I was very happy to meet Prince Philip, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, and Norman Tebbit, the rarest of politicians – two good men
When the Prince died we lost a very good man. I only met him once, in1986. These few minutes were to have a major influence on my life
We were showing our Jaguar performance cars at the National Exhibition Centre. The stand had been booked by Exeter Machine Tools (EMT)
When he came on the stand he asked “where are the machine tools?”.
I told him that EMT was foremost a trader and rebuilder in machine tools but this exhibition was more suited to our Jaguar business
His response “Pity, I would like to have seen machine tools”. We spoke for a few minute and I will never forget his final words “Mr.Exeter, machine tools are vital to the UK, machine tools make everything, you know that. Put your efforts into machine tools, not cars. Our traditional industries are not being so well run. There will be opportunities for younger men. Take those opportunities and make them work”. As he left the stand he turned and gave me the smile you see in the first photo and the words “Don’t forget – machine tools”
I remembered this three years later when I had the opportunity to buy 50% of Wickman Bennett, at that time one of the best known machine tool companies in the world. It was ripe for reorganisation. The MD was a very capable man trying to control too many companies in the UK and abroad. Together, within a year, we transformed the company with tremendous results – productivity, sales volumes and profits. Three years later Wickman Bennett was destroyed, unable to survive government stupidities following the ‘machine tools for Iraq fiasco’ (google Wickman Bennett – Scott Report). The UK machine tool industry was still one of the worlds best but was destroyed as a major manufacturing industry in less than twelve months.
I managed to save part of the company, the Webster & Bennett product line, and subsequently conceived and built some superb machine tools but lack of capital led my ambition into bad partnerships that hurt me financially in the extreme
I wonder what kind of response I would have had if I would have been able to meet Prince Philip again and ask him to push for the industry and for support to maintain machine tool manufacture in the UK. With the exception of Norman Tebbit the politicians at that time neither understood nor cared. Norman Tebbit is the only politician I can remember who I believe truly has at heart the interest of this country and its inhabitants See after the photos
The last 29 years have been a roller coaster but around the world in many great companies there are nearly one hundred super quality, super specification Webster & Bennett vertical turning centres that would never have been conceived or built had I not been motivated by Prince Philip and taken the opportunity when I saw it. The fact I left the very comfortable, very profitable life I had achieved to take up this challenge does not fill me with personal regrets. My regrets are for my country that throughout my sixty years in business has been run by ‘professional’ politicians who have never understood that “machine tools make everything”. Relying on other nations manufacturing capabilities and facilities is a weakness that can hurt us in so many ways. I’ll save that for my next ‘soap box’ session
Norman Tebbit – he was a politician who genuinely came from the working middle class and was educated in a grammar school. His understanding of how the less privileged live has incessantly polished my admiration of him since I met him in 1992. Extracts from Wikipedia expand on my points and have some interesting links. The comments in red are mine
“From being a supporter of British membership of the Common Market in 1970 I have come to believe that the United Kingdom would be Better Off out of the developing European Republic of the 21st century. We British have a thousand year history of self-government. We have been free and democratic longer than any other nation. The European Union is too diverse, too bureaucratic, too corporatist and too centralist to be a functioning democracy. We are happy to trade with our European friends and the rest of the world – but we would prefer to govern ourselves” – this absolutely echoes my own thoughts
In 2009, Tebbit said he had regrets about the 1984–1985 miners’ strike: I saw some of this close up. His words are right
“Those mining communities had good working class values and a sense of family values. The men did real men’s heavy work going down the pit. There were also some very close-knit communities which were able to deal with the few troublesome kids. If they had any problems they would take the kid round the back and give them a good clip round the ear and that would be the end of that. Many of these communities were completely devastated, with people out of work turning to drugs and no real man’s work because all the jobs had gone. There is no doubt that this led to a breakdown in these communities with families breaking up and youths going out of control. The scale of the closures went too far. The damage done to those communities was enormous as a result of the strike”
In 2017, Lord Tebbit criticised a Lords amendment to the Brexit bill which would guarantee the rights of EU citizens to live and work within the UK after Brexit. He also criticised the Lords for “thinking of nothing but the rights of foreigners” and “[looking] after the foreigners and not the British”,[97] as Theresa May had hoped to leave this amendment out of the bill to secure the rights of British citizens living in EU countries post-Brexit. His comments produced “loud gasps” from the majority of peers[98] (but gained audible support by a number on the Conservative benches),[99] adding that “Of course we don’t have the power to look after our citizens overseas, not in these days when we don’t have many gunboats” – For me the whole point of BREXIT, which I supported, was to use our natural borders, our island coast line, to help create a secure British way of life. All the many people I know of foreign birth or heritage who live here do so because they also want to enjoy what was the British way of life before WOKE vs RACISM created the mess we are in now
Critics nicknamed Tebbit “The Chingford Skinhead”.[108][109][110] He was portrayed as a sinister, leather-clad bovverboy beating up fellow cabinet members and keeping order in Margaret Thatcher‘s cabinet, by the satirical TV puppet show, Spitting Image. The Professor of English at University College London, John Mullan, has written: “In Spitting Image and probably the middle-class imagination, Norman Tebbit was given an Essex drag on his vowels which he hardly possessed. He should speak in that way because of what he represented”. I stopped watching Spitting image after that, it was so off the truth in this case
In May 2009, Tebbit urged voters to snub the main three political parties in the upcoming EU Parliament election. Tebbit, who in March 2009 said that he would vote for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), stated: “Local elections, the great British public should just treat as normal”, but suggested using the European election to send a message to the implicated parties. Tebbit said that there were a series of smaller parties people could vote for in addition to UKIP, including the Green Party, but he urged against voting for the British National Party. A country should be managed like a huge international business. If REFORM got together with some serious businessmen who are not greedy the UK could vote for a party that could give us a future.
In July 2013, Tebbit was one of the guests on an episode of Peter Hennessy‘s BBC Radio 4 programme Reflections[114] in which he talked about his life and career. Earlier that year he paid tribute to Margaret Thatcher, saying he wished there were “someone like her now” He knew her attributes but also the things she got so wrong. If she had had more ministers with the strength of character and understanding of the real world that Tebbit displayed she could have taken this country to where it should be. As it is her deindustrialisation policies have bred increased greed and divided the population. I believe civil war is a serious potential
The other politician who could have taken this country forward was Tony Blair. When he first appeared on the political scene he was a bright eyed youngster with great charisma and I had the feeling he was going to take the country forward. So intelligent and to be so wrong in his decision making over some big issues is a mystery.
We will never know what might have been if Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair had used their power, intelligence and charisma to run this country properly
