Thatcher unfettered after a landslide post-Falklands election, business problems bubbling, national BMMG responsibilities burgeoning and ducklings growing as I manage to spend some quality time with the family on The Lady
This first month’s journal started on June 11th after Margaret Thatcher post-Falklands landslide victory who then continued her custom running roughshod over past political friends and opponents alike with even talk of a majority for the death penalty. She is dishing out hereditary peerages which had all been considered a thing of the past but this Prime Minister will not agree to the customary request of the Leader of the Opposition to approve 20+ Labour peers in the dissolution Honours List even though the election result has left many active and senior politicians without a role to play.
David Owen is taking over from Roy Jenkins as leader of the SDP. Francis Pym in great dignity makes his back-bench speech in the House of Commons. There is Newspaper preoccupation with a Government move to secure a 2% pay restraint as politics become very polarised and divisive under Thatcher. Time throughout the month travelling the UK and over-viewing the management of the enlarged Group and adoption of hugely-increased budgets and sales quotas against a background of sales and management problems. We successfully prepare for legal battles and work out budgets from Southampton to Scotland!. My role on the second/third Thursday of each month is to study the reviews and decide on the pay rises. A thankless task as the aspiration of each employee in the aggregate always exceeds the money we can afford. Our strategic plans note that we are still Number 1 micro-computer company in sales growth in the new ICC report but need to watch profit accumulation and gearing to avoid future dependency on an amorous suitor. The product plan is ambitious and aims to strengthen our modular micro concept into a sophisticated file server whilst introducing low cost workstations on a 2 year timeframe. A commitment to the future prediction of mainstream micro-computing as network modularity comes of age. Meetings are set up for the BMMG to meet Ministers and I submit a number of articles, endorse publications and become even more of an industry figure, writing a 1000-word article as BMMG chairman for Computer Weekly. I also note that I have press coverage in Computer Weekly for comments on the NEDO duty initiative and, via BMMG Vice-Chairman Nigel Smith, coverage in the previous issue on our Export Initiative. He urges me to write and make contact with the new Minister of Trade and Industry, Parkinson which, though reluctant, I must do. I managed some quality time at home housing and tending my ducklings and on The Lady cruising down the Great Ouse and up the tributaries of the lower river and River Cam and into The Cambridgeshire Lodes and The Fens taking one larger holiday, a weekend and the odd day trip. Daniel is playing ‘Rocket Raid’ on his BBC Micro and I am reviewing the possible purchase of more riverside plots to add to the new Hayling View gardens. A difficult visit with my mother liable to depressive spells with her being wheelchair-bound and fast realising the condition is permanent. Debbie manages a great fall with cuts and grazes everywhere. Elsewhere, England reigns supreme in Cricket, but has no heroes at Wimbledon. In Poland, The Pope is pulling few punches and meets both General Jarevelski and Lech Walenska in short order. His tour is now at an end. Road accidents with summer coaches and cars abound in the local and national press but in the trade press my friends Tom Fitzpatrick (of LSI) and Allan Ball (of Trivector) both make millions by selling chunks of their microcomputer companies. Also a gruesome story of a farmhand having his arm severed by a bailing machine and walking a mile for help with the result that it be sewn back on. Floods (again) in India. It seems that around the world much instability exists in the climate but then I believe it was ever thus.