|
CCL8 |
|
|
||
|
OUT OF THE WILDERNESS Friday 15th January 1971 I took up appointment as Senior Lecturer in Management Studies in the Management Centre of Hatfield Polytechnic Saturday 1st January 1972 CCL was taken over by Arthur D. Little. ------------------------------ 1970s So far as I am aware the only contact of the Management Centre with the new CCL was the receipt of Interface. However in the 1970s colleagues in the Centre referred to the old CCL in general and to Tim Eiloart in particular. JRA (John) Clark, who lived in Cambridge, at a time when we were sharing an office, invited Tim Eiloart to meet him in his office at the Centre. John Clark was not present and as a result Tim Eiloart and I were alone together in face-to-face contact. I was not inclined to do more than respond to Tim's enquiry about where he could find him. The Head of the Management Centre, Peter Gray Lucas said his son had worked at CCL and I wondered if he was an Andrew Lucas who designed a sign for AIM Electronics. Thursday 1st November 1973 I renewed contact with the "learned society" side of the IEE by attending a lecture at the IEE, Savoy Place, by Dr. Alex A. Copisarow, who was no longer with McKinsey but was now a senior civil servant with the Ministry of Technology. The title of his lecture - "Is the Management Challenge Too Much for Electrical Engineers?" – was of great interest to me. Like me, he had a ‘two cultures’ approach and from then on I used a reprint of his lecture in certain of my Management sessions. I regret I did not buttonhole him afterwards to ask him about McKinsey projects in 1965, while I was at M.I., and his contact with CCL in 1967, while I was still acting as consultant to the Company. Wednesday 3rd August 1983 Peter Lucas, who had moved to Cambridge, was at pains to show me some correspondence he was having with Tim Eiloart about "green" policy. Monday 9th January 1984 JRA Clark made derogatory remarks about Tim Eiloart. He said that the next MD of CCL would be an AIM Electronics man who had said that CCL's losses were greater than the turnover - this was very much akin to a point I had noted back in 1966 when offered a post with CCL. Thursday 27th September 1984 I became involved again with an IEE Committee at Savoy Place, Professional Group M4 (Management Skills & Techniques) in the Management and Design Division. On my arrival for the first meeting of the Committee after becoming one of its members, on the table was a paper about a Symposium to be held on 22nd November 1984. One of the contributors to the Symposium was CCL.
SPYCATCHER 1987 Weaving points aimed at a specific target within a statement to a general audience is a well-established technique of veiled communication. Did Peter Wright and/or Paul Greengrass introduce information into ‘Spycatcher’ in response to a number of queries I had circulated at Establishment level? If so, who arranged it? His material on Grant, Marconi & Eric Eastwood & Roland Kemp; Sir Fred Brundett; R.V. Jones; Lord Rothschild & Shell; N.M. Rothschild & the job offer; Freemasonry; Lord Clanmorris a.k.a. Bingham; word games; Buckingham Gate; the Reform Club; CAZAB; Sokolow Grant and McCaul, Michael (MacCauley) dovetailed with many of the points I had raised. Friday 6th March 1987 A close friend was invited to a luncheon party of about 30 which included Norman Tebbitt and Mrs. Thatcher s political Secretary. I was told that Maxwell sat at the remote end, disgracing himself by sleeping!. April 1988 In April 1988 there was an extraordinary re-encounter when a masonic friend (David Riddell), to whom I was giving a lift after an OSM meeting in Cambridge, asked to be dropped off at the home of a friend of his. This turned out to be John Coales, who welcomed me as I brought our mutual friend to his door. I had another appointment so I did not respond to his sign that I should enter - I would, however, have done so, ill-prepared though I was, if I had thought there was any hope of learning what and who was behind his deplorable behaviour of some 20 years before. Tuesday 18th February 1992 TIMES p2 Maxwell killed himself.
SEEKING AN EXPLANATION Friday 10th August 2001 I wrote to Sir Michael Richardson at 32 Queen Anne’s Gate asking who was behind the strong and in some respects unethical pressures on me to join the staff of CCL. I received no reply. Sunday 16th December 2001 I put “Tim Eiloart” into an internet search engine and came up with the fact that in 2000 he stood unsuccessfully for Cambridgeshire County elections as a Green Party candidate. There was also an item about him leading eco-tourist projects in Spain. He must now be 65 years old. There were many inaccuracies in the account of his career. Monday 17th December 2001 I was going to send Tim Eiloart a Christmas greeting but found I could not get an e-mail to him through the website describing the eco-tours Friday 4th January 2002 I wrote again to Sir Michael Richardson at 8-10 Grosvenor Gardens, the office address given in his Who's Who entry. This time my letter was returned marked "Not known at his address". I did not try to contact him again before his death in May 2003. The Obituary in The Times said “Richardson’s 19 years at Panmure Gordon were spent building a network of contacts, not least over lunches at the Savoy, where he was a director, and through the ultimate clique, the Freemasons” Wednesday 23rd January 2002 I had read Maxwell - The Outsider by Tom Bower (Aurum Press 1988) and had found therein no mention whatsoever of Maxwell's involvement with CCL or Computer Technology. I wrote to the author briefly explaining my own involvement and asking his help in determining which of Maxwell's statements about knowing Lord Nelson very well and not knowing him was true. Tom Bower and I then exchanged two or three e-mails but he was unable to help. One of the interesting points made in the book was that John Dunworth had a long-standing association with Robert Maxwell. Thursday 13th June 2002 I wrote to the Chief Executive of Cambridge Consultants Limited as follows:- I am writing a history of CCL covering the period from 1966 to 1970 when Robert Maxwell had a substantial interest in the Company. During this time I was a consultant to CCL. I would be very interested to know if the company has any records for this period and if so whether I could have access. CCL passed my letter to its unofficial historian, Rodney Dale, who sent me a copy of his History of CCL, which covered the period from 1960 to 1979. It was very well produced and amusingly written. There was no mention whatsoever of me. Rodney Dale also reminded me that he had worked for a short time for me at Cambridge Instruments. Apparently the USA Cambridge Instruments had sent over a piece of equipment which contained a printed circuit board. We had seen nothing like it before and I had put him onto producing something similar. Rodney Dale asked why I hadn't joined CCL - was it because Tim Eiloart flitted from one thing to another? I said I had thought TE lackadaisical and had once told him so - however the reason was that I wanted to maintain my independence. I had therefore resisted pressures to join. I also told Rodney Dale that there had been things going on of which he had no knowledge. He was wholly supportive of the idea that I should write a history of CCL from a different perspective. Wednesday 3rd July 2002 Tim Eiloart phoned. He said he had heard from Rodney Dale that I had surfaced. He said he had had a stroke. I found it difficult to understand what he was saying - I said we both had impediments, he with his speaking and I with my hearing. He said he would like to come and see me Sunday 7th July 2002 Early evening Tim Eiloart called in, accompanied by his wife. Tim Eiloart was complimentary about everything to do with me. He was full of claims that brilliant inventors had solved problems but the fools didn't want to know or had bought something up to suppress it. At one point in our difficult conversation I asked him if he had known Ray Burnett - TE replied that he had heard of him. He also went out of his way to say there had been no secrets in his Company - this was very likely a response to my comment to Rodney Dale about hidden happenings at CCL. August 2002 onwards Tim Eiloart phoned twice but I found it very difficult to make out what he was saying other than that he wanted my advice. I then wrote to Tim Eiloart saying that with his speech problem and my hearing problem writing was the best form of communication and that if he sends me his message typewritten I will give it careful consideration. In response, his wife phoned saying it would be best if I contacted other former members of CCL. Monday 16th June 2003 I sent Tim Eiloart a copy of The Coventry Miracle and said any light you can throw on what was happening would be welcome. Thursday 19th June 2003 Tim Eiloart phoned about The Coventry Miracle but did not say anything about it. I read him a prayer by Teilhard de Chardin which I had copied during the morning’s churchwatch. TE thought the uncharted oceans of charity ending was very good. Tuesday 1st July 2003 There was a message on my answerphone from Tim Eiloart. I listened to it eight times and Sheila listened twice but we could only make out a few phrases such as he wanted me to talk to me again, he would like me to hear his version of the Miracle Coventry and that he was keen to do more with our work together. He ended with "God Bless. Best to your family". I felt it best not to respond. Friday 26th December 2003 There was a phone message from Tim Eiloart saying something about ICI Plastics, I am a very wise man, he would take seriously my advice. This time I tape-recorded it from my answerphone and tried it with different tone settings but couldn't glean any more. Again I did not respond. December 2006 While I was in hospital Sheila received a telephone call from Mrs. Eiloart who said she would hand the phone to TE who wanted to tell me some good news. Sheila told Mrs. Eiloart that I was in hospital and she did not have time to take TE's call. Talking the exchange over with Sheila, I said TE might be struggling to say something about the past so the next day Sheila contacted Mrs. Eiloart and asked her to get TE to write to me. Mrs. T said she did not know what TE wanted to say, also that he had suffered two more strokes. |
||||
|
|
|
CCL End |
|
|
|
7a |
|
|||