A very good year featuring my sale of Comart as a successful going concern and of my retirement, the birth of my daughter, Daniella, both during a hot summer peak and finally of my own family together at the end of it for my mother’s heart operation. A year of divisive UK politics under Thatcher featuring the Miners’ dispute over pit closures, savagely put down and the IRA bombing of the Tory conference in Brighton and internationally of the Bhopal gas tragedy and the murder of Indira Gandi. A major triumph for me winning the anti-IBM/BT standards battle and developing influence for the BMMG at PITCOM, NCC and NEDO but sadness as Eric Morecombe and Tommy Cooper are both lost amongst the ranks of those still attempting to spread good cheer.
And this ends 1984. A year that brought a new baby daughter and a fortune. The end of an era of entrepreneurial endeavour and success, and the last year of my business particularly successful but with the future yet to unfold. \the year started with a month of personal, business and industry progress but also with illness, storms and disasters as Thatcher pursued ever more unpopular, divisive and damaging policies and the world suffers coups, conflicts and atrocities but even this early in the year, I was committed to selling Comart and bad news strengthens my resolve to sell my company whilst the going is good and to find more time to improve my family life and research our history.
February continued with a month of awful industrial and political news and March was cold but I was busy reforming and developing the Comart Group for sale whilst also leading the Microcomputer Industry and completing my house improvements. I prioritise family life and follow my interests of history research, bird-watching and duck-keeping. All this as Thatcher succeeds in upsetting the Miners, her GCHQ security people, the EEC, the Irish republicans and an increasing number of leaders of all political persuasions with justifiable outrage over the jailing of a civil servant whistle blower for revealing covert deployments of nuclear weapons. April continued with successful business accomplishments balanced with private life for I take the family on London Hotel and Great Ouse boat trips whilst also negotiating two competing deals for selling Comart. Thatcher exacts her spiteful revenge against her opponents ignoring The Rev Shepherd trying to preach peace and reconciliation in the Dimbleby lecture as we see the sad deaths of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and Tommy Cooper taking place in public. By May, heavy rain later in the month ends the drought and Eric Morecombe dies. Successful negotiations are completed for the sale of the Comart Group and I retire my Managing Director-ships and Chairmanship of the BMMG whilst I organise the first family boat trip of the season and Diana struggles on uncomfortably with her pregnancy. The Miners’ Strike turns nasty and this, and the Iran/Iraq Gulf War and attacks on oil tankers, causes biggest ever falls on the world stock exchanges and a possible banking crisis. June is another busy and significant month of developments as I retire from business and we plan for the arrival of our third child which makes July a hot month but a very successful one for the birth of my our baby Daniella, at the same time as the sale of my company Comart when I also worked on The Lady and tending our laying ducks before starting on my independent industry role whilst Diana was ill and recovering as the miners’ strike and peace protests dominate domestic politics. August was another hot month spent working on computer industry affairs, my own investment strategy and sorting my office and systems out as Thatcher was spending the whole month in fights with the unions. September was a fine and enjoyable month enjoying my boat and family outings whilst accelerating the BMMG campaigns to counter US and Japanese standards threats as the coal disputes drag on and gather momentum and Price Harry is borne to Charles, Prince of Wales and Lady Diana. October was a month of triumph and tragedies as I spend more time filming my family and taking trips back to my origins and I BMMG as unemployment under Thatcher reaches 3.5million, such that the FT calls for action and the so-called Big Bang in the City of London revolution takes place against forebodings. Another Bishop attacks Thatcher’s politics of confrontation when she sets the judiciary on Arthur Scargill, sequestrating the miners’ assets and the Brighton IRA Bomb blast kills four and maims others at her Tory Conference. Abroad, South Africa also make the headlines as the white-only government sends in 7000 troops to the black townships, Polish agents kill the beloved Solidarity priest causing 40,000 attend a church service in Warsaw in defiance and Indira Gandhi is murdered by her own Sikh body guards. This, as more aid is announced for the people starving from the famine in Ethiopia in a sad and divisive world. November was a month with lots of time to spend with my family, plan house extension and manage my doves and ducks, but still a hectic round of computer industry meetings, interviews and representation as the economy and computer industry decline under a self-serving government of dogma and confrontation. December, one of great conflicts, disputes and tragedies both at home and abroad with the Miner’s dispute and Mrs Thatcher’s bullying of her colleagues and the Miners being the headline at home and the tragic Bhopal Gas leak overshadowing a month of numerous disasters. A good family month with my children and also as my mother arrives at Papworth for her heart operation in the New Year and Freda comes up to visit and Dad arrives with my new doves and stays with us. A busy month in industry politics and some more triumphs and setbacks. The hope of the month came with the start of East/West arms limitation discussions. So this year ends with the family well, my Father happy to spend Christmas and the New Year with us, Mother content with plans for her New Year operation and hopes high, and Freda grateful for our help in putting her back on her feet and recovered from her own operation. The microcomputer industry is overshadowed by the increasingly monopolistic march of IBM and many British manufacturers are under terminal pressure. The government determined to pursue an economic policy of deflation and over 3 million out of work, with no hope of improvement. As the governments internationally follow similar policies, the world spirals under deflationary influences, last seen in the 1930’s, but they do not seem to learn that there is no minimum level at which economic activity will stabilise. I am content these days to spend more time with the children and Diana, my counsel and views does not suit the moral of the age.