Hugo Vickers hated his career at a merchant bank – except for his trip to investigate a condom factory
Many of the letters written to my parents when I was born took the predictable line:
‘Welcome to the newest member of the firm.’
My father was senior partner of Vickers, da Costa, a good stockbroking firm in the City in the days before boom and bust. It had been founded by my grandfather in 1917, when the German members were evicted from the Stock Exchange as aliens.
One of his partners was Jack Churchill. Winston was a client. After the Second World War, my father took it on.
He was one of the first to advance into the Japanese market and was once asked if he was not nervous about having his money invested in Japan. He replied that he liked living in London with his money invested in Tokyo. ‘Sometimes this did well – perhaps led to a good dinner; even a cognac after dinner. In turn, a restless night, even a nightmare, in which I find myself living in Tokyo with my money invested in London.’
There were lunches in the boardroom, the partners enjoying a game of cards. There was none of the American intensity. On one occasion, my father was called before the Stock Exchange Council to explain why he had suddenly sold a raft of shares. He explained, ‘I got the company report and I saw that the chairman had grown a beard. I don’t trust men with beards.’
My mother was the person who made it clear I did not have to join the firm. I am not alone in wishing to take a different path. Johnny Churchill, Jack’s son, left Vickers, da Costa to be an artist. The only time he came back was when my father invited him to paint the murals in the boardroom.
Still, I felt like John Betjeman deserting the family business, which made the Tantalus drinks cabinets, lockable to keep the servants from the brandy. He was haunted by his father’s imprecation: ‘Third generation, they look to you.’
Betjeman still felt guilty at letting the side down in late life, but thought his desertion worthwhile whenever a new book of his came off the press.
I thought I should at least try. So I was sent to Singer & Friedlander, the merchant bank, to spend weeks of intolerable boredom in the back office. In one department, the manager showed me how to pin three dockets together: the pin right through, right back and then only partly through so that fingers were not scuffed. I spent a week doing that.
Eventually I escaped into the dealing room. I was completely at sea. One day I was put on the dealing desk as a stopgap. Dealers rang figures through. One clearly thought I was his friend. His figures baffled me. He was giving me the Test match score!
The only fun I had was a company visit to the London Rubber Company. This was October 1973. The Pill had come in, somewhat denting their condom business. It was not yet the age of AIDS. I asked someone what I should be finding out. ‘Ask them if it is a growth industry,’ he said.
The analysts were addressed by the company chairman, a former Lord Mayor of London, Sir Edmund Howard.
He stressed the merits of the condom. ‘Play safe,’ was his wise motto. Then we were taken on to the factory floor to see the products being made.
Enormous metal phalli (with the bobble at the end), on a conveyor belt, were dipped into molten rubber and then cooled down.
The rubbers were then carried across to the next bank of metal phalli. Ladies transferred the condoms on to the new phalli with a proficiency that would have impressed Madame Claude in Paris.
Then came the electronic testing. The phalli would shake and vibrate and if there was the slightest deficiency – ping! They would swing up into the air and leave the production line. It was hilarious to watch.
Someone asked if the company got complaints. Our guide told us there was indeed a complaints department.
‘Usually it is fingernails,’ he told us, ‘or, dare I say it, teeth.’
I returned to the office, scattering on to the desks the free samples from the goodie bag. A popular new line was the Black Shadow. I submitted an admiring report, pointing out that so zealous was the testing that only 93 per cent of the condoms made reached the active man.
I didn’t go into the City.
Hugo Vickers has written biographies of the Duchess of Windsor, the Queen Mother and Queen Mary
