duties with some nervousness.

The initial contact made David and I became firm friends. He was perhaps 10 of 15 years older than me. He had sold his original farm to the Donkey Sanctuary and the proceeds had ensured him a life style of relative excellence, in a farming way that is. David had a huge workshop and he demonstrated all sorts of skills to me. Fixing tractors-often mine-creating and mending all sorts of farm implements and repairing anything that was metal wood and most things in between. It was industrial in its approach and scale.

The first time I met him outside of church I was driving down a muddy lane with Liz when herd of cows came into view running away down the lane. David, who had a badly eroded left hip, was giving chase roaring oaths at the feckless beasts. Seeing us he jumped on the running board of our landcover and ordered a chase. He was brandishing the biggest adjustable spanner I have ever seen and his oaths were surprisingly contemporary. Animal lovers would have winced at the direct approach of his herding techniques but soon the cows were heading back home. David beamed at me and offered thanks. The following night without invitation and without a knock he entered our kitchen and sat down. I offered him drink and he chose a whisky. For the next two hours and several more drinks he recalled us with stories of his life. The winter when the valley was snowed in, The horse that ran off without its rider and the man in the local pub-when it was a pub. The stories were delightful but over time we realised the list of them was relatively short. He would visit us from time to time, always no notice and always the same stories. If I said something like oh David nice to see you but we are about to eat he would take no notice at all. He would sit there until he was ready to go.

Anyway enough back ground the best thing about David was his sense of humour indeed I came to realise that East Devon farmers have a developed sense of humour that is honestly quite incredible.

I had, as I mentioned, a red Massey Ferguson 135 that I bought without any guidance. It had been refurbished repainted but I was soon to realise, not very well. David would willingly help me to replace hoses and things but he would also mock the vehicle and generally take the micky out of me for owning it.

Without any warning one Christmas day I was driving past the village hall with Liz Jo and Tom on the way to church for the Christmas service. As we passed the corrugated Iron former nissan hut I noticed a sign hanging outside by the roadside. It was quite large and hanging from a crossbar by sturdy chains was a board with a the signage neatly marked out. The wording was burned into the wood all very symmetrical and professional looking. I made an emergency stop as my subconscious brain read the message. ‘For Rent’ it said ‘One man and his tractor and trailer-any task taken on- £2 an hour!!’ underneath in the same branding was my telephone number. As I arrived at church a beaming face welcomed me, nothing said nothing ever admitted. My phone rang time and again over the next few days and I had to politely decline the offer of work.

I needed to get my own back and at some point David told me that he, like many farmers, was in bed by 9 pm. He would do a little reading before falling asleep. In the local Homebase I had seen a large torch which was capable of giving out 8 million candles of light. I bought it a plan hatched. One night around 9pm I drove up the road leading to his farm house. My daughter Jo was with me giggling and protesting at the same time. ‘You can’t do this dad’ followed by a burst of laughter. We stopped the land rover and I took aim at the upstairs bedroom which I recognised as the one with the light on inside. The light went out,I waited two minutes then turned on the mighty torch. It was just spectacular. Shortly the windowed opened and there was David in his pyjamas. The brightness of the light blinding him he sort of thrashed around with his arms in the night air. After several minutes listening to his shouts I reversed away keeping the light on until we were out of range. Nothing said when I next saw him, no comment, nothing.

The revenge was well planned and spectacular. It was probably a month or so later and we were having a dinner party. The dining room in The Rectory was superb and perhaps 12 or so were seated around the table. The room was dimly lit with candles. Suddenly the lighting scene was to change. A shaft off light so brilliant many ducked beneath the table filled the room. I looked out from another room and there at the bottom of my drive was a tractor. Obviously wired up to it was a series of auxiliary lights and by its side was the figure of a man with a pronounced limp, it was David. Again nothing was said although several months later I find some lights in his work shop. “What are these” I asked. “Oh” said he “I got them in an auction they came from a Harrier Jump jet, they can come in useful:!!

The tales went on over the years and as they did I learned of pranks played and received by his friends many of whom I got to know. Perhaps the most spectacular and ridiculous was when one of them got married. He had gone off on honeymoon and David and his pals decided to deconstruct the mans front porch, drive a tractor into the thing such that its wheels were well and truly under the frame of the original construction. They then rebuilt the porch around the tractor. When the man and his bride returned home they were confronted with a remarkable sight, a tractor impaled in the front of their house but neatly cocooned in brickwork. How on earth did anyone think that one out or indeed consider doing such a thing? David that is who.

I could write stories for hours suffice it to say my relationship with him and indeed one of his sons was joyous. I learned so much about things I had never ever considered. I realised how hard farmers work and crucially why Devon looks so good. It’s not just the land its what the farmers do to care for it. As in all things in life meeting and spending time with anyone from a different back ground is enriching and humbling at the same time. In this case it was also very funny.

Living in The Old Rectory in Northleigh was a joy. If you had told me as a little boy I would live in a ten bedroom house in 6 acres, or what ever it was, I would have laughed at you. If you had shown me pictures of the magnificent farmhouse kitchen with its black Aga or its beautiful siting room flanked by an orangery and overlooking a scene of rural bliss I would have blinked and rubbed my eyes expecting my dream to end. It was a special place but like all the good things in life it brought with it some negative experiences. The first was that because we lived in the biggest house in the village and easily the most beautiful, in and out, we became a focus of jealousy for those who had retired to the area expecting to be ‘King of The Castle’. Our easy going ways and openness were not what was expected. If I had donned a sports jacket smoked a pipe and grumbled at everyone I met I daresay most would have felt better about my position of privilege. However my rather casual approach to my attire my collection of exotic toys all served to alienate us from those in the village who believed that ‘impressing others’ was the name of the game. Now don’t get me wrong I lost little or no sleep over these people as Liz and I developed a quite extraordinary relationship with a couple who lived in the village and who could party at ‘world class’ levels. In addition they had loads of friends who would visit them all the time such that seldom was their house empty. This group of waifs and strays consisted of some of the wildest, funniest and caring people I have ever met. George and Angela made our time in Northleigh exceptional but no-one else who lived there had any idea of what was going on and what fun we had. I also developed a bond with the farming community. Difficult to understand why exactly but I did. I became great friends with a whole stack of them and I learned that humour,Devon farmer style, was a remarkable thing. I can feel some stories coming on.

The front of the Rectory was given over to a three acre paddock with post and rail fence. In it were one or two of Jo’s horses before she moved them up to Worcester. Liz would take care of the animals and I would enjoy watching them as I proceeded on my weekly task of mowing lawns verges and raking drives so the gravel looked smart. I had a small sit on mower and a Massy 135 tractor (a whole different story). In the summer it was a truly idyllic place to reside.

One day the horses became spooked by something and they started bronking round the paddock. One of them slid into the fence and dislodged the top rail. Call for Carpenter Colin! I arrived with my hammer and nails and a new rail. I proceeded to pull out the old nails to give me a clean surface to work with. One nail proved stubborn and I pulled hard on the claw on the hammer. At last out came the nail and unfortunately the hammer, released from its restraint, followed it and hit me square in the eyebrow. There was a moments pause, bit of shock I suppose, then I noticed a warm trickle of something down my face. I had well and truly slit my eyebrow. I approached the house baying like a lost donkey. ‘Liz’ ‘Liz’. She appeared and was horrified. There are lots of blood vessels around the eye and my face was a mask of the stuff. I was sweating too so the effect was all the more spectacular. Liz ran to the house and returned with bag of frozen peas that she insisted were to clamped to my face. A quick wipe down and off to the local hospital. A choice of ‘a trip to Exeter and a plastic surgeon or glue locally.’ I opted for glue. I was praised for my pea application as the wound whilst large was relatively un-swollen. The cut was superglued and I was sent on my way. My first ‘hammering’ experience, not many of those in the medical text books I bet.

It was probably five years later. It was the morning when we were about to leave for Sweden where I was to compete in my first Ironman race. I had trained for nearly two years and I was in decent shape. We were by now living in Sidmouth in our super contemporary house overlooking the sea. The contrast with The Old Rectory could not be more marked but once again I can tell you that Liz and I had come up trumps we had well and truly won the lottery.

For some reason over breakfast I announced to Liz that I needed to check the van out. I had never done this before or since to be honest. I checked the oil and window washer then I decided to do what all proper car enthusiasts do I checked the wheel bolts were secure!!! The first three wheels were all sound and indeed the brace I was using did not move as I yanked on it. The last wheel and nearly done. Was that some give? I yanked harder and the wheel brace twisted in my hand came off the wheel nut and headed for my eye-the other one to my first hammering for information. The result however was similar, Blood, lots of it. ‘Liz’ ‘Liz’ I shouted and she appeared shocked again. Out with the peas and off to the hospital agin. The same one of course Honiton by name. Almost the same speech, Exeter or Glue? Yes you know the drill by now. The doctor tending to my wound wrote up his notes then made a remarkable revelation. This is quite extraordinary he said it is 5 years to the day when you damaged your other eye!! ‘Take it easy’ he said “I will’ I said another story involving an Ironman swim with no visibility beckons.

Here is a question I have pondered over for hours. I am thinking about proper endurance sport here like really big challenges. You know marathon and up.

I have done a whole load of such events. London to Brighton race walk. 3 London Marathons, 2 New York Marathons, The Marathon du Mont Blanc, and a whole host of long distance cross country races. The Grizzly 5 times to name but one famous event. I have completed a huge number of long distance cycling events including the Milan St Remo Classic, all 190 miles of it and a mountain stage of the Tour De France. I have done a number of, long distance swims and of course there is the small matter of around a dozen Ironman 70.3s and 4 full Ironman races. I have of course completed thousands of miles in training for these events and a colossal amount of time too. But why?

As a younger man I was a good athlete. At primary school I received an English Schoolboys proficiency certificate one of only two in the area.I was my school cross country champion and Captain of Athletics. I won several events at the town sports but never really excelled. I was a good if not very good Rugby Player and I did play for the Harlequins first team on a few occasions. I took up cricket late but I was OK at that too representing Hertfordshire and Devon in the over 50s county competition. (not sure if that is good or not). However despite being almost hopeless at long distance events competitively somehow I was drawn towards them.

Picture if you will a group of 30 somethings pounding the Hertfordshire lanes training for a visit to New York to take part in the marathon race. All slightly overweight all gasping along at around 8 minute miles all feeling distinctly queasy about the task ahead. Picture an older man in a wetsuit slipping into the icy waters of Sidmouth day for yet another training swim. Cold, no visability and to be honest not a good swimmer. There he is stop watch ready to go, another 90 minutes of hell.

Picture the state of the art bike with carbon wheels and carbon everything costing the price of a small car yet on the bike a portly figure straining every sinew to get up a hill.

What I can honestly tell you is having a target to aim for in life is good. If only because when you wake in the night you have something to think about rather than ponder the universe. I can tell you that buying kit is good too. The more the merrier and if you can ‘out tech’ your mates you win a mysterious game. I suppose that training for a long distance event provides some discipline in life too. I must get my run in or I must do a long bike at the weekend.

Doing long distance events can be useful if you want to support a charity. If you ask someone for £50 for running along the promenade say you will be told to get real. But offer to run 26 miles up a mountain and rather than people telling you the truth and asserting your madness they will instead support you, often in a big way. I have personally raised a lot of money for charities and whilst I think this is good in the round it is honestly not the reason I have done so many daft things.

In the end I need to tell the ruth and it is this. I can honestly say I have never decided to do something really testing whilst sober. Early in my life one of my ‘advisors’ told me if you say you are going to do something in life you MUST carry it though. “Say is do” is one of my personal rules.

So the truth is somewhere in a bar or maybe on a plane my mind, contorted by the demon drink has come up with an idea. Running a marathon cruising at 35,000 feet with three glasses of Chardonnay on board seems like a really good idea! As I tend to drink with friends or family the ‘say is do’ phrase can be used to coerce others into taking part in events that most would consider way outside their comfort zones. Most of the marathons I did were in the company of people I ‘persuaded’ in a bar or similar and most had but one go at it. Almost alarmingly I persuaded a large number of people to take part in Ironman races for Gods sake. However that persuasion normally took place at a club barbecue or maybe the Christmas Party. ‘Dennis” someone would say ‘I am going to do an Ironman next year’ the Christmas party had many such utterances. ‘I will hold you to that’ said I, and I did.

The other thing I need to confess is this. If you are training for an Ironman race say you will probably need to do around 12 to 20 hours a week of exercise just to mentally prepare for the event. That is a lot but there is one advantage. You can eat and let’s be honest drink as much as you like and still remain relatively well honed. So the truth is out. I love beer. I always have. My best man Keith Bellingham asserted the world was a far far better place if two pints of best bitter were swimming around the system and he was right. I am probably the only person I know that thought it normal to have a ‘few’ before a race of any sort including Ironman races-to calm me down you understand.

So confession in full I entered the races because I had been on the sauce and all the training and preparation allowed me to keep my levels. Thing is my best mate is the same but apart from him I know of no-one else who admits to the same. Should I worry?

I was listening to a podcast recently by a man called Rich Roll, who interests me greatly. the subject was all-around how ‘life events’ do or do NOT affect your behaviour and life experience. His central thesis was that they don’t if you don’t allow them to. Many many people blame some event in the past on their relative paralysis re shaping their existence, failing to recognise that an extreme event often catalyses change and that making changes is, in all honesty, the only way any one individual can move forward in life.

Now I do not want to offend anyone here so it could be I am wholly wrong. One of my chat up lines as younger man was ‘I am deeply scarred by my cat getting run over by a milk float’. It gained me a certain amount of sympathy I seem to remember but most people could not give a stuff what has happened to anyone else in their life so my best personal advice regarding this subject is Yes deal with what happened. If you were wronged then so be it but instead of lining up all the terrible repercussions the event could be blamed for instead line up the good things that have happened as a consequence and get on with your life. Being a slave to some historical event is, considering the universe, a complete waste of time and energy. Oh and it stops you making good choices.

My life as a child as I have reported was unhappy. May parents were not suited to each other. I was abused at school. Not sexually abused but such was the way of the day I was smacked and beaten. Often for no other good reason that I was highly talented and ‘needed taking down a peg or two’. The teachers who would celebrate my acting talent to the visiting town mayor or some school inspector would arrange to have me publicly thrashed as the result of some minor misdemeanour. The whole idea was that the child in question would break down and cry and in doing so have their will broken I suppose. I never ever cried despite the back of my legs being mercilessly thrashed and I would always look the perpetrator of the crime fully in the eyes. Horrible yes. I could blame this outrageous behaviour and the deep shame and sadness it provoked in me and yes the anger too. Yes of course I could but I chose to take from it a will never to have any one do me down unfairly. I have always stuck up for the under dog and I don’t give in easily either. When things got difficult at work, and they did, I would turn on the ‘determination button’ face the adversity and guess what I normally came through. No surprise then that in my sixties I managed to drag my ageing body around Ironman courses and in doing so give myself some of the best memories of my life. Turn adversity into positivity I think is the message.

For some reason as a younger man I attracted all sorts of men who became advisors. I won’t describe them now but out of gratitude I will list them. Tiger Smith, John Gwilliam, George Robinson, Harry Hoatsen, Brian Norman, Bill Howard, Mike Reader, Roy Keeble, John Wolfenden. Amongst this lot was Monty’s right hand man at Alamein, The Captain of Wales Rugby Team and another who was British Lion no less. This is not a full list either and maybe it explains my relative success in life as I was always open to advise. My Dad had found it nearly impossible to give me any.

The main message remarkably that ALL of these people gave me was almost EXACTLY the same. “Take responsibility for your own actions, never blame others and if the going in life becomes uncomfortable or not what you planned never ever just carry on hoping something will come right.” Change it. !!

I can recall exact conversations on this subject with all these people. It is how I left Liverpool, how I changed jobs, how I decided that having met a wonderful woman I would do everything in my power to create a wonderful life for her. If that included taking risks then so be it. But what exactly are risks?.

I used to work with a man who ran the ‘Risk desk’ at UBS New York. he was American and a boffin who had copious degrees with a mathematic bias. His role was to plan for ‘unforeseen events’. On good days in the stock.-market he would tuck away options in non correlating assets. To explain he might buy ‘out of the money’ call options on gold when the market was roaring and no-one wanted gold. Every day he would spend a relatively small amount of money on ‘some unlikely event’. Now guess what happened when the ‘wheels came off ‘ and the market crashed or maybe had a sudden meteoric rise all these assets he had accumulated would obviously appreciate massively. The inevitable losses on the front line trading books that occurred courtesy of an unforeseen event, would be offset by this activity. I was fascinated by the man and he loved giving me talks on his skills-no one else was interested. I remember him once telling me that in the unlikely event I wanted to cross a busy motorway it would, contrary to my obvious assumptions, be a low risk thing to do. You would be really on your guard and your decision to cross would wait for a decent gap in the traffic and you would probably wear some bright clothing or wave a flag. As such the actual chance of being hit by a car was very low. Now contrast that with the risk riding a bike down the road or, I may add, crossing Sidmouth High Street.

If you are still with me and ‘get this’ you will see that most people see risk to be high when in fact it isn’t and vice versa. Flying on a plane (by far the safest way of getting about) makes people nervous you but don’t hear people saying I’m afraid of cars being driven badly do you? I could go on but in The Stock Exchange for instance if you wait until The BBC chooses to record a major move-Stockmarket crash on this or that news or Markets reach record highs driven by this or that-and then do the opposite to what is happening- buy shares or sell the ones you have-you will make an absolute shed load of money. Just think about that, it is so simple and so true it is almost alarming.

Likewise if a company ‘head hunts’ you and you like the people who are offering your job and you have done all the right homework, how is it a big risk to go somewhere where you are ‘wanted’ ?Because they will have researched your skills and will appreciate your potential. The move will allow you can reinvent yourself and get rid of those bad habits you know you have, we all have. It is this ‘risk aversion’ coupled with ‘events that happened in the past’ that are the bane of many peoples life in my opinion. It is why people are not fulfilled, why they feel dissatisfied and frustrated and why so many people do things that make no sense at all in order to deal with their frustration.

Depression is, in my experience, caused by internalising anger directed at some experience or person you have encountered in life. Internalising that anger is a very destructive force. The best thing in my opinion is to recognise that the reason you feel bad is probably not some chemical imbalance in your cortex but more likely a totally reasonable response to something bad, it may well have come out of wholly good intentions by the way. Yes look at it, take responsibility for your own actions then change something. You will be delighted you do I am sure. I moved to London from Liverpool, I changed jobs many times, I moved houses, I took risks in many peoples eye’s but were they really risks?. Liz and I have bought and done up countless houses. ‘That is a big risk’ some would say ‘I would not take that on’. But guess what waving a paint brush or stylishly furnishing a house allows others to see the potential and frankly that usually presents a profit. Was moving to the USA a risk, of course it wasn’t as it gave me a CV that would open many doors apart from the life style experiences it granted me. Was buying shares when the market was in meltdown over Corona virus a risk. Many if not most ‘experts’ thought it was at the time but The BBC persuaded me via its ‘bulletin of gloom’ that careful selection of ‘great companies’ at ‘give away prices’ was a once in a decade experience. I will not go on.

The point I am trying to make is simply this. Everything that happens in anyone’s life is down to them and the choices they make. Don’t make choices and nothing interesting happens. This may sound arrogant but look at some of your friends who ever you are, if not your self. The ‘watchers’ in life make no choices -they let life go by. A choice to them may be a TV programme or a meal but that is it. ‘The do-ers’ ‘the risk takers’ they are the ones in the ‘Arena of life and as the saying goes- ‘better to fail greatly etc….” Not being arrogant here but please do think about it.

Do not under any circumstances blame others for your own errors or mistakes in life. If things are not going the way you planned or wished them own up to the mistake. Maybe apologise if you have caused offence and you are to blame but then DO SOMETHING. Make a change and don’t tell your self that the risk is too big because it almost certainly is completely the opposite to what you think. Just maybe the change you make will uncover experience and joys that you hardly knew existed. That has been my experience anyway.

Looking at my subscriber list, those I know anyway, may take exception to this piece. ‘It’s alright for you’ might summarise their thoughts. If I offend you sorry but heh consider my words anyway because maybe its not too late just maybe there is something out there you are dyeing to try and the fear of it being ‘too risky’ is holding you back. Just maybe that perceived risk is the wrong way round.

Good luck.

I have many flying stories to recount. I have a love/hate relationship with flying which I cannot fully explain. I have flown a lot, especially in my business life, but I still always feel a bit of fear when I board a plane. Or is it excitement?.

I recently wrote of how I became a First Vice President of UBS and how that rank meant I had to fly First Class. You won’t believe this but I did actually try and down-grade my privilege to be in line with my colleagues at UBS Phillips and Drew later to becomeUBS securities.But no I was employed in New York and as such I must ‘abide by the rules !!!’

It was all good fun to be honest as I was upgraded in my hotels too. I would often come over to London to meet clients and give talks on what was happening in the USA Investment scene. I would double this with some business meeting and planning and maybe a night out with an old client.-Never mind maybe, always.

It was 6:45 on a Thursday evening when I walked up to the BA first Class check in at Heathrow airport. Security very different then. The Check in was in fact close to the gate. I had my Lark carry -on luggage over my shoulder and a broad smile on my face. I was looking forward to a relaxed flight and I had taken the following day off work so I planned to ‘enjoy myself’ courtesy of the best BA First Class could offer at the time-it was very good.

I handed over my ticket and smiled at the woman behind the desk. Tap tap tap on the keys and the following remarkable question. “I can offer you a quicker trip across the Atlantic Mr Elliott tonight, would you like to fly on Concord?” Err yes please was my instant reply. I took my ticked and followed the signs to the nearby Concord lounge. A new level of luxury. I did not have time to take advantage of the facilities as the flight was boarding. I recognised one or two faces of business leaders and probably a film star but I am not very good at recognising those sort of people. The first thing I noticed was that nearly every male traveller had a similar variation of my Lark carry-on bag. Also the dozen or so women on the flight all wore magnificent mink coats. Yes back in the day the fact was that American business women’s coat of choice was always a fur. As a Vegan now I shudder but to be honest the average woman looks amazing in a fur coat for reasons I cannot explain.

Two cabins on Concord. I was in the front one and soon I was on board. The Bags and coats, all hung up in the small wardrobe either side of the front door-how on earth would I know which was mine? The cabin itself smaller than I had expected and the seats whilst comfortable were also small and made of grey leather. You could see right through to where the two pilots and flight engineer sat. Indeed the two loos were immediately to the rear of this arrangement such that a visit enabled a close up of the crew at work.

I took my seat and the plane pushed back on the dot of 7pm. The Captain began his briefing. He forecast a ‘sporty takeoff’ a rapid climb before, after 22 seconds, I see to remember, the ‘afterburners’ would be turned off causing a sudden deceleration. After 2 minutes 50 seconds (not sure really but sounds right) The ‘after burners’ would be re-engaged and the plane would climb rapidly to its cruising altitude of 55 thousand feet passing though the sound barrier ( we would feely slight vibration) on its way.

The first thing I noticed was our plane went way faster than a Jumbo around the Heathrows apron. As the flagship of BA it had priority over other aircraft, so no waiting in line. We sped past a whole line of waiting aircraft. You could see passengers on board of these planes looking down at us.

There is a BP petrol station next to Heathrow on one of the perimeter roads and for some reason, back in the day, this petrol station attracted a whole crowd of onlookers. The roar of the Concord’s engines grabbed their attention and cameras and binoculars were pointed in our direction. I had a window seat and I must admit as I sat there floods of tears came down my cheeks. I thought of my Mum and all she had done for me and tried to do for me. I thought of the little boy who had been so unhappy on occasion and so scared when he had started work in the City of London. I thought of how my life had evolved and how lucky I was and I mouthed a word of thanks to anyone who might be listening.

Ladies and Gentlemen prepare for take off was the order in a crisp RAF sort of way. The engine noise was amazing. The brakes held then suddenly let go, the beautiful bird was on its way. Swirls of condensation flowed over the delta wings and then suddenly we were airborne and more than that we had climbed rapidly. The after burners cut out and then I became aware of the large electronic sign at the front of the cabin. The speed and altitude of the plane in a sort of blue green light. I did not know exactly what the speed of sound was but when we went through it we were told and the plane continued to climb and accelerate. The window became hot to touch as the friction of the thin air passed by and soon we were looking down on the earth from on high. The clouds looked different somehow. There was no turbulence as in a conventional airliner but occasionally we experienced a sort of vibration.

Most travellers looked bored. The drink trolley quickly arrived and the two attendants dispensed top of the line aperitifs, champagne and the rest to those who wanted them. Most, probably regular business travellers, chose water and opened briefcases and started to work. Not me. The menu card was a work of art in its own right and soon the excellent drinks service was supplemented by food. Really complicated ‘fine dining stuff’. Again most either had nothing or maybe some cheese and biscuits. I thanked the aircrew effusively, which would appear to be unusual, and they all treated me like Royalty. The moment my wine dipped a sip it would be replenished. Oh what fun.

I did have a pee too. At twice the speed of sound I seem to remember. Silly not to. Finally we descended into New Your City. A quicker than usual passage through immigration and out side a complimentary BA limo was waiting. (at the time Virgin had started the fashion of offering the perk of free limo service to and from the airport, BA were forced to follow.) The driver asked me where had I come from. I spared him the details but as I sped uptake I-95 towards my home in Riverside Connecticut I felt hugely blessed. At 6 40 pm I walked into our lovely kitchen. My two lovely children were still about and I got one of those special welcomes. Liz was surprised to see me and she said ‘I thought you would be home much later’. Then she saw it, hanging from my car on bag was the white and red label of a special club. Concord. I gave her the silver gift I had been given and poured out my story. (on each Concord flight a silver gift was given out, this time I think it was a propelling pencil).

The truly remarkable thing was this I was back home in Connecticut before I had left London-work that one out!!

Now Courtesy of a few things, the Concord service being very expensive BA was struggling to fill the planes. As a result First Class passengers, especially frequent fliers like me, would often be upgraded and I was. Also at one time a special deal was offered whereby for the sum of $250 dollars you could upgrade your self if you did so in advance. As a result I flew Concord on a number of occasions. When Liz and I returned to the UK we had a few problems selling our house so we had to go over to sort out some paper work with a lawyer. We left the children back in the UK and went over for two days. The sale went through and in order to celebrate all things America I booked two tickets on Concord. I did not tell Liz but watched as she tried to work out why we were going to the airport at the time we were and what time did that mean we would get back to London. She was reasonably confused. The Limo drew up outside JFK at the red carpet that marked the beginning The Concord experience. “you are kidding me” she said. I wasn’t. That flight took 3 hours 13 minutes to cross the Atlantic and at the time was one of the fastest ever as the pilot gained permission to over fly some British Defence land so as to allow the late running plane to get into Heathrow within its curfew limit. (Noise and all that). Amazingly in the many times I flew the Atlantic this trip was the only time I had ever been searched at customs. We were both searched. Maybe that label on two ‘fairly relaxed’ people encouraged a little bit of jelousy in the custom officers. I could hardly blame them.

Concord of course was to be taken out of service due to safety issues and its inability to generate adequate returns. It was a huge pity as nothing said more about Great Briton that that magnificent symbol of engineering. Watching it flying over London many times the noise of the engines would cause hundreds of thousands of people to look heavenward. Each time I watched it my heart would leap as I had been on it. Sometimes I would tell people who were with me and most would look at me disdainfully and say something like “As If”!!

Now from the outset I almost feel guilty at writing this piece down. In todays world it would be considered outrageous. At the time I think if cross examined I would have pleaded ‘guilty”.

In the last piece I reported on my good friend and client HansPeter Ackerman and the huge amount of business he gave me. Of course I cannot accurately remember the numbers involved but I do remember my own personal benchmark for a ‘good day’ was taking $10,000 in commission for the firm. Hanspeter would often make mine a very good day two or thee times over himself as business poured in. I do not know if this was down to our own excellent relationship, my own ability to identify successful investments, Swiss reciprocity or the sheer incompetence of others- I will never know.

Anyway the aforementioned Paul Neild called me one day and offered the following order. ‘You must take Hans Peter for a special night out. Don’t worry about the cost send the bill straight to me to be signed” This was so unlike Phillips and Drew of old I was shocked.

Because I was a First Vive President of UBS I also had a secretary. Cant remember her name but she was an absolute delight. I never had anything for her to do aside from arranging my travel itinerary. She was happy to help all the boys and girls in the team as a sort of universal PA. She seemed happy and it stopped me feeling guilty that I was not giving her meaningful work. I remember clearly she was of Italian origins. Her dad was marble mason who she told me only spoke Italian at home and he also was an excellent cook who would sing opera as he prepared the family meal. Not relevant to this tale but interesting in the round.

Any way I gave her the job of organising a ‘special night out with Hans Peter Ackerman’ within reason ‘no limit as to cost’. She liased with the boys on the trading desk who came up with the following. It was truly outrageous.

Hanspeter was picked up by a stretch Limo from his offices at around 5 30 and he was driven to mid town where I worked where the car picked me up. We were driven to a Russian bar and restaurant that was famous in the day. Russia back then still had some exotic overtones. We drank several shots of expensive vodka and munched on some caviar. Back to the car and down to the mid town sea port. There waiting for us a was sea plane. It looked past its best to be honest it was dark maroon with yellow stripe. We got in strapped up and were give headsets. The pilot asked us if we wanted to take off under or over the 59the street bridge!!! We taxied out and the thing roared into life. Despite the vodka my panic buttons were pushed firmly on as the bridge approached. I can remember whether it was under or over to be honest but soon we were airborne flying around manhattan. The plane pitched and yawed as the event eddies of hot air circulated from the ground below. We went down to the end of Manhattan and flew past and below Hanspeters office. Eventually, and we were both very glad, the plane touched down back near the upper East Side and we were back in the limo.

Dinner was at 7:30 I seem to remember in some restaurant that had every award going. We ate and drank well. Very well in the latter category before going to a local ‘normal’ bar where we by this time were gurgling to each other. Anticipating a late night I had agreed with Liz that I should stay in the City for the night but my secretary had excelled herself by booking me in a hotel over looking Central Park. Somehow she had convinced the booking clerk that I was ‘important’ as I was actually given the Presidential suite. I will not bore you now with other stories but this was not he last time I enjoyed the best room (in this case ‘rooms’) in the house. The Presidential Suite is seldom rented out and if you ask in the right way-this person is visiting New York looking for a Hotel in which we can use as our regular American base etc..- then you can often get to be ‘upgraded’. I woke confused in the morning with my clothes littered around the several bedrooms and bathrooms as my altered state of mind the previous evening had seen great humour in ‘enjoying the facilities to the full’. I felt absolutely awful and went into the office. A few days later all the various invoices appeared and the total cost was probably akin to a ‘very good day of my work’. I sent the bills to Dr Neild who signed off without any comment-phew. A few days later Hanspeter and I were out for a few beers and burger and we both paid our own way. Nice idea Dr Neild but probably not necessary but what a night!

Back in the early 1980s I was employed by a firm called Phillips and Drew. They were one of the top 2 or three stockbroking firms in the City of London. Far from being an ‘Establishment’ firm their employees had backgrounds in redbrick universities and regional accents dominated. The Chief Economist who later became the overall head of the organisation was the face of the firm. He came from Blackburn Lancashire. He had a sing song voice and a delightful cackle for a laugh. He would appear on the TV at least once a week offering a view on economic developments or news. He would sit on TV panels appraising the budget and he was, to all intents and purposes, the voice-piece of the City of London to the population at large. I liked him a lot.

Around this time the London Financial scene became deregulated-Big Bang as it was termed.The various broking and jobbing firms were put up for sale and the partners of these companies became millionaires and in some cases multi millionaires overnight. The buyers came from all over the world but The Americans led the charge. Some were to disappear in relatively short time as they realised that their dollars had been misspent but some are part of the success that London became as a Financial centre.

Sec Pac, Citi Bank, JP Morgan various French Banks and many more had cemented their marriage but what of my firm, rumours circulated. To everyones surprise our suitor was The Union Bank Of Switzerland. A mysterious behemoth whose interest was a complete surprise.

The UBS accounts of the day could best be described as opaque. A huge and I mean huge amount of capital-cant quite remember but I recall that we were told it was the best capitalised bank in the world. It was only one of two or three ‘treble A rated’ banks at the time which was ‘very good’! Its activities included a branch system in its native country, and asset management business with little or no detail, and a variety of acquired assets in the US, non of them top drawer and appearing random in their collective strategy.

Of course we tried to find out more and one man told an interesting tale. I cannot verify it but looking back and knowing what I know now it made huge sense. It reaches to the heart of Switzerland itself its history and its economic prowess.

This is not a history lesson it is a gathering of anecdotal information if any of the facts are untrue the collective story is not. Switzerland is a land locked country surrounded by mountains. It is made up of several self managed Cantons and its population numbers around 7 million. For a long time it has been seen as safe harbour for money. Its economy, based upon its financial activity is super robust and as a result its currency, over time, has appreciated against the debt laden alternatives. Little has been written but during the second world war it has been reported that Switzerland became the recipient of billions and billions of dollars or anything else for that matter as it was neutral in the wars. Wealthy Germans (Nazi money) French and of course The Jewish people came across the borders their vehicles loaded with bank notes. The coffers of the banks swelled the currency appreciated and the whole thing became a self fulfilling circle of money creation. The Swiss had no time for transparency and accountability instead the Swiss banking Laws we’re all about secrecy and security. Make a hundred million dollars by dealing in drugs say and pop it into a Swiss bank. The bank would charge you for the privilege as interest rates were for the ‘non Swiss’ to offer. Go back in ten years time and your money would be safe but it would also have appreciated against your home currency as the Swiss Franc would have gone up. Better still the dirty money would be clean and your Swiss Cheque book would even be seen as a sign of respectability. Again what’s fact here and what is fiction does not matter the truth is at the heart what I write. UBS was of course a quoted company but the shares mainly held by The Swiss themselves at the time. It was seen as cast iron and a bastion of quality. However the American Investors were coming and they asked questions. Awkward ones for the Swiss. How come you have this huge amount of capital but your returns are so low. What do you actually do? Well I can tell you that their asset management dominated the Swiss Stock Market. The ‘secrecy law’ seemed to stretch only so far and all my experience was the the UBS was remarkably well informed about the other major Swiss industrial firms. Maybe telling each other what was going on qualifies as part of secrecy! UBS dominated activity on the domestic Stock Exchange and here is the first ‘fact’ that would boggle the mind of any conventional or reputable investor. I was told this fact by an executive of the bank. He told it to me with pride. Apparently the major source of UBS ‘profits’ in the 1980s was trading in its ‘own’ shares. The CEO had responsibility for okaying the process. Armed with all the information it needed from its own accounts the Bank would position itself in its own asset. An optimistic statement would cause the share to rise a pessimistic one to fall and guess what, the bank was positioned to take benefit. Not illegal in Switzerland at the time this mind blowing approach to its activities and the huge profits it generated were but part of the web of dubious activities and operations. Again not illegal in Switzerland but frowned on, if indeed anyone understood what was happening in the rest of the world.

UBS paid up for Phillips and Drew. The final amount never published of course (a secret) The partners of Phillips and Drew basked in their new found wealth. More junior members of the firm like me, dreamed of paying off their mortgage but few recognised that the money paid and subsequent millions poured down the drain were but pocket money to the men of Zurich.

At the time I was working in New York for Phillips and Drew. Our business was taking off and I was loving life. I was jetting around the USA meeting new clients and feeding a rapidly growing appetite for International Investing. I was singe handedly generating as much commission a the whole London Equity operation and I was something of a celebrity when I made my frequent transatlantic visits to London. Paul Neil had taken over running the London operation and we got on well. He had no idea what I and our Office were actually up to but our profits were sensational and life was good.

A cloud appeared on the horizon as our New York Law firm informed us that the SEC had contacted them with the news that UBS, who had a New York Fledgling operation itself, could not buy Phillips and Drew International due to a historical securities law. Glass Steigl by name or similar. There was no choice but to shut down Phillips and Drew International. All of us including my colleague and later to become well know city figure Sir Hector Sants would have to return to London. What would happen? Weeks of worry and concern. The law firm came up with a solution. Most of the Phillips and Drew employees would have to return to London. A very small number would be interviewed by UBS and employed directly by them and become a new division of the bank. So picture this Phillips and Drew whose offices were in a super smart pencil block all modern fittings and style and a group of highly motivated hand picked people working well and flourishing with me in all truth leading the charge. I went for my ‘interview’ at UBS. In a prominent position on Park Avenue a few blocks from Grand Central Station and next to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel was the West Vaco building. Black, unfriendly looking and imposing. The ground floor lobby showed a round 30 floors of the building as being the activities of UBS. My appointment was in the 34the floor. The elevator stopped at the wrong floor and as the doors opened I saw to my surprise a huge floor full of desks but ALL were empty. I was to meet the COO of the bank for my interview it was a bizarre affair. He had flown in from Zurich that day I later learned. I cannot remember his name but there he stood in a drab suit and brown shoes (never ever brown shoes-an old London Stock Exchange rule) There I was immaculately dressed in my tailored suit, finest cotton shirt gold cuff links and a Hermes tie. I am told I was a very outgoing person then very good at making people feel relaxed and very personable. I reached forward’s and grabbed the mans sweaty palm, he was very nervous. Of course looking back I can see that UBS were keen to get good feedback from their first contact with a Phillips and Drew employee particularly as this was in all truth a ‘star’ employee. He took me into a luxurious board room and proceeded to blurt out his own CV. I am the Chief of the Transport Staff of the Swiss Army he said. I report directly to Herr Studer in this role who you will know is the General in charge of the Swiss army. I knew the man not but in my mind he was the CEO of UBS. The man told me of all his responsibilities in the army and how important he was. I was amazed but remained polite. After about half an hour of stories of his achievements and his inside track to the leader he leaned across the table and offered me a package. ‘Please consider this Mr Elliott’. ‘Its Dennis’ I said. Call me in Switzerland when you have made a decision please Mr Elliott. The ‘interview’ was over.

Now I was soon to discover that The UBS was run on similar lines to the Swiss military. Senior in the Army senior in the Bank. Elite in the Army in say the nationally revered Mountain troop division and the likelihood was a cushy post in charge of some asset management division would be yours. At the time It made little or no sense but looking back it makes sense of everything I saw and at the time did not understand. Now most strange of all was the fact that rank was not determined by your ability to generate profit say or your ability to produce learned research or similar. It was purely down to how many people reported to you!! The letter I was given set out that my rank, if I were to accept the offer of a job, would be as First Vice President. Now from memory you needed to have 125 people ‘reporting to you to achieve this ‘rank’. I was offered this rank as a ‘special case’ and also to recognise that the International Securities division, which I was to head, would likely grow significantly over the coming years. Of course having a senior sounding rank in the USA was wholly necessary but I doubt very mush this was part of Swiss thinking. In addition I was informed I would take charge of no less than 14 Swiss individual who were at the time operating in New York offering services to US Institutions in buying and selling Swiss shares. Jumping forward all I will say about this lot was they were a collective nightmare. Contrary to the rules they would gabble away to each other in Swiss German. The were obviously talking about me. They were in all honesty collectively useless but over time I did warm to one or two of them and through them I gained an uncanny insight into the true workings of the bank. With a whole load of trepidation I accepted the offer of the job. I loved working in New York, I was offered a health pay rise and I was told I would have support to build the leading International Securities operation in the USA. I was asked to fly to Zurich to sign my contract and meet the top management.

The first perk being First Vice president of UBS was to discover I was booked to fly First Class. I was to stay in Zurich and my room was magnificent in a hotel overlooking the lake. I was in a slightly amused state as I approached Barnhoffe Strasse on an Autumn late morning where I was to have lunch with Herr Studer who was head of the Swiss army and oh yes the Bank too. The Transport Officer(COO) was there too and man called Rudi Mueller who amazingly became a Knight of The Realm many years later. He was the head of Securities world wide and he was to be my new overall boss. I could write a book on this man but I will just say he was a bully. We had ‘interesting’ relationship over the years and rather like on this first meeting he was someone who was always very uncomfortable in my presence. The reason for this was, I suspect, he knew next to nothing about how the securities world worked outside of Switzerland and how the rules of business operated without the military over ride or laws of ‘reciprocity’. (Astoundingly back in the day and maybe still now the greater good of Switzerland was considered in all things business and the unwritten law was I help you and therefore you MUST help me).

The lunch was interesting. I had to listen to a review of the weekends military operations. At times the bastards would break into Swiss German. They knew absolutely nothing about what I did so their questions are either broad based or else quite frankly ridiculous. I was polite and made them laugh once or twice. The food came on plate, it was like apiece of art. The wine was some Switzerlands finest I was told. I did not like but but made polite noises. In the embarrassment of the occasion I ate my meal quickly, there was hardly anything of it any way. Noticing, Herr Studer insisted I had more and all politely requested the same. The new plates were exactly the same in layout as the first to the minutest of detail.

The lunch over I headed out and back to New York the saga had begun. Now as it happened one of my largest clients in New York was in fact UBS’s key rival SBC (the Swiss Banking Corporation) less military than UBS it ws again absolutely huge in terms of its capital base. It had a dummy Fund Management operation in New York headed up by a man called Marcus Ospel. His direct employee was a man called HansPeter Ackerman. Hanspeter ran a fund of which was in fact a Model pension fund for US clients who were seeking to diversify a part of their portfolios away from America into the rest of the world. As a dummy portfolio it had no real clients at the time and the fund was seeded by the bank itself. The idea was to build up a track record then over time , if the performance was good, market it to actual investors in the US. Performance was the key to their potential success and Hanspeter was a delightful Swiss man who had been handpicked and sent to New York. As recorded elsewhere his offices were on the 101st floor World Trade Centre Number 1.

Now I got on very well with Hanspeter and I learned a lot about Switzerland from him. Suffice it to sat he described himself as a second generation Jew and he revealed that a lot of money in Switzerland had Jewish routes and surprise surprise a lot of the people too. He was married to a New York `Jewish woman called Hilary who worked for Goldman Sachs. We got on very well. He, a Swiss would take the pee out of his rival bank. We would go on Ski trips together at the weekends and we generally became firm friends. I worked hard at giving him by best recommendations and soon he was giving my firm large amounts of business. Unusual for a pension fund he created a lot of activity as he made short term decisions geared to enhance the performance of the fund. He did well and as he did more and more business came my way. I got to know his boss Marcus Ospell. He was an awkward man but Hanspeter told me he was a very intelligent man and he was always friendly to me. He actually played one of the biggest pranks on me ever. But I will save that for another time.

Anyway life at UBS moved forward. I had a magnificent office of mega proportions overlooking the Waldorf Atoria Hotel. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this office ws the fact that in the winter it had a birds eye view of the hotel opposite. People would book in and arrive at their rooms and turn on he lights. Assuming the net curtains afforded privacy they would go about their business. Now the thing is that net curtains with a light behind them offer no privacy at all-check it out. I had a muti screen tv show on some truly shocking human activities. I will reveal details for a fee!! My division grew as I hired people but I will leave a whole host of stories about that so as to keep to the point. The man who was overall uncharge of New York did not have a clue. He had a dubious degree from a second rate US university seemingly his only claim to fame. He was terrified of me as he had no clue what I was doing and he would ask me stupid questions and nitpick on some subject or other. The local Swiss were driving me mad but thankfully I was hiring some superb Americans many of whom were to form the centre of some special stories I may relate at a later date.

The first thing I noticed about senior Swiss management, apart from the fact the their rank in the army was way more important than their knowledge of banking was they took a lot of holiday. The CEO, Studer, would release his plans to the banks ‘management in the first week of January. He took around 8 weeks I seem to remember. The second in command then listed his plans so as not to coincide with ‘the boss’ and so on. In truth it had some merit as it meant they all had something to look forward to. The life work balance and all that but again I was soon to discover that most of them did very little. Banking hours are strictly adhered to. At 4 :30 as soon as the New York Stock Exchange closed my Swiss ‘Friends’ would all down tools and head off home. I complained to my local aforementioned Swiss ‘boss’ about that and he could see nothing wrong so I gave in. The Swiss would go home early and by the way they started late too arriving en masse at 9:30, curiously never late, reporting on the magnificent breakfast they had enjoyed in the staff canteen. Another feature of Swiss life was the actual working conditions were 5 star. The canteen was amazing and all the office furniture was of the highest quality and the walls are adorned with fine art.

Now the thing was that all the senior management took part of their holiday in the US. They would fly in with their families (I am guessing courtesy of the UBS paying for their flights). They would stage some meetings in our office in order to create the illusion of actually doing something. Of course my local New York Swiss team was an obvious place to stage a meeting. There would be lots of these meetings and I got to meet most of the senior management of the bank. Always the same introduction I am in this or that division of the army!! Always an interest in Swiss share prices i later learned why. Insider dealing as such was not illegal in Switzerland. reciprocity and ‘secrecy’ was the lifeblood of the whole thing. The domestic stock and share business was dominated by the UBS and their clients ‘often from around the word and probably or possibly funded by nefarious activities were probably;y or possibly washing their currency. The Head of Swiss research I will not name but his job was to change recommendations on Swiss shares. Changing Hoffman la Roche to a buy say, probably doing so on ‘very reliable information’ would mean that the various fund managers around Switzerland and other places where UBS had offices, changing their client portfolios and buying some Roche shares. The volumes generated by this activities as UBS was by a mile the largest operator was that inevitably the shares would rise. However it was not as simple or even as pure as that. The Head of research would before changing his recommendation make a purchase himself. Amazingly it was not illegal. This was his perk of the job. (He retired very early very rich and no wonder). Having bought himself some he would tell his closest contacts and wishing to create favour, he would call the various senior management figures all of whom became beholding to him to suggest they make a purchase too. The bank itself would allegedly load up too the word would get out amongst the ‘boys and girls’ and many would ‘invest their savings’ including most of my “gang” in New York. Then guess what the following week a research note would be published in all its glossy glory. Well written and using all the normal metrics. The financial papers would trumpet that ‘UBS turns buyer of Hoffman LA Roche’ and the shares would appreciate. This activity was I repeat totally legal under Swiss law at the time as far as I can gather but when I discovered the depth of activity coupled with the goings on in the UBS share price itself I realised that UBS far from being an elite high quality institution was something else. I will leave you to decide exactly what it was.

In my time in New York with perhaps only a hand full of exceptions I met no-one in senior management of UBS who was anything more that downright useless. UBS hired hundreds of people in New York to grow its business and the floors slowly filled. All I can say is that very very few of them were of any quality.

One day in New York I was invited to a dinner hosted by Herr Studer, the CEO, in order to introduce a ring star in the organisation Mathis Cabialavetta. He was later to become bank CEO. This man came from one of the Italian Swiss Cantons I seem to remember. He was extremely athletic looking and the first thing I was told about him was he was s senior officer n the Swiss elite army division The Swiss Mountain troops or similar. Now what I recall is that these folk were and probably are the best athletes in an athletic army. The best skiers of course but also they got around on bikes. Not modern carbon bikes but really heavy old fashioned ones. Apparently Mathis was famed for his climbing feats on these bikes and he was universally acclaimed as a man who liked to support others no more so that cranking his metal steed up hill. In Swiss eyes a hero of course. He was very touch feely and he spoke with a machine gun speed. He spoke excellent English his education in a polytechnic equivalent in Canada later learned but the speed of his speech was such that you could scarcely take in what he was saying. A US journalist, probably fairly described him, as someone who spoke faster that he could think!! Anyway Liz was seated next to him as some sort of honour to her in a curious setting of senior New York Managers meeting this man in the company of many of the senior Swiss. Excruciating is the only way to describe the affair. I was seated next to the US Presidents wife who was just terrified and the only thing I could get her to talk about was her love of crochet and dolls. Cabilaveta sounded off bewildering everyone and the looks on some of the wives of my senior US colleagues was something to behold. The Head of Corporate Finance was a good mate of mine, he came from Califiornis and we lived near each other. He was quite open to me that he considered UBS to be a band of, well I better not say it, but as long as he was being paid the shed loads he was he was happy to keep quiet. His wife was an urbane Wall Street lawyer presumably dragged to the dinner by her spouse. We shared a car home and her observations on the gathering were perceptive and downright withering. Just imagine successful American well educated business women meets a load of chauvinistic childish Swiss ….. dressed up in suits!!

In time Cabailavetta took the top seat and he announced to those who could keep up a new strategy for the bank. I was back in London by this time as our London Office had been caught up in a huge fraud in which a company called Blue Arrow had issued a rights issue to fund future expansion. This issue had, due to market conditions, failed. The company itself was decidedly dodgy and the fact that senior UBS management sanctioned the activity was alarming enough. Unfortunately instead of admitting their mistake the shares were spread around existing clients of UBS and in the end around 25% I seem to remember ended up being put a way in ‘safe places.’ All highly illegal under US and Uk security laws. Not surprisingly looking back The Swiss saw no problem in it, that is until the proverbial hit the fan. People were arrested and I was brought bask from New York to head up the client facing business of the Equity division in the UK. In short my job was to head up the UK sales operation and progressively apologise to our clients, most of whom had put us on the ‘ban list’. All I will say about this is I did a magnificent job. In the four years I was in charge we became the number one firm in the UK. I got little or no credit for all my work as some distracting events took place which are not for now. Cabailavetta at the same time had big plans being to get an adequate return on the banks asset base. Look out!

Now UBS was over time being scrutinised by investors. Many of them very sophisticated. It was one of few treble A rated bank because it had so much capital. The thing was its activities produced inadequate returns on that capital and questions were asked -progressively louder questions. When UBS had bought Phillips and Drew the world as it was could only see a massive bank with huge reserves backed by a country and currency that wreaked of security. By the end of the nineties this was not enough. Swiss banking laws were seen to be what they were and whilst legal action was all but impossible in Switzerland elsewhere I imagine it was different.

A small anecdote perhaps provides some insight to what was really going on. A US Client Of mine Bill Eiland of whom I will tell some wonderful tales at another time had invited me to his home in Summit New Jersey for the weekend whilst my family was away in the UK on holiday. Such was his sense of humour that he discovered that a number of his neighbours worked for UBS in New York. This is true I promise. They had, quite reasonably formed a ghetto in Summit, where their families could live and work whilst enjoying their New Your Posting. I think from memory there were around a dozen men who were employed by the bank. I had just started working directly for UBS and Bill being Bill he invited his neighbours to a barbecue at his house to coincide with my visit. The gathering was not exclusively made up of the Swiss people but as they were used to keeping their own company apparently they gathered together whilst the food cooked. Bill and I in time became the closest of friend in a highly unusual way. He was of Irish roots and he had a sense of humour that made the word ‘wicked’ look mild. Any way on this night the dozen Swiss or so are in his garden sipping cocktails when he grabbed me by the arm and ‘presented’ me to the group. ‘This is Elliott’ I distinctly remember him saying. He is a ‘limey’ and he works for your lot!!” with that he turned on his heel. The Swiss were all very embarrassed but in turn they asked questions. It was all very uncomfortable. Suddenly one of them, and shortly all of them, presented business cards. The UBS logo was not present nor the name of the bank. Instead a PO Box number of Grand Central Station New York sat aside their name. I produced my card which made them all very nervous as i outranked them all by some margin I later worked out. Now the thing was I asked questions trying to work out exactly what they all did. And reluctantly they revealed that they did not in fact work in the US but New York was their base and stop over point from the region from where they collected assets for the bank. Guess where they operated-yes you have it South America and to be precise Northern South America and we all knows what that was about. Their assets would be collected parked in Switzerland sanitised and all that is what I imagine happened. All legal again at the time by the way. But the bigger picture was this billions coming in from ,err how to say this, a variety of activities, and incompetent boy soldiers attempting to find ways to generate some kind of return on those assets and of course failing too do so cos they did not have a collective clue!!

So back in London Mathis decided to make a bold move. For some huge sum he bought a derivatives business. I won’t go into derivatives here but they are the murky world of Stock Markets. Typically staffed by people with further maths degrees they take bets on the markets and securities within them via highly geared instruments. Often the liability for these positions will be way in the future The pricing of the total activity does as a result become problematic . How to price something that has a daily price versus its eventual maturity date when a fixed price will exist.

Anyway this team of ‘traders’ arrived and was set up in The London Offices of UBS. They had a room to them selves. There were perhaps 30 or 40 of them. Few were originally from the UK. They were a secretive uncommunicative lot who kept themselves to themselves. Their office had no windows I remember and the whole place was bathed in a sort of blue light. A whole series of computers punctuated the scene. Their local reporting line was to Hector Sants who was head of equities in London. He was my boss by then and as we had a long association with each other he was given to giving me ‘special projects’ to oversee. In this case whilst the group actually reported to Cabailavetta himself directly the local reporting lines had to be in place if only to satisfy an increasing curious regulatory environment. Hectors master stroke was to appoint me as a member of the teams management committee. His tactics were sound in theory. Dennis can spy on them and what we all know is if he can understand what they are doing and explain to the rest of us then we will have a reasonable understanding of what is what. You will glean some sort of back handed compliment there but Hector sensed that pulling the wall over my eyes would be difficult. In truth after a number of meetings I can readily attest that I had not the foggiest idea of what they were doing. I could however make some pretty accurate character assessments, subjective of course, and all I can say is how to put this ‘No” ! A more dubious group of people I have never met in my life. Hector became alarmed as he, like me saw some of the actual numbers they were playing with. Huge! but warnings to Mueller who laughably now ran London and even more laughably was later to be knighted for it, God help us, would hear none of it.

If I had stayed longer on that committee I daresay I would have learned more but shortly I was to regain my sanity by joining BZW The Investment Banking Arm of Barclays at he time. I was of course fuelled by an almost alarming return of my sense of self esteem and my BZW career literally took off. As a result, looking back I took little notice of what the Swiss were up to. I think I wanted to purge my mind of the whole experience. A few months or maybe years later I am not sure the headlines in the paper were of a Swiss bank merger. SBC, the smaller bank, was to take over UBS. Guess what, in doing so the name of the combined entity which was to be headed by Marcus Ospel the man I knew from SBC New York, was to change its name. Yes you have guessed it to UBS. What had actually happened was hushed up. Indeed only one very thinbook has ever been written about the whole thing and even that is full of inaccuracies. The Swiss decided it was not the business of the world to know and hushed the whole thing up as much as they could. Frankly none really cared as the actual front line activities and commercial activitiesof the bank are not ingrained in any national economy-apart from Switzerland that is. I can only report third hand that the aforementioned derivatives unit lost a fortune. There was huge dispute as to whether a regulatory initiative to ‘daily price’ the books revealed a huge book loss, I will never know but apparently when the whole thing was wound up and positions collapsed billions were lost. The operators of the business protested that if the portions had been allowed to mature then no money would have been lost. I don’t know I was not in the debate. However Machine Gun Mathis had wiped out one of the worlds only 3 star banks. Amazingly he arose from the ashes and assumed various highly paid positions back in his homeland. Many UBS employees were doubtless integrated in the new operation. They had their name back so that bit was OK but they would all be reporting to SBC managers who typically, so I am told were not chosen by their army rank!!

Looking back my time at UBS was truly amazing. Each and every day I was confronted with absolute nonsense. Either by way of the decisions that were made, the people who made those decisions and the general activity of the bank. There were many who worked out what actually the whole thing was really about but they like me have never fully understood what really went on. Suffice it to say that this was nonsense on huge scale and my little mind nearly went mad trying to understand it.

If by any chance this piece were ever to get out I want to say that I did meet some excellent and delightful people in UBS who were honest and hard working. I think most of these like me at the time wanted to think the best of what was going on. I have a huge number of stories to tell linked to this piece involving some of the characters I have mentioned above. There was one really curious anecdote that I will relay because I don’t know where else I will put it.

Many many years ago on my very first visit to New York City I stayed in The Drake Hotel. It is by some strange coincidence, given what happened, Swiss owned. I suppose it would be around 2003 by this time and all sorts of things had happened to me in my working life. I was a ‘Global Partner’ of one of the Worlds leading Investment Management companies at the time but a recent acquisition the company had made meant the role I had been hired to perform had changed significantly. My contract had been drawn up with all sorts of conditions by a very expensive lawyer and one of those conditions was that in the event of Invesco making an acquisition of another Investment Management company I would have the right to leave the company and take all my accrued benefits including share options with me. Invesco had just announced its purchase of the Perpetual group in the UK and the CEO of Invesco London, who I was on excellent terms with, offered me the choice of heading the Groups ‘Culture programs worldwide’ or taking my money and leaving. Now on paper running culture programmes around the world had its merits but I was sick of travelling I did not want my career to end trying to persuade the head of French Operations that his stylish interpretation of the corporate logo was not OK and it had to be changed-good luck with that.! There I was in New York , I was there to meet with the New York Operation of Invesco and progress some plans for mutual cooperation. As it happened I decided to stay in the Drake-for old times sake- and because it was an excellent hotel. I sat alone in the bar pondering my next move the proverbial back of an envelope calculations going on along side my half drunk beer.

Suddenly to my complete surprise I was confronted by an older, hairless version of a man who had worked for me in New York many years ago from the time of this meeting. He was called Frank Rauber and he was one of those 14 Swiss individuals who I had so struggled with. He told me that he was no longer employed by UBS but instead he had a very good job with some European organisations where he was the “Head of Sales’. I was really surprised to see him and my mind flooded with a whole series of memories. It was given to Frank to offer the only gratitude I can ever remember getting from anyone Swiss. ‘After you left New York I realised that you were very good at what you did. You were the best boss I have ever had. Today every day I think to myself what would Dennis say here or what would he do in this or that situation. ‘Thank you’ he said ‘you have been my role model and inspiration.’ Suddenly he was gone. Thanks Frank because that small gesture allowed me to reframe my whole experience with UBS. It was clearly not all bad!!

Back in the early 1990’s I worked with Chris Caramel who was a former Royal Marine. Indeed Chris had won the Sword of Honour as the leading officer in training. Educated at Malborough School he was a truly remarkable man. He was the most prolific ‘Ladies man’ I ever met. He would refer to ‘big Ed’ as if ‘it’ was a family friend. No-one took offence indeed most women were utterly charmed by his open direct approach to ‘light and fun’ as he termed it.

Anyway one day he came into the office and asked me what I was doing at the weekend. I was unsure as to what was coming next but I declared availability. ‘We are going to get our motorbike licences’ he said. At nine O’clock one Autumnal Saturday morning there I was with Chris and a motorbike courier, who had been caught by the police for driving for several years without a licence. The three of us in the same group.’What ever you do’ said Chris don’t tell them, as was the case, you have never ridden a bike before. ‘That way we will have to do the long course and that will takes several weeks’ By 11 :30 we had called passed the CBT preliminary exam and we set off around Central London on 125 cc bikes with the voice of our instructor in our ears. Terrifying to begin with this ‘super crammed’ course made rapid progress. By the evening we were exhausted but allowed to take the bikes home. I rode from Wimbledon around central London then up the A1 to my home in Harpenden-I was late for a dinner party. The following morning up at first light I set off for Wimbledon and another intense day followed. The next day when I woke (we had taken the day off work) my destination was the motorbike testing office in Croydon. Somehow I got there and took my test. ‘Congratulations Mr Elliott, you have passed” I looked the examiner in the eye. ‘Do you honestly mean to tell me that although two days a go I had never ridden a motorbike I can now go out and buy and ride something that will do 150 miles an hour”. He looked me in the eye and said ‘yes” !!

On passing the test Chris took me to the nearest motor bike and ordered me to buy a crash helmet. ‘Show some conviction’ he said. I did and I started reading the various motor bike magazines of the day. On the from of one was a silver Honda 750 VFR. It was beautiful with two square headlights. The strap line of the advert said, ‘look me in the eyes and tell me that you love me’. I was smitten.

I ordered a bike from a shop in Watford and a few Saturdays later I turned up with my helmet to collect it. I had no leathers so my first stop was the clothing department where I bought leather jacket with square shoulders, a pair of leather trousers with protective inserts and a pair of leather boots. Now the thing was I needed to wear them to ride my bike on and rather like the little boy in the shoe shop I asked if I could keep the gear on. Credit card out job done. The thing was I forgot to take off the labels and as I headed awkwardly and nervously to the bike section of the shop a wild looking man approached. ‘Hello’ he said ‘I am Mike’. Whats your name? “Dennis I mumbled” Mike was 6 foot something tall he had a cropped tee shirt with tattooed well muscled arms and a head of wiry hair curled into a top knot. He looked every inch a ‘proper biker’ and he was very intimidating. ‘How can I help you?’. I mumbled rather nervously that I was in the shop to pick up a VFR. The shop was very busy full of ‘proper bikers’ who clearly were visiting their ‘church’ to see what was what. ‘Heh boys’ he announced to the shop. This is Den he has come to pick up the VFR” and in doing so he indicated the front of the shop and standing here in all its glory was my bike. The sun was out and it looked beyond wonderful. I gulped. Before long I was out side surrounded by ‘fellow’ bikers all of whom were cooing at my bike. Mike gave me a run down of the controls, none of which entered my scrambled brain. I was desperately aware of the labels on my leathers blowing in the wind. He handed me the keys and posed one final question. ‘Tell me Den what bike did you ride before this one’?. I racked my brain for something credible but nothing came. Sheepishly I huskily admitted that ‘this was my first bike’. He looked at me and countered with ‘ you mean to tell me that you have never ridden a proper motorbike and that you have gone out and bought a Honda VFR 750- a pause coupled with incredulous looks from the assembled throng- grasping me by the shoulders in a proper bear hug he uttered the following phrase I will never forget-“Fuckin Cool”. the crowd lined up to high five me and soon I climbed on to the beast and somehow I wobbled off down the road to cheers and messages of goodwill. Now fully ‘qualified’ my first ride on the thing was actually up the M1 from Watford to Harpenden.

A month or so ago now I was thinking of my motor bike adventures and obviously affected by my current mental state in these uncertain time I bought BMW GS 1200 an absolute beast of a bike. I don’t know if Mike is still in the trade but I do so hope he would have approved of my purchase and just maybe he would have awarded me further ‘cool points’- no-one else has!

A BMW GS 1200

Today I am going to write about a favourite subject of mine, ‘haircuts’. Now I have troubled a lot of people with my view but, with perhaps one or two exceptions I can recall no one else either agrees or believes me. Fair enough.

The first thing I noticed about my wife Liz when I met her was her fabulous hair. It was shaped in a sort of a bob but it was perfectly proportioned and when she danced it moved with he in a complimentary gavotte. It turned out that through University she had got used to visiting a hair salon called Milton Brown in the West End of London. I cant quite recall but I think she may have acted as a model and got free haircuts. Let’s say that was the story as it is a good one!

All my own life I had tricky hair. A funny bit at the front and a tendency to spike at they back. I had loads of haircuts and aside from David Pickavance (see earlier post) no one had ever managed to really sort it out and lets be honest make me look as good as I could be.

When I worked in New York my colleague Richard Gray, who (If I have not written about I must) one day announced he had a new hairdresser. AS he had already found me my Doctor, my dentist and various other professional services it was inevitable I found myself in the chair of Mr Akee. Mr Akee was Japanese and he trained with the Vidal Sasoon group. He used Japanese scissors and bits of kit and the precision and care in his cutting was just amazing to watch. The usual 20 minute job in some salon, picked by chance, transformed into at least an hour of snipping. The cost instead of the usual $25 became $75 and Richard informed me I MUST tip well. When Mr Akee finished I was delighted. Vain yes I know but oh my goodness did it look good. So good in fact that the following week a woman approached me from HQ in Zurich who was looking for photo opportunities for The UBS magazine. I have the picture somewhere and I think you would agree if you saw it my ‘Barnet’ looked great.

At the same time Liz was beginning to enjoy a certain freedom of motherhood as our children got older. It became possible for her to leave Jo and Tom with a friend for an afternoon and fed up of the local Greenwich Connecticut hairdressers she headed for New York. (By the way most American women have lousy haircuts-it is a fact just look). She decided to head for Vidal Sasoon and she went a step further by paying up for a senior stylist. We had arranged to meet somewhere near Park Avenue in order to journey home together. As I walked up 56th street I think it was towards towards our rendezvous I passed a stunning woman wearing a white dress and carrying a red handbag. Gulp I thought eyes front! Suddenly a shout and I turned the vision was my Lizzie looking beyond gorgeous. Her hair once again looking just fabulous with maybe some highlights, I can’t remember.

After this occasion I was convinced. Mr Akee moved away but I was hooked. Vidal Sasoon New York, Toronto, wherever I may be in the world boy I had some great haircuts. Back working in London I would go to see John the top stylist at Vidal Sasoon London. I would arrive back in the office and people would comment, usually a wolf whistle or similar. In truth most admired but when it came to the question of where did you have your haircut and how much was it people were appalled. In 1900 I was all done with John for £75 but as that compared to the usual barbers charge of perhaps £7:50 with a tip no one followed me. Then one day I man who worked for me and who was a seriously good bloke in many ways told me it was his birthday. He had always admired my haircuts and was beyond delighted when I gave him a ‘special birthday present’ a haircut with John. Suffice it to say that Graham who usually had an awful haircut and wore unflattering glasses returned with a fantastically stylish hairstyle. Within days he had got some very different glasses and I can honestly tell you that he would place his hand on his heart and confirm that that haircut was a game changer. He went on to become partners in an investment firm and he always says that the boost to his confidence was routed in that cut.

So next time you need a haircut don’t go to some barber or local hairdresser. Certainly dont convince your self the Toni and Guy or similar are any good. Just fork out and get a really proper haircut or hair do. If you want specific recommendations then get in touch. One thing I promise you is you wont be disappointed.