Twenty-odd years ago I spoke at the Institute of Directors to an audience largely composed of bankers. Mostly I gave examples of what a lousy job they were doing for customers and how dire their marketing was.

Naturally I couldn’t resist the joke – new then – about what “bankers” rhymes with. Nor did I fail to ask if any of them actually laughed all the way to the bank – and that got me a laugh.

I don’t suppose I could have predicted that neither the service nor the marketing have improved to this day. And I certainly couldn’t have predicted what great big fat laughs some of their top bozos – who might well be in jail if they were you or me* – have since enjoyed at our expense.

The programme on bankers and the LIBOR scandal was excellent. From it I learned that the only able person involved – Bob Diamond – although probably not entirely guiltless was punished for the incompetence of the regulators, politicians and usual suspects who run things so badly here.

People here had received warnings years before from the US regulators and chose to ignore it. The misgovernor of the Bank of England who was responsiblefor Diamond’s departure managed to escape being interviewed, though he clearly he turned a blind eye to what was happening and should be thrown out.

One of the most revealing moments came when Diamond was hauled up before some parliamentary committee for ritual crucifixion and fatuous point-scoring. Some smart-arse asked him if he knew the motto of the Quakers who founded Barclays Bank 260 years ago.

Of course he didn’t. So bloody what? How would that help you with the Libor rates?

There is a certain type of odious smoothie who rises to the top like scum in this country.  One after another spoke about the whole disaster as though they were neither involved nor even there at the time. None got punished as I suspect you or I would be if we screwed up.

A man called Turner, who moves effortlessly from one overpaid pretend job to another, was infuriatingly smug. Those of us who have anything to do with financial services know that the Financial Services Authority over which he has presided has done nothing useful to prevent obvious abuse and everything to make it nigh on impossible to sell anything.

They have now changed its name in the absurd belief that this will change anything. Talk about rearranging the deck-chairs.

Then there was the beautifully dressed, amazingly distinguished and it turns out outstandingly incompetent ex-Chairman of Barclays Bank, Marcus Agius -straight from Central Casting for Dynasty. He laughed all the way from the bank.

The biggest slime-ball of all is the chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland - still, incredibly, there – who spoke about the banking industry’s need to reform as if it were something he was not a part of; as if he had never presided throughout. I bet he’s still getting massive bonuses.

So there we go – back to worrying about next month’s money; and there they go, chauffeur-driven back to their multi-million pound, inflation-linked pensions and country houses.

These are the people running things in Britain – and running our lives into the .ground

Still, can’t complain; we don’t have Killer Putin  or Mafioso Berlusconi running things. Just half the sixth form at Eton.

* Talking about the Mafia, readers often write saying things are even worse in the US. The second programme centred around a man  called Corzine, a former Governor of New Jersey, home of The Sopranos. He certainly should be locked up.

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Seventy years ago my parents took over a vermin-ridden, filthy derelict pub outside Manchester.

They turned it into a goldmine – for three reasons.

My father was very funny, so many people used to come for his company. My mother was beautiful, so many others wanted to enjoy hers.

Some did – but that’s another subject.

They opened a very successful restaurant above the pub which was in the Good Food Guide right from the first year – 1952 – till they left 25 years later.

Later, my mother started a charity for animals. I told her to write letters to her supporters.

The first pulled in £5,000 from a list of 1,000. You could probably multiply that by at least three today.

I sent that letter – written when she was 70 – to David Ogilvy.

He replied, “Hire your mother.”

She gave me a lot of good advice, including one piece I have never forgotten.

“Always say you’re sorry. It costs nothing, and it often makes someone happy.”

Going back to David Ogilvy, he introduced me to a big account. After a while he rang me up and asked, “Have you made any mistakes?”

I replied, “Yes.”

“Have you owned up?”

“Yes”

“Good. Always confess before they find out.”

I am amazed by some of the stuff I see – especially on the internet. It’s all boast, boast, boast – “my latest webinar was brilliant, blah, blah, blah.”

A little humility goes a long way.

Another excellent advertising man, Charles E Brower of BBDO, had a saying I love.

“Honesty is not only the best policy. It is rare enough nowadays to make you pleasantly conspicuous.”

So is humility.

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On Friday I whacked out an email offering a £600 discount off the last www.eadim.com I plan to run.

Maybe you saw it and pressed the delete button with relief.

Maybe you never saw it at all. So just in case …

Perhaps I have reached my sell-by date anyhow, because my long-time partner Mike pointed out that I got the price wrong on the website.

Thank God I had already confessed that the programme is wildly inaccurate – with five months to go the details aren’t finished.

But if you’re still with me, this year I shall focus largely – but not entirely – on two things that seem important to me – and maybe you, too.

They certainly are if you plan to survive the next few years without being a) ripped off by the online Mafiosi or b) finding it impossible to sell whatever makes you a living.

Let’s take the baddies first.

They’re surprisingly like the original – having little get togethers where they cook up new schemes,  forever introducing you to “my good friend” who will have making money forever without working.

Only later do you discover the real cost.

Who wouldn’t want to get money without doing anything? The magic phrase is passive income.

Just to see if it really works  my colleagues and I have been working at it for quite a few months now and will reveal all in October.

The surprising thing is, we’re having a fair amount of success

Someone asked me on Friday what exactly we would cover in this area.

I replied more or less as follows:

“We have taken several products and services, and been selling them successfully on line.

The process is continuing and we are learning new things every day – like what goes wrong when everything seems plain sailing, and how to fix it –  which is why this sort of thing can NEVER be totally passive. 

One of the first cases was my own How to Write seminars which we have built into a series. 

In other cases it has been stuff our clients were selling – like a photography course we thought could do well – and is indeed doing so.  

In another case it was just sheer pique on my part.

A client, in my view, screwed us and I was livid. So we went into competition, and are doing a lot better than they were. 

 In yet others it has just been clients who said they’d like to work with us.

 This past week these various activities –  still in their relative infancy – pulled in a satisfactory four figure sum, so you may find what we have learned interesting.”

The bad news is that it isn’t entirely passive. But it does almost run on auto-pilot once you”ve got it right.

The other subject we’re going to focus on is selling.

Selling your ideas. Persuading people to do what you want. Squeezing a little extra money from them. Overcoming their objections. Doing better presentations.

Why is this the right time to master this, if you haven’t?

Because I don’t believe for a second that times are going to get better. I think they are going to get worse.

So you need to make money the old-fashioned way.

This was well put by Thomas J. Watson Jnr of IBM: “Nothing happens in business until something gets sold.”

Most of us are lamentable at this.

I watch other presentations at the various events I speak at. Most are appalling. Hardly any  have a clue about things like powerpoint – even those who speak well.

Accordingly I am inviting two (and I hope three) of the best people I know to reveal their sales secrets.

They have between them worked with – I mean run training for – some of the biggest names in business anywhere.

Names you will instantly recognise.

One has written two best-selling books on the subject – and actually taught me.

One specialises in selling professional services.

The third I am still talking to.

If you think better selling will help you, they will show you how it’s done. And if you don’t – well, I don’t know what to suggest.

If you’re interested you can save £600 off the event and get easy terms.

There are, as usual, only 40 places

Just email me, Drayton@draytonBird.com, with the word: “Swansong” and we’ll arrange everything.

I’m always happy to answer any questions, too – in writing, or on the phone.

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We scribblers, like members of any other trade, exchange little stories, one of which I just received from Andy Owen.

It reads as follows:

I received an email from a good pal yesterday, to announce the launch of his new website…

He took his eye off the ball for a second – and sent it out with the following subject line:

“£200 disocunt to celebrate our new web site”

I emailed him immediately.  As you can imagine, he is in bits.  I feel so sorry for him, as he’s a lovely guy, very smart and extremely professional.

This is what he has said in his email to me this morning:

Verily, one does not have to be Tom Dooley to hang down one’s head.

 Or in other words, “Oh, bollocks!”

Still, I only sent it to 425 clients..

 Indeed, so ashamed am I that I’m thinking I might climb up on the roof and toss myself off.

Thanks for spotting it, though. Nobody else has mentioned it.

I suppose some might think it was a ploy to attract attention, but it was simply a catastrophic mistake on my part.

Perhaps it’ll go down in the anals of marketing history.

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His Lordship was in the study at Downton Abbey when the butler approached and coughed discreetly.

“May I ask you a question my Lord?”

“Go ahead Carson” said his Lordship.

“I am doing the crossword in The Times and I have found a word I am not too clear on.”

“What word is that?” said his Lordship.

“‘Aplomb’, my Lord.”

“Now that’s a difficult one to explain. I would say it is self assurance or complete composure.”

“Thank you my Lord, but I’m still a little confused.”

“Let me give you an example to make it clearer. Do you remember a few months ago the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived to spend a weekend with us?”

“I remember the occasion very well, my Lord. It gave the staff and myself much pleasure to look after them.”

“Also”, continued the Earl of Grantham, “do you remember Will plucked a rose for Kate in the rose garden?”

“I was present on that occasion, my Lord, ministering to their needs.”

“While plucking the rose a thorn embedded itself in his thumb very deeply.”

Carson replied, “I witnessed the incident my Lord and saw the Duchess herself remove the thorn and bandage his thumb with her own dainty handkerchief.”

“That evening the prick on his thumb was so sore, Kate had to cut up his venison from our own estate, even though it was extremely tender.”

“Yes my Lord, I did see everything that transpired that evening.”

“The next morning while you were pouring coffee for Her Ladyship, Kate enquired of Will with a loud voice, ‘Darling does your prick still throb?’

And you, Carson, did not spill one drop of coffee!

Now that is aplomb”.

* Actually I think Downton Abbey is about as sophisticated as a pint of shrimps. Ifyou want to know how the aristocracy really lived, read “Wait for me” by the Duchess of Devonshire – beautifully written at the age of 90, hilarious and a joy from start to finish.

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Do you think the toffs in charge have a clue what’s going on? Me neither

At the time everyone laughed at John Major. He had an impossible job when you think about it, but did damn well.

He had an amazingly hard act to follow in Margaret Thatcher. He won an  election against all expectations. He had a run of bad luck with scandals of one kind and another. And in Tony Blair he had as an opponent one of the most plausible liars ever to besmirch British politics.

Despite all that, he left us in great shape with lots of money in the bank.

Maybe this was because he was the last normal human being to run this country.

The media laughed at the idea that his family had a business selling garden gnomes. He once applied for a job as a bus conductor (and passed) but ended up working for a bank. For a while he worked in Nigeria – and if that doesn’t teach you about life, what will?

The simple fact is that nobody since him has had any idea of what goes on outside the unreal realm of Westminster- and they’ve all been flops.

The Bliar was a public school product who spent almost his entire career in politics. Gormless Gordon was a maniac who never had a real job. Cameron and half his cabinet are Old Etonians, with his experience limited to public relations – organised misrepresentation.

What happens when such people run things? They have no idea what happens as a result of their little wheezes. They have no idea what normal people think. And they have no commonsense.

What, for example, do normal people think of the idea of giving £650 million in aid to Pakistan? We’re broke. Pakistan is run by corrupt rogues, with a secret service in league with the Taliban

And what happens closer to home?

This government lives in a world of witless gestures, never stopping to think.

Shops closing down? Get some BS artist and make her a Shopping Czar. Hello, dickheads? Did you notice there’s a thing called the internet – and it’s not going away.

Let’s not start on the gormless Teenage Czar idea, but  here’s a personal example.

I inherited two ramshackle houses from my mother on the wrong side of Ashton-under-Lyne. Nobody knows where the right side is, by the way.

We rent out rooms to people who are mostly either unemployed or unemployable. The proceeds just about cover the cost of managing those houses much of, but not all the time. Peter, who runs the place, God bless him, regularly has to deal with physical violence.

The money comes directly from the council to us for reasons any normal person living in the real world will understand.

Mr. Ian Duncan Smith has a new scheme which means giving that money directly to those entitled. It is being tested (or “trialled” in corporate drivel-talk) in places including Ashton-under-Lyne.

He has the best of intentions.

But he’s never been to Ashton-under-Lyne – or anywhere like it by the look of things.  If he had he would know what will happen.

1. The cash will go down the throats up the noses or into the veins of many of the recipients.
2. There will be none left for rent
3. They will be out on the streets with the usual results – more work for the police, social services and casualty wards.

In many places, houses like mine will fall derelict. Rather like the thinking of this government.

By the way, you have to wonder how Mr. Smith got his present job. Years ago he was caught out lying about his qualifications.

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Over the years I’ve known some pretty good photographers.

Few, I think, come much better than Jo Stowell ( www.yourpaparazzi.co.uk ) who lives here in Bristol.

I go to New York about five times a year.

These shots capture it perfectly.

I wouldn’t mess with that cop.

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A few months back Denny Hatch of Target Marketing asked me to write about my experiences of working with David Ogilvy.

An abridged version was published, but here is part two of the original memoir.

10. He had no false modesty.

I once asked him if he would come and talk at a conference we were having for all our creative directors.

“What would you like me to talk about?” he asked.

“Well, we all know about your triumphs. Could you talk about things you got wrong?”

He started by saying “Drayton asked me to talk about my mistakes. We have an hour. It will take me three and half minutes to deal with the mistakes. The rest of the time I will talk about what I got right.”

His greatest mistake, he thought, was going public. “Once you do that, you lose control of your business.”

He was proud that he had brought in all the agency’s five biggest clients.

“I made their bed. They lie on it.”

11. He was never too proud to seek criticism

When he had finished drafting Ogilvy on Advertising he sent it to Joel Raphaelson with the note: “Dear Joel, Kindly improve. D. O.”

When planning a speech about direct marketing, he sent me the draft for comment.

12. He was extremely quick-witted

We were having a seminar in Barcelona.

People were showing their work. One man showed something which David did not rate very highly and the person said that it had done very well.

David commented, “Imagine how much better it would have done if you’d done it properly.”

13. He was fun

I used to go around making a lot of speeches – I still do.

David rang me one day and said, “Why do you go around the world making all these speeches – giving away our secrets?”

I replied, “You’ve been doing it for years – decades – and they still can’t do what you do. You can talk until you’re blue in the face but people won’t know how to do what you can do.”

And I quoted Kipling to him: “They copied all they could follow but they couldn’t copy my mind.”

He never forgot this. I remember him ringing me at home one day and saying, “Hello, David here. Just back from making another speech are we then?”

14. He could be very sly.

Shortly after I sold my business to Ogilvy and Mather I was asked by the people in the London advertising agency to look at some work for the World Wildlife Fund.

They sent the copy and asked for comment.

I did so and wrote, “David Ogilvy says advertisements without headlines are headless wonders. This copy has no urge to action at the end. It is a tailless wonder” – which I thought was rather a clever way of putting it.

The next day the phone rang. It was David. He said, “Thanks for looking at my copy. You’re quite right. I shall change it.”

That was clever. Would I have been as frank if I had known it was his work? I doubt it.

15. He was a tremendous worker.

As he fascinated me I used to ask those who knew him better and longer what made him so remarkable.

One, Joel Raphaelson, told me how he used to go into the office on a Saturday morning to get work done and David would already be there.

Then when he used to drive past the office on Sunday evening the lights would be on. David was still working away.

16. He did not give up

I asked Ken Roman, the chief executive of Ogilvy for most of the time I was in that business, what he thought made David so remarkable.

Ken said, “Well, I’ve done quite well, one reason being I don’t give up easily.

“If something doesn’t work immediately, I’ll try again; and if it still doesn’t work I’ll try again. And if it doesn’t work then, I’ll try again. And again. And again.

“I’ll keep going for a couple of years before I give up. But David never gives up. He’ll keep going for 40 years.”

17. He was amazingly good at spotting good people

He had the most amazing ability to pick out people, often people who didn’t seem very important but had ability, and get to know them.

His reach was astonishing. I rang up our agency in Singapore one evening to talk to somebody there. The person I wanted wasn’t there but some young guy answered – his name was Chris Foo – and he said to me, “Oh, I’m reading your book.”

So I said, “How come?” And he said, “David Ogilvy told me to.”

At the time, Chris was a trainee who has since become very successful. So David had this ability to single out young people who he could see were going places. I don’t know how he did it.

Around the same time, I was approached by R. Sridhar who was running the Bangalore office in India.

He wrote to me and said, “I’m reading your book. I’m wondering if you would like to come out to India and help us set up a direct response agency?”

I asked him, “Whose idea was that?” He said, “David Ogilvy’s.”

18. He was a snob

After Ogilvy and Mather was bought by WPP, he invited Martin Sorrell to come to Touffou.

I happened to be there and listened to a long discussion as to a) how formal the occasion should be (evening dress was decided upon) and b) who else should be invited.

Many great names were mentioned, including that of a former French President. David was never afraid of dropping a name or two.

19. He had a great sense of theatre

The first time I ever saw him was in London, speaking at a direct marketing conference.

He was an expert at the dramatic gesture. After he was introduced, everyone applauded.

He wasn’t on the platform but in the front row.

He rose very, very slowly and walked to the podium.

People were waiting eagerly to hear what he was going to say. He said nothing.

Then he took off his jacket to reveal his red braces and paused.

Then, like an old-time preacher he said in resonant tones:

“My text today is from The Gospel according to St Matthew, verse so and so, chapter so-and-so”.

He had that audience in his power.

20. He enjoyed repartee.

The first time I went to a meeting he was attending in Amsterdam I arrived late, sweating profusely. I used to wear a lot of cologne in those days.

I got to a room outside where the meeting was being held.

David was sitting on a settee and he patted the space next to him and said, “Come and sit next to me.”

As I did so, he said, “My goodness, what are you wearing? You smell like a whore’s boudoir!”

And I said, “How do you know?”

He didn’t mind people making fun of him. I think most were too awed to do so.

21. He did not suffer fools gladly.

That day, after we chatted for a minute or two, there was a break in the meeting.

In the next session, people were reporting on what their offices were doing.

A man from Switzerland stood up and did a rambling presentation which showed his offices and explained who the people were but didn’t really tell you much about what the business was doing.

In a very loud voice which must have been terribly embarrassing for this man, David said, “I can’t stand another word of this,” stood up and walked out.

22. He was a great gossip.

He once told me a story about a former partner whom he had promoted to run the New York office.

This man, who was handling the American Express account, died young.

“I woke up and dreamt he had come back. He wanted my job, you know.”

David told me how when they worked together the American Express billings were going up like a rocket.

He was very impressed and couldn’t understand why until after the man died.

The secret was that the fellow was having an affair with the advertising manager.

23. He never stopped thinking about business.

He rang me one morning at around ten o’clock, and without any preliminaries asked me what was wrong with Ogilvy and Mather.

I said I didn’t know but I’d think about it and write to him with my thoughts.

Then he said, “Oh, by the way, Merry Christmas!” Yes: it was Christmas day. As far as he was concerned, every day was a working day.

These are some of the things I recall about this remarkable man.

I do not think I ever forgot any conversation we had. It was a privilege and a joy to know him.

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A few months back Denny Hatch of Target Marketing asked me to write about my experiences of working with David Ogilvy.

An abridged version was published, but here is the original memoir.

I regret that I only got to know him when he was quite old, but I was damn lucky to get to know him at all; even luckier that for some reason he took a shine to me.

As he loved making lists, I thought I would list the chief characteristics I noticed from my time with him so as to convey how fascinating, contradictory and unusual he was.

1. He was intensely insecure.

This was partly because his family was not at all well off when he was young. Although an old, distinguished Scottish family they had fallen upon hard times.

But I am sure it was just as much because he felt overshadowed by his brother Francis.

A brilliant scholar who did very well in advertising, Francis ran Mather & Crowther, the London agency that helped fund Hewitt, Ogilvy, Benson & Mather which David set up in New York.

A revealing insight into their relationship occurred when some years ago a friend of mine came across a copy of Confessions of an Advertising Man in an English second hand bookshop.

Inside was a message: “To Francis – The older I get, the more I admire you – David”.

Of course, David far outdid his brother. But what we feel as children cannot be eradicated.

2. He was well-read, cultured and never stopped learning.

He had a good knowledge of music and art.

One room in Chateau Touffou was lined with books.

I was childishly proud when a friend told me recently that one of my books is now prominently displayed there.

I recall asking David whether he had read them all. He said he had.

He had an eye for new ideas. Most people lose this sense of enquiry quite early on; once they succeed to a certain degree they feel no need to keep learning and collapse into happy sloth – usually mixed with unjustified conceit.

I recall, on more than one occasion, him sending me things to comment on. One was a copy of Maxi-Marketing by Rapp and Collins. He asked me what I thought, and later wrote a recommendation for it.

Later, he sent me a newsletter written by Gary Halbert, the copywriter, and asked me what I thought about that. (I thought it excellent).

3. He worried constantly about money

Shortly after I got to know him my wife and I visited him in his chateau for the weekend.

I was vastly impressed by Touffou. It is one of the loveliest chateaux in France

“What a glorious place,” I said to David.

“Have you any idea how much it costs to run?” he replied. Then he went on about how much it cost to put on a new roof.

No matter how famous or celebrated he became he never lost his fear of poverty.

He rang me up one day in about 1992 and said, “I’m terribly worried about money. Do you think we could do some seminars together? What about getting me some speaking engagements?”

I was astounded, though obviously very flattered and I said, “David, look – don’t worry. Somebody will always want you to come along and pay for you to cast a cloak of respectability over their activities”.

This worry about money made him very stingy in small ways.

When I made the video with him in Paris, he kept bumming cigarettes off the cameraman.

Afterwards he invited me to lunch. After the meal he asked the waiter, “Est-ce-que vous prenez American Express?” (“Do you take American Express?”)

The waiter replied, “Non, monsieur.”

Ogilvy said, “Oh dear, we’ll have to pay cash – have you got any money?”

So I had to pay for my own meal.

On another occasion he bought me dinner. He asked if I was having a starter. I got the strong impression he thought this was needless extravagance. When I said, “Yes”, he said, “Well, hurry up then.”

From what people have told me he was very careful with his expenses. Ogilvy and Mather paid, not David.

4. He was funny

On the second evening of that first visit to Touffou David’s wife Herta asked us what we would like for dinner on Sunday – she was going to Paris and wanted to get the cook to prepare something.

I said that as we had seen a hare when we were driving into the chateau, we could perhaps have hare.

Herta said it was very hard to get hare but suggested rabbit – ‘lapin à la moutarde’.

David said, “I hate rabbit; rabbit will never be served here while I’m alive. When I was young, we used to have rabbit all the time.” (It was very cheap then).

The next night the rabbit appeared.

David turned to me accusingly and said, “This is your doing.”

5. He was childish.

On one of the times I went with my wife to visit him at Touffou, we arrived in a low-slung bright red sports car with a roaring engine.

When we pulled up outside the chateau David was terribly impressed and said, “My goodness, what’s that?”

My wife said, “It’s a Lotus Esprit Turbo”.

Next day he asked her, “Will you take me for a ride in your beautiful car?” So my wife took him off for a ride to the nearest town.

When they got to the centre he asked her how to wind the window down and she told him which button to press.

He then waved in a rather lordly fashion to a man standing nearby.

My wife asked him who he was waving at. He said, “That’s the local mayor; he hates me.”

6. He could be polite in a quite old-fashioned way.

On our first visit, at the end of the first evening I was mildly astonished when he asked his wife, “Aren’t you going to turn down their bed?”

He walked us over the tower we were sleeping in – an old hunting lodge of Francois 1 – and offered to do so.

I think we managed on our own.

7. He could be unforgivably rude.

When in India I was taken to a very good restaurant in New Delhi. My hosts told me that when David was there they brought out the chef to meet him – partly because David had been a chef when young.

The chef asked him what he wanted.

“Cornflakes,” was the reply.

He came out with this trick more than once. Ken Roman, who wrote his biography, thought it was a way of drawing attention to himself.

8. He was acutely conscious of the impression he made

I once went to Paris to make a video with him for an audience in South Africa.

He had been asked to go there, but refused because he had strong feelings about apartheid. I said I would go with him and be his producer which he agreed to.

Jerry Pickholz, the CEO of Ogilvy Direct, asked me to persuade David, which surprised me.

I asked, “Why me?”

Jerry said, “He loves you.”

This was a huge surprise to me – the first I knew of it, to be honest.

I think David did have intense likes and dislikes, and I am lucky he never went off me.

Anyhow, I wrote and asked him if he’d make the film. As a kind of joke I said “I’ll come and be the producer”. So I flew to Paris to make the film.

First, he took off his jacket to reveal his red braces. Then he said to me, “You know why I do that? So they won’t think I’m an old fart.”

9. He had strong views on racism

The reason we were making the video for South Africa was that David refused to go there whilst apartheid was in force.

I once asked David if he had any regrets, looking back on his life.

He said, “Yes” and said that he was once President of the United Negro College Fund – a very important charity in America which, incidentally, has the best slogan I’ve ever heard: “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste”.

He held this position for a while but told me that he couldn’t stand it because there was so much squabbling and politics and he gave it up. In retrospect he felt he should have continued.

He then told me something that happened in his childhood.

His family were visited by an African bishop whom he found absolutely enchanting – “I adored him”.

He remembered sitting in the bath with his sister and asking her to pinch him so that he would turn black.

I thought that he never lost this childish way of thinking, which I think many creative people possess.

Part two tomorrow.

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I’m winding down my office in London and kind of retiring to Bristol.

Chloe’s life is in the Big Smoke, so she’s not coming.

Or maybe I drove her mad.

If you need someone to rely on, someone imaginative, someone who thinks, someone who cares, someone unflappable – maybe she’s the one for you.

If you’re a corporate zombie or a bossy-boots, it won’t work.

But then if you were like that, you wouldn’t be reading this, would you?

But quite possibly you might need someone like Chloe – or know someone who might.

Just email me Drayton@draytonbird.com if you do.

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