Remembering R 15 4 26 (23) 25 1 19
R more than anyone is arguably the key person in one’s
life with the responsibility for my being here these past 20+ years and
yesterday I attended his funeral. But we met for the first time 10 years
earlier when perhaps he also played a crucial part in terms of my standing in
my former job before I moved country... an important reason being his
relatively poor grasp of English, his fourth language after two of the
Scandinavian tongues and his first foreign language German, and my knowledge of
one of his two first languages because as a young man during my years as a
student I had lived and worked here, before subsequently meeting my wife in a
London night club when she for her part was a student in UK practicing her
English, her 4th language too, upon graduating nursing college back home.
So as a back-room guy with a knowledge of
Scandinavia I was sent with the then Marketing Director, a guy called Dick who
during WW ll was England's youngest serving Lieutenant Commander in
The Royal Navy, and proceeded to play host to our customers on their own ground
for the first time by staying locally and inviting the people to dinner, an
event which clearly impressed Dick for that first meeting was repeated every 6
months for a total of 13 consecutive visits during which time we
went from the position of minor supplier with around 40% of their business to
100%, when Dick retired and his Dutch successor no longer required my
services...
When R, as CEO, took early retirement to make way
for a younger man he visited us in UK and demanded my presence as interpreter
at his meetings with our board of directors. Before his departure my wife and I
got to accompany R and his wife, H, to London for an evening at the theatre when we
all enjoyed the musical Evita followed by dinner at a rather posh restaurant.
And at his last visit March 30th my diary records his last
visit in 1987 which would fit with his reaching 60 earlier that month…
By this time my fortunes with the UK company had
undergone some fundamental changes for the better, commensurate with the
departure of most of the old board following some disastrous decisions the new
Marketing Director and his Production Director colleague had made concerning
the line of business our Scandinavian customers and others in the US and Europe
were engaged in, when quality had suffered to the point of being returned unfit
for its intended purpose… With the take-over of the company the new board
together with my R and D Director, who escaped criticism for the simple reason
we had been excluded from developing that part of the business, and no doubt as
a consequence I was then promoted to head up the task of having it reinstated
as overall Project Coordinator.
R’s successor B then, in a manner of speaking at
R’s suggestion, began a process which led to my being poached so he told me
later, making overtures to the effect I should move company and join the
Scandinavians from my position as R and D Manager, which in the fullness of
time I decided to do, but only once I too was offered an R and D Directorship,
or more precisely a Joint Directorship together with at the time the incumbent my
partner, the old R and D Director who was also due to retire shortly thereafter
himself.
Such life changing events only appear to be
significant with the passage of time when one can look back with the benefit of
hindsight and R, whom I would describe as a belt and braces type of person, who
fate chose to lead the company in the tumultuous times of the 1980s, from its
stature of perhaps the second smallest company in the business to its position
today which, with acquisitions of competitor companies, has grown to become the
second largest world leader company today if indeed not the biggest: in no
small measure attributable to people of his stature and foresight.
R's dear wife H who in the intervening years has
become a dear friend of both my wife and I asked me about representation at his
funeral gathering from the company we both served, R of course serving for most
of his working life when almost apologetically I had to tell her no-one was
present except of course for myself... Have a good day everyone, what a great
day for being alive still!
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