Born on 9th August 1941 at Upcott Farm, Upcott Hill, Bideford
1946-52 Strathmore School, Bideford. I walked across fields from the farm from age 5 onwards; would this happen today?
1947 The family moved to Syringa Raleigh hill, a market garden. In the winter of ’47 we were frozen in 3 months.
1952 Many nights of training with my mother led to passing the 11+.
1952-59 BGS, 9 O levels in 1957 and 3 A levels, English/History/Latin
Autumn 1959, at school treading water whilst going through a long-winded Civil Service process after applying for the Ministry of Agriculture. Spent time helping Strange’s House win a 7s tournament with an unknown player, Brock I think, having a starring role.
10January 1960 Taken to Bideford station by my father to begin work in London. I can still remember the train smoke smell and see the tears in my father’s eyes as the train pulled out of the station. I would no longer be on the tractor or alongside him planting cabbages or picking strawberries.
11 January 1960 commenced work at the INLAND REVENUE assessing and collecting surtax liability of a group of individuals with letter Y surnames; never realised there were so many Youngs and Youngers in the country
30 March 1964 Married Anne in Poole, Dorset – it was vital to marry before 6th April as the tax saving was significant!
12April 1964 Returned from honeymoon to be transferred to the PAYE Audit Office, visiting employers to inspect their PAYE records. One visit was to Lord Mountbatten at the Broadland Estate, Romsey. I ended up inspecting large employers and scuppering their schemes to avoid tax by giving luncheon vouchers. Do you remember the LVS?
March 1968 Promoted to HEO and took up a post in The Board of Inland Revenues Investigation Office, carrying out investigations to bring a prosecution and also some internal discipline investigation.
1973 to 1976 Promoted to SEO and responsible for a large investigation into one of the country’s largest construction companies, J Murphy and Sons Ltd. The end result was a 3-month trial at The Old Bailey in which I spent 5 days in the witness box. All 8 conspirators including the company itself were found guilty. The finance director and company secretary were sentenced to three years and a then world-record fine was imposed on the company.
June 1976 Transferred to the Lifetime Transfer Tax Office
September 1978 Moved from life to death, as it were, responsible for assessment and collection of death duties on a number of estates.
June 1984 Promoted to Principal and transferred to an Investigation Department working on the transfer of assets abroad, in particular Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Whilst I was pursuing my career, Anne was developing a student language business. She retired in 1988 she retired, while I took early retirement and I took over the running of this business. At the time the business involved mostly French students visiting Britain and British students visiting France, Germany and Spain.
Then in 1989 the Berlin wall fell so I undertook marketing trips to Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, the Baltic states, Romania and Bulgaria. The business exploded as hundreds of school groups came to Britain from those countries for a quick taste of life in the West, and teachers of Russian were retrained in English. Marketing trips were then carried out in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, including Moscow, St Petersburg and Ekaterinburg, with similar results.
In 2003 we sold the business to the language tour operator Ardmore Language schools. I retained a small part of the business developing sports tours and organising an annual festival in Salou, Spain, with approx. 5000 students. This business was sold to TUI in 2006.
For over 60 years I have been involved in various roles with the Civil Service London Rugby Club and currently the President. In the 1980s, I organised the Civil Service National Team with annual fixtures v the Army, Navy and RAF, and on one occasion the USA National Team, The American Eagles. The current family is my wife, two children, three grandchildren and three great gran
