Chris Lord (G 53-57) has sent in the following:

“I left St Bees at Christmas 1957 with six 'O' levels including maths, whose resit accounted for the extra term. I have blessed Algy Lyle many times for his tuition in Remove that last autumn term. After a week as a Christmas postman and four years in Barclays Bank DCO, I signed five year articles and qualified as a chartered accountant in 1967. Being put in charge of two dozen other accountants in the firm in which I had been articled, I found, after shining at nothing at school or in banking, that I had a taste for management. From 1971 until retirement I worked in manufacturing industry. I spent eighteen years with the UK subsidiary of an American aluminium company, moving on from accounting into production and then general management. For eight years I supervised operations in France, Germany and the Netherlands as well as the UK, being based in Germany for two of those years; as well as enjoying the orderly way of life over there, we appreciated the easy travel opportunities afforded by no sea crossings. Changes in US management in the late 1980s, combined no doubt with my awkward nature, brought an end to fifteen happy years and in 1990 I moved out. I was lucky to find another job in the same industry. There I had another happy time, which came to an end after five years when the parent company sold the division which I had been running. I had two more MD jobs in progressively smaller companies, but these involved living away Monday to Friday and I retired in 1999. The contrast between the American and British styles of business administration was striking and I reckoned I was lucky to have had a long period experiencing the former. Retirement was great for a while: children settling down and producing grandchildren; plenty of travel; still able to exercise energetically. However, five years ago our oldest child died after battling for twenty months with acute myeloid leukaemia and that put the aches and pains of growing old into perspective. Two years before Nick took ill, our daughter Caroline had bowel cancer; a year before that my sister Jenny had blood cancer; four years ago brother Gerry (G 59-64) had a cancerous kidney removed; all of these are thankfully now in the clear, but this dreadful disease is all around us and I wish we could spend more time and money on removing the causes from the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.

The lockdown has taught me that swimming thirty slow lengths three times a week must have a surprisingly positive effect on general fitness. My struggles to compensate with longer walks, using an exercise bike and a small treadmill serve only to remind me of the creaky joints! As I'm sure for everyone else, shopping has become a major expedition: queue to get in, follow the one way system, don't dare to forget anything, queue to pay the bill and come back home.”

 

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