Written on the 25th March 1984
I am writing these notes on Sunday morning whilst listening to the birds sing and watching the riverside activity through the bars of my new balcony window. This, plus the other building work, is now complete and all internal decoration finished. Diana has used the new automatic washing machine to catch up on the backlog and most domestic arrangements are back to normal. The family’s health is good and my Mother recovering from her operation for a replacement hip joint. Comart is beginning to flourish but how much of this is due to the government end-of-financial year I do not know. Yet I expect net profits of about £500k this year ending June 30th 1984 on sales turnover up to £12M+. I am presently negotiating the sale of the company to Kode International PLC whilst also negotiating the settlement of the share option with Branmer.
I will obviously miss the action and involvement with Comart and the BMMG; but the business has become frustrating with the problems of dealing with an ever increasing staff few of which are grateful for the efforts and energies I expend. Arguments and resistance to my management are too commonplace and only arise because of the over familiarity of our informal origins. This, even though my executives lack the management training, experience and ability to be worthy of the right to question me. The business is very competitive and subject to periodic revolutionary change, but we are coping and winning our way through to the next rounds but I have to continually push and pull a rising and resistant mass.
The government is discouraging economic growth, investment and employment, concentrating solely on inflation as the economic objective. The service industries are encouraged at the expense of traditional manufacturing which will be a problem when the North Sea oil runs out. It does little to prefer the domestic UK company and welcomes equally the American multinational subsidiaries, not recognising the benefits of UK ownership and control.
It also seems to favour risky and flamboyant business enterprises that fail regularly (such as Sinclair and others) rather than appreciate the efforts of companies growing on sound achievements in the British way; and uses the worst excesses of Advertising and Public Relations in its own promotion with misleading effects. I found particularly upsetting the grant of Knighthoods for Clive Sinclair and the IBM Chairman Eddie Nickson. Also the award of a Royal Warrant to another American micro company Commodore was the last straw.
Against all this, I have already grown Comart such that its value to me - £3Million – is much more than sufficient to provide adequately for myself and family for generations to come. It could be grown continually under my command to become a very major and significant entity in National and International terms but after 7 years of sacrifice of personal and private goals and with an ever more demanding workforce and no government encouragement, I am preparing to leave them all to it and pursue other interests related to the river, family and natural history. They will, of course, miss my contribution but I can only contribute where the results are appreciated and recognised – That’s me!