MPA2
MUCH TO PRAY ABOUT : 1973-75
MAUDLING RESPONSE?
On 4th January 1973 The Times published an article by Reginald Maudling on the Quality of Freedom, in which he referred to new methods of bending men's minds. He also said psychology was of more significance than physical science and went on to call for political studies. I am more than inclined to think this was a final indirect communication by the former Home Secretary in response to my Report to him some two years before. I took it as a nod and a wink that he considered I should pursue a political future.
ELECTION CANDIDATE
In fact it was the Stewardship Conference that was responsible for my becoming actively involved in politics. The sudden cessation of the Conference activities left me with much leisure time on my hands while at the same time I was steeped in the principles of Christian Stewardship. I felt duty-bound to consider what I should do with my time, talents and money in the service of God, my fellow-humans and myself. This was my frame of mind when on 12th January 1973 I went to see Derek Samson, Assistant Director of Hatfield Polytechnic, about obtaining support for research into Privacy. He was a member of the Directorate in 1971 and would have been one of those briefed by the Police.
In the course of our conversation Derek Samson surprised me by asking if I had ever thought of becoming an M.P. I responded that I did not see how I could become one, given that many odd things had happened in my life which I couldn't explain if I was asked about them. Derek Samson, who lived in Harpenden and was active in Conservative circles then asked if I would consider becoming a Conservative candidate for election to the new Council to be formed for St. Albans District. The suggestion seemed particularly apposite to my situation and I replied that I was willing to explore the possibility. Three weeks later, having been at pains to reveal to John Sellers, the Party Agent, as much as I myself could understand of my recent past, I agreed to let my name go forward. I explained to the selection committee that being a consistently marginal Conservative did not mean I was sitting on the fence but was definitely on one side of it though standing near to the dividing line and seeing merit in some ideas from the other side. I was adopted as a Candidate.
It is ironic that about ten years later Derek Samson was in charge of a successful campaign to oust me from my seat on St. Albans District Council!
TWO FUTURE CANTUARS
On 1st February 1973 I attended an evening meeting of the Argentine Diocesan Association & Reception at Lloyds of London. I had been a member of the Association since Cyril Tucker, our Vicar at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge was appointed Bishop of that Diocese. I looked forward very much to meeting old friends.
The first stimulus came when the doorman who was a complete stranger hailed me as a long-lost pal - but perhaps that is the way doormen have. Next, I saw a poster announcing a debate by the Oxford & Cambridge Union Societies on the Motion 'That The Ills Of Britain Stem From The Arrow In King Harold's Eye'!
At the meeting itself, with Sir Howard Grubb in the Chair, there was a message that the principal guest, The Archbishop of York, M. Rev. Donald Coggan, was detained in the House of Lords. The speaker, the Rt. Rev. David Leake, was interesting. I also enjoyed the Reception afterwards, but I left without meeting the Archbishop and instead of going back via the Monument I went in search of a rail or Underground station I had only recently heard about. However, I got lost and found myself at the Monument after all. And there alone on the platform was the Archbishop. We had quite a lively conversation on our way to Kings Cross, in which I told him about the Stewardship Conference, teaching management, John Adair (the management consultant) and my political candidature. Donald Coggan said something about my growing a Poincarré beard and referred to Prayers across the Atlantic. He was such an approachable person and greatly impressed me with his deep humility. As we parted he asked me to convey his greetings and love to Bishop Cyril Tucker when next I wrote
My contacts with future Archbishops of Canterbury continued for in March 1973, Robert Runcie, Bishop of St.Albans, gave an Address at Hatfield Polytechnic. There were quite a number of staff present, including the Director of the Polytechnic, Sir Norman Lindop. I very much liked the Bishop's threesome approach of tradition, spiritual experience and good works all reacting on each other. I sat up and took particular notice when in one sentence he mentioned Stewardship and standing up to manipulation! He also mentioned Lord Hill and referred to the theory that God is a Tory (asking if we agreed) as well as making the point with some humour that Labour and Liberal make up the other parts of the trinity.
Also in March 1973 there was a thoroughly enjoyable party at the St. Nicholas Rectory to meet the the new Rector, Rev. John Waller, and his wife at home. Prominently displayed was a telegram of love and best wishes from Stanley Betts, who had been our Vicar at Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, and had then become Bishop to the Armed Forces and Dean of Rochester.
On the 8th May 1973 I made the note "Prayed for mine enemies" in my Diary. I do not know what prompted the entry but I would guess that my thoughts were directed at Birklands people as well as those shadowy figures who still seemed to be exercising undue control of my life. Incidentally, at some time I had been receiving so many conflicting hints about what I should do that I had come to the conclusion that the only person I would obey without question was H.M. The Queen. Later, however, I had decided that I would have just one question, namely “What, Your Majesty, have you been told?”
JOB OPPORTUNITY?
Also in May 1973, another higher-paid job was dangled before me. A Visiting Lecturer I was using on a DMS course, who worked for Personnel Administration Ltd. (PA), was very keen for me to visit PA’s Management School at Sundridge Park, persistently asking me to phone and make arrangements for a visit. On one occasion he puzzled me by adding something about a Mansion and a Director. Eventually I agreed to go, to explore with someone I shall call PA Trainer the possibility of having a TV tape or film made for use in a management exercise I had devised. When I arrived I found I was given V.I.P. treatment. I first saw PA Trainer and then I was given the company of a very attractive young woman in being shown over the Management Centre. Next, I was taken to see the Director, with whom I chatted over a drink or two. It was then back to PA Trainer, who surprised me by describing what was needed in the Director of Sundridge Park, referred to a Trust arrangement in respect of the Director appointment and said the Director's signature was required for the distribution of video tapes. I was shown a MONEY film (with the Director in it) and then one about Appraisal Interviewing. I did not get in touch with PA again - clearly I had been targeted but I judged the VTM Index to be too high. But who was behind the approach?
POLITICS
Election Day, Thursday 7th June 1973, was gloriously sunny. The blossom was out on the may trees at the entrance to the polling station at Manland (now Sir John Lawes) School. Early in the day I received a telegram of good wishes from the M.P., who at this time was Victor Goodhew. I was elected along with the two other Conservative candidates as a District Councillor for East Ward, Harpenden. Incidentally, it was fascinating to see the Committee Room in action, in our dining room, which knowledge I later put to good use. I was also intrigued by the thought that as the Polytechnic was under the aegis of Hertfordshire County Council, I was in effect employed by one Local Government and an elected ‘director’ of another. When it came to putting forward my choices of committees I balanced those which greatly interested me with those where my prime motivation was to be of service to others.
Meanwhile, an engineering lecturer at Hatfield, who I knew through the Staff Christian Fellowship, wrote inviting me to give a talk on Privacy to engineering students on a course to be held at Keble College, Oxford, in July 1973. He enclosed a provisional programme from which I learned that my contribution at 11am on 4th July was in a session headed 'The Value of Freedom' and that the talk preceding mine was to be by Rt.Hon. (sic) Cecil Parkinson M.P. on 'Political Freedom'. I accepted the invitation. I was much taken with Cecil Parkinson's speech and afterwards he took the trouble to seek me out and explain he couldn't stay - he said he was walking to the station to catch the 1145 train (I noted this detail in case he was time or number signalling, which I don’t think he was). Either on the day I gave my session or the day after, the Government announced that a debate on Privacy was to take place on Friday 13th July. On that day, I attended the House of Commons to hear part of the debate. I found Kenneth Younger, who had chaired the Home Office Committee, sitting just in front of me in a Special Gallery. I was impressed by the contributions of Brian Walden and Alex Lyon.
Next, I found myself in the St. Albans group attending the 1973 Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool. To entertain our M.P. we booked a dinner at the small and reputable River House restaurant but then got a call to ask that we change our booking as the Prime Minister wished to entertain Christopher Soames on the day we had chosen. We changed, of course. I was intrigued to find later that my Uncle Hermann (a Swiss confectioner) had been closely involved in the start-up of the restaurant.
When the St. Albans Constituency group had arrived in Blackpool and assembled in its hotel bar, Donald Baird, Chairman of the Constituency Association, told us that Victor Goodhew had had a relapse after heart surgery and would not be attending the Conference. Then, in an aside, looking at me very intently and in a deferential manner, the Chairman said St. Albans would not have to look very far to find a successor if Victor Goodhew did not recover sufficiently well to take up his duties again.
Victor Goodhew recovered and just before Christmas he and his wife gave an excellent party for the St. Albans representatives and their spouses in their flat at 86 Eaton Place.
RETURN TO IEE
In 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. He had been with McKinsey, the consultancy which, I had been informed in 1965, had identified me with the Office of Chairman in the English Electric Group. A year or so later, while I had been acting as consultant to CCL, that Company had some correspondence with him. Now, apparently, he was 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.
In January 1974 I attended an IEE Symposium on the Electronics Industry and Higher Education at the Royal Holloway College. In conversation between sessions, I was surprised and rather put out by a comment by one of the speakers, Professor W.E.J. Farvis, that I was destined for a political career - someone had decided I would go into politics and evidently the Professor had not queried the human rights issues but just gone along with it. He had been a member of the IEE Committee of Enquiry back in 1970/71. To make matters worse there was a follow-up remark by someone taking part in the conversation, to the effect that if Prof. Farvis said I was to be a politician that was what would happen. I was also intrigued by a conversation I overheard, as may have been intended, to the effect that another of the contributors, J.R. Thompson, who had been involved in my departure from M.I., was being protected in his lecturing job by a clandestine group.
FREEMASONRY & UNA
Meanwhile I had been as active in Freemasonry as my other commitments and still-stretched finances would allow. In June 1974 I presented myself at Mark Masons’ Hall, 40 Upper Brook Street, to join University of London Conclave No.2 in the Order of the Secret Monitor (OSM). A year before, the prospect of my becoming the equivalent of Grand Master of OSM was put to me by two Cambridge people, who wanted me to join their Conclave. One of them, Wilbur Cocke, said my personality was right - I was genial etc., not stiff. He also made an odd reference to a Philips tape recorder. The other, Charles Cann, who had been with Wilbur Cocke at Dunkirk, told me it would take me only 10 years to reach the top - and I was not even a member of OSM!
For sentimental reasons I decided on a Conclave associated with the University of London rather than Cambridge as I also had a degree of that University. The Conclave got its name from a small group of University of London masons who in 1887 suggested its formation. After a few years there were very few University of London graduates in the Conclave - indeed for many years around 1900 nearly all the intake were freemasons from Oxford University, who saw it as the way to get their own Conclave. It was 85 years before Oxford succeeded – blocking can take place in Masonic circles as well in other types of organisation! When I entered University of London Conclave No.2 I think there were only two other London graduates in it. I had no thought whatsoever of becoming the Head of the Order, as had been intimated. What I found particularly interesting was that the biblical text on which the Order is based provides a very good example of the sophistication of indirect communication at the highest level of society around 1000 BC!
One highly significant event from my point of view was a sermon preached at the 9.45 am Service at St. Nicholas on Sunday 21st October 1973. The visiting preacher was Rev. Marcus Braybrooke of the Council for Christians and Jews and the subject was the United Nations. I had received information about the preacher and his topic from a most unexpected source, namely George Walker, a member of my Masonic Lodge. Marcus Braybrooke was his son in law and a week or so beforehand George had told me that he would be in Harpenden and why. The Methodist Rev. Bill Simpson, who lived in Harpenden and was Director of the Council for Christians and Jews, was present at the Service in his capacity as Chairman of the Harpenden Branch of the UN Association. I had been concerned about the purely local focus of my community activities and was seeking an ‘antidote’ - my eyes had been opened by a paper on “Stewardship of the World’s Resources” which had been written for the Stewardship Conference by a Rothamstead scientist. It did not take much effort for Bill Simpson to persuade me to join the Association and become a member of the Branch Committee. Soon, I took over from Bill as Chairman and for many years devoted much time to this ‘outward looking’ activity.
My first task as member of the Harpenden Branch of UNA was to organise and chair a meeting on the Roots of Violence. This took place on 4th October 1974 at the Friends Meeting House. During my negotiation for a Police contributor (Detective Chief Inspector John Griffin) I received a most encouraging personal message from the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire.
DIVERSION?
September 1974 had seen the start of another activity, namely the Inauguration of a Community Health Council, a new statutory body covering the Districts of St. Albans and Dacorum (Hemel Hempstead). On 17th October the CHC held its first ‘proper’ meeting and I was elected Chairman. There followed an intensive ‘leisure-time’ period of finding premises, recruiting staff, and determining organisation while at the same time meeting many health professionals and getting to grips with problems in the delivery of health care from the point of view of the public at large and particularly the patients.
In the afternoon preceding my election as CHC Chairman, I was interviewed for promotion to Principal Lecturer at Hatfield Polytechnic. The interviewing panel was chaired by Norman Bloomer, the new Deputy Director. There was a delay in announcing the result and when a few days later the Head of School wrote saying who had been appointed (it wasn’t me) he said that those not appointed must seek status outside the Polytechnic. There was something suspicious about this and I wondered if the delay was due to seeing how I fared in the CHC election.
MORE POLITICS
Also in October 1974, there was a Parliamentary Election and our home was used as a Conservative Committee Room. On the same day the St. Albans Review also carried on p10 the first section of my two-part article on Declarations of Interest - unjustifiably titled by the paper as “Loopholes in scheme to end town hall corruption”. A picture of me taken in the empty Council Chamber headed the article. Part 2 of my article on Declarations of Interest appeared on pp12 & 15 of the Review of the 17th. The headline chosen by the paper on this occasion was "Council's 'tell all' list open to public".
On the 14th January 1975 I should have attended a District Council meeting but I sent my apologies for absence "due to an engagement which ended 25 years ago". I later heard that when the Rev. John Waller took the prayers with which all Council meetings were opened, he called upon all present to pray for Harold and Sheila Beck - and those assembled wondered what had happened to us. He went on to say that it was our Silver Wedding anniversary. Later in the proceedings the Council expressed their congratulations and best wishes, as is recorded in the Minutes. It was, incidentally, on this day that I went out in the early morning and planted our commemorative magnolia tree.
While were away celebrating on the 14th, Conservative proposals for changing electoral boundaries were adopted as the official St. Albans District Council set of proposals for submission to the Boundaries Commission. This led to great controversy in which I became personally involved.
One other event, which could be the most significant of all in the run-up to The Coventry Miracle, occurred on 11th February 1975. This was Margaret Thatcher’s success in the 2nd vote for Conservative Party leadership, which made her Leader of The Opposition and eventually Prime Minister.
SUMMARY
In the four years since I had joined Hatfield Polytechnic there had been numerous developments. Some were clearly contrived, others possibly so; some were natural developments, others were sheer coincidence. But which were which? And from which human organisations did the contrived happenings originate? Also, were the coincidental events God-made? By 1975 there had been many, many issues about which to pray for guidance.
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