Paris and London 1926

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Geneva 1924

Paris and London 1926

Germany 1928

Geneva 1927

Geneva 1928

England 1936

Paris 1926

My father was invited with his gastronomic club to lunch in Paris as the guests of the equivalent club in Paris and each member was allowed to bring one guest and my father invited me to join him from Geneva. I remember that I had the pleasure and honour of sitting next to Maitre Escoffier, who was among the 100 or so people who sat down to an incomparably good meal. I do not remember the courses, but I do remember an incident that occurred just before the lunch.

My father and I were strolling round the rooms of that excellent hotel and wandered into the bar, which was opposite as we entered and must have been twenty yards long. Behind the bar were the requisite number of cocktail attendants, with all the necessary bottles behind them and in front of them on stools about thirty men perched high on stools, just a row of backsides. One solitary individual was walking along behind them, as if looking for a spare stool and there was not one free. He stopped behind one man for a few seconds, when the gentleman on the stool spun round and his right fist travelled eight inches to connect with the of the saunterer, who fell like a sack of potatoes.

The moral of this story is, if you must try and pick a pocket in Paris, look at the face first, before operating on the behind, and you will avoid meeting Carpentier.

London 1926

The entire board of directors of my company came over in August to examine the process in Geneva, which I had been sent to watch on their behalf. After the visit they all had dinner at the Gare Cornavin and I put them on their train to London. I remember having to fetch bottles of Scotch for them and the repugnance expressed by Tom Haig (brother of the Field Marshall) at having to share Johnnie Walker with Sir Alexander Walker. He expressed the opinion that it tasted like "cat's pee and pepper."

Returning to my pension I found a letter from my mother telling me that my father had to have an operation and that I should come at once. I went down town again and was fortunate enough to find the friend I was looking for at the Cafe Landolt. He worked at the airport, which was then only a field with a hut on it. Yes, if I was ready at six a.m. he would call for me and get me a lift in a private plane to Lyon. As there was no train to London until the next day in the evening, I jumped at it. In Lyon I caught the Algiers-Marseilles-Lyon-Paris express. Express if you will, but it was an open three seater Fokker triplane, converted from a two seater fighter, with the gun mounting forward still on it. What a flight through those cumulus clouds! If I add that the pilot was sick, the rest can be left to your imagination. The stately City of Manchester brought me under the guidance of Imperial Airways safely to Croydon. I did see my father before he died.

The next morning I phoned my immediate boss, who had left me in Geneva, and told him what had happened and he gave me unlimited leave. It is certain that at lunch that day, he must have said something to the other members of the board about the young fellow they had left in Geneva being in London before them and how he had managed it.

I came back from Geneva at Christmas for some leave and called in at Head Office as I was supposed to. I was greeted by my boss's secretary, Mrs. Laetitia Golding, a very good friend of mine, who got the O.B.E. for being Admiral Sir Reginald Hall's secretary (he was head of Naval Intelligence in the First World War) and who claimed that she could bend any man to her will by inviting him to tea and feeding him on blackcurrant jam and Bourbon biscuits. She greeted me with the startling remark, "T.P. I am afraid you are in trouble." Apparently the Chairman of the combine was in the next office and was fuming because someone had cut an appointment with him. He had asked for me by name and I had only met him that once in Geneva and then not had any conversation with him. Dear Letty added rather tearfully, "I had to tell him you were expected in and when I saw him last, he was fingering your last expenses sheet."

I went in to the great presence, feeling nowhere near as brave as I was trying to look. The following conversation took place:-

"Ah yes. I remember you now. Are these your expenses?"

"Yes Sir."

"Is that your signature?"

"Did you spend this money?"

"Yes Sir. Mr. Board (my boss) told me that when travelling for the company on the continent, I could travel first class and have a sleeper."

"Did you have a sleeper?"

There I was cornered and the whole story came out, as he already knew it. Having asked how much extra I had spent on the journey, he wrote out a chit and signed it for ?30. Then the oracle spoke again -

"Young man, our company, with a capital of ?180 million, is I am pleased to say quite successful under my chairmanship and has no need of charity from you - or the Bank of England. Never be so foolish again."

What an investment he made that day!!! Over the next 40 years while I worked for the company that ?30 cost them less than one halfpenny a day - but he had bought me body and soul and they got their money's worth. He seemed a very old man to me that day, as our elders always do at that age, but he is alive today (1970) and is Life Vice-President as I write.