I was born on 16^th May 1935 in Dulwich, South London, somewhere close, I was told, to the famous Crystal Palace. Unfortunately I’ve never been able to tell whether this was close enough to hear Bow Bells, in which case my nationality could be more closely defined as “Cockney”. My early days were spent in Herne Hill although at the age of four I began to move around the country, dodging the 2nd World War bombs, as my mother used to say. This was because dad was in the Royal Engineers and constantly on the move, which meant that my mum and I moved from one lodging to another for a few years to be near him. I can remember somewhere in the Midlands very vaguely but my most prominent memories are of living in the Gate-keepers lodge in Lockerbie, which was not such a well known place then and in a bagpipe wielding Scotsman’s hoose in Kelso on the banks of the river Tweed. Apparently at the age of five I had a Scottish accent, much to the distress of many of my colleagues in Lowe Bingham and Matthews more than three decades later!

I returned to London to attend Sussex Road Primary and later Strand Grammar School where I amazed myself by coming second equal out of ninety students for the “O” levels in 1951 and winning a medal in boxing. I was never really the athletic type and absolutely hopeless at cricket or football. Funnily enough I was not too bad at long distance running (i.e. early signs of Mad Trail Walker Syndrome) and cycling, an early passion, which saw me once cycle 224 miles from Dartmouth in Devon to London in 17 hours.

After those “O” levels, my highest academic achievement, my mother and I, once again on dad’s trail, boarded the S.S. Carthage and arrived in Hong Kong on August 18^th. I first tried to become an apprentice with a firm of consulting engineers but that fell through. Then a Hong Kong born architect offered if I insisted to let me work in his office and learn architecture; but he stressed that the proper way was for me to go to University and qualify first. Then I tried to become an aircraft engineer, but all the lessons were in Cantonese. My biggest mistake it seems was to ignore some very sage farsighted advice, which probably would have made me a millionaire, to go into air-conditioning! In those days only the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank had it. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1973 that the Thomas family first had air-conditioning in our home. Like everyone else we used fans! 

I eventually finished up in the Hong Kong Government as a temporary clerk at $200 per month where I learned filing, touch-typing, safe hand courier work, security and enciphering and deciphering of telegrams, the latter work being in the cellars of Government House. Incidentally, I can’t really understand why our Chief Executive doesn’t want to live there. It has a super garden! I had a number of other positions in Government over the years; District Assistant Tsuen Wan, Assistant Secretary Co-operative Development and Fisheries Department, Establishment Assistant Secretary and latter Land Assistant in the Colonial Secretariat (as it was called in those days before it became non-u to use the term!), Secretary Civil Aviation Department and Training Officer in Government’s Training Unit, where I was at the time of leaving the Government. At this time I had reached the dizzy heights of Senior Executive Officer Class II. I left the Government out of frustration, which would be the subject of another article, and joined the firm of Lowe Bingham and Mathews as Administration Manager where I stayed for roughly 13 years. In that time I also worked as an Executive Recruitment Consultant and, later, a Training Advisor. My next employment was as a headhunter. This lasted for about four years and brought to an end my life as an employee as I then went into business with my present business partner, Emy Mendoza whom most, if not all of you, have already met as the accomplice of my wife Therese in the arrangement of those superb barbecues that follow our Club’s fund raising Walkathons!

From the early years I was a member of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force and later the Royal Hong Kong Regiment (The Volunteers) (until its disbandment in 1996). In addition I have been a member of the Victoria Toastmasters Club since 1958 and was the founder Chairman of the Hong Kong Round Table No 5 until the age of forty when they threw me out. This was because Round Table was an offshoot of Rotary, would you believe, started by a Rotarian called Louis Marchessi in 1936, when I was one year old, to cater for the younger professional who perhaps was not able to afford the expense of belonging to Rotary, but who was nevertheless able to serve his community by doing rather than by paying. The idea being that at the age of forty you should then be a bit more affluent and able to join Rotary and assume the financial consequences thereof. Alas, Rotary International appears not to acknowledge this aspect of it’s history, at least that has been my observation to date, to the extent that Rotary now recruits aggressively in the age range of those who previously could have been Round Table members, both at the Rotaract and Rotary level. A consequence of this, in my opinion only, has been the unquestionable demise of the Round Table movement in Hong Kong, and possibly elsewhere in the world. Towards the end of my twenty years in the Government I qualified as a Dale Carnegie Human Relations and Management Courses instructor and almost became a full-time sponsor. Unfortunately the economic situation at that time in Hong Kong did not make it a sustainable proposition.

I’ve talked too much about myself but not enough about my family. However I think by now you will have met Therese enough times to realize that I got the better bargain! You have also seen a lot of Eric (34 … and still single!!!) who returned from Perth Australia last year and looks like staying. Eric markets water filters, as I’m sure many KGM Rotarians have discovered to their cost! I’m not so sure that many of you have seen as much of Sandy (37), our eldest son, an electronic research engineer with Nokia and his recent lovely bride Jill (18 Sh!). They were married in Hong Kong in October and the record of delayed Golden News Issues during that period bears testimony the ‘busyness of that period. 

I admit to being an awful cook except for Bar-B-Queuing, poaching, boiling and all sorts of other things you can do with eggs, not to forget the preparation of cup-noodles in which I have won a recent culinary award. In the early days I was bad at washing up and carving roasts, although, thanks to the constant encouragement and training provided by Therese over the years, some skill is emerging in these fields.   

Squash was a passion until a few years ago but prudence told me that it was time to stop so now it’s all systems go on hiking as I’m sure most of you are aware. To quote from a piece about me in the Lowe Bingham magazine in 1976, “…. he is well known in the office for his open invitations to anyone foolish enough to join him on any Sunday afternoon when he and his sons take to the hills”. 

I suppose we could use the same source for a final touch! “Trying to think of something really outstanding and unique that has happened to him, Louis came up with the fact that he fell up to his armpits into a cesspit at Shek Kip Mei while assisting to put out a squatter fire in 1954. We hope it was a unique feat! However corny they or it may be, he says that since this experience his feet have always been quite unique”.