Find Another Place

by Ben Graff

  He had one over me in relation to my children in this regard. Their maths soon outstripped mine and we had to find others to help them with it. I thought he was distant in many ways but I had outsourced the particular challenge of doing sums, while he had not. He spent more time just doing homework with me than I do with my children more generally. He seemed more interested in it than I am with my own children, more patient. Is it the case that my children do not want or need the same level of help that I did? Or was he just more engaged than I sometimes give him credit for, and me more remote? How will that one play out when the children tell others what they thought I was like?

  In a magazine called Focus from 1991 there is a full-page article on work being done to ease air traffic congestion. Dad is quoted. ‘This expansion will not, however, be allowed to have an adverse effect on the CAA programme,’ said ADS’s Superintendent Colin Graff. ‘We very much see the equipment we’re researching as supportive aids for the controller. If the air traffic levels were to remain the same as today’s, many aspects of our work would simply result in making the controller’s job easier. In fact, the air traffic load is going to increase – so we’re endeavouring to provide the controller with the means to keep up.’

  There is a Malvern Gazette from Friday, 3 December 1993, a long time in a box file and a little faded, with Dad on the front cover. ‘DRA “holds key” to safer air travel’ is the main headline. He has scribbled just above it ‘I can’t stand the publicity. Colin.’ The article is about one hundred European scientists who are going to visit the Defence Research Agency to look at ways of making flying safer, work commissioned by the Civil Aviation Authority which was concerned about over-crowded flight paths. Dad is quoted, ‘Mr Colin Graff, head of the division concerned, which includes about 45 people, said: “It is an honour for us. It is a European project, and it covers a dozen European nations. Malvern has done most of the work on the subject in this country and this conference which will demonstrate the research shows that we are one of the principal centres.”’

  It was the leadership assessments I learnt most from. It wasn’t easy to imagine anyone talking to him about what he thought or felt, how he might develop, but the evidence is there that this did happen, that he did talk about these things, if not to us.

  A Harvard Business Review article ‘Leadership that Gets Results’ by Daniel Goleman also surprised me. It is a seminal piece that many management teams over the years have worked through. There is a picture of a leader selecting the right club from a golf bag, to represent the different management styles that might be appropriate for different situations. I had done the assessment too, not that long ago. Another faint echo across our two careers, a sense of something shared.

  In another assessment from 2004, he described his key strengths as ‘Total commitment, drive and energy.’ Feedback from his team read as follows: ‘Highly business focussed, with immense experience, Colin gives exceptional leadership to a well-motivated top team. He is a compassionate leader and always takes time to talk to staff. He has earned strong loyalty…’

  He and his reviewers agreed that the democratic style was the dominant part of his repertoire. He thought he was authoritative, but his direct reports come to this conclusion. I would have gone with him on that one, but not when you looked into the definition. The feedback said that whilst he thought he was good at describing the big picture, others would see the situation as more him doing his own thing. Other notes suggested that he could be better at looking for external reference points beyond his department and the company.

  His peers said he was an ‘experienced and straightforward senior manager who is very customer focussed, forceful and clear… commands great staff loyalty and respect… generates good cohesion in his business.’ Another noted, ‘Colin is an extremely good leader…’

  The things people thought he should improve on were also noteworthy. For him it was ‘…broader scanning together with greater delegation of day to day details. I also need to do more coaching.’ While a direct report said, ‘He does not suffer fools gladly but when politics are involved, he maybe does not identify the fool correctly!’ I could see that, perhaps.

  I never really knew how well Dad read people, although I assumed he read others better than he did me. Albeit I remember the conversation I had with one of his fellow school governors at his graveside, along the lines that he was a really good guy but might occasionally have varied his influencing style a little more. I knew exactly what he meant.

  Perhaps the most ominous feedback came from ‘Other’: “I do not believe that Colin’s approach to creating, sustaining and finding business necessarily sits well with the inflated aspirations that the company has more recently espoused. This may put him at odds with the overall leadership and he may, therefore, be regarded as something of a dinosaur both in approach and style. However, a more conciliatory approach to those that he might regard as out of touch in the upper hierarchy would not hurt in his overall approach to company politics… if anything, he probably needs to be able to let go a bit more and be more supportive of changes that arise – or at least, not give the impression that they will be for the worst.”

  ‘Other’ had read the signs… Dad moved to a different job. His performance objectives from this final role were also in the file, the only ones to survive. They spoke of his need to manage this new team of six people with the same level of enthusiasm and energy as he had his previous much larger team. But this proved to be impossible; he had been marginalised and everybody knew it. Finally there were emails between him and the HR director discussing the terms of his early retirement. We want there to be something in it for us as well as for you the faceless official had written, and following further back and forth my father retired a year early at fifty-nine.

  Many of his work colleagues were at his funeral. He had been outlived by most, but they were there to remember him. One spoke to me about Dad first working for him, and then, much later, him working for Dad. When they first met, he wasn’t sure that they would get on. But they did. Somehow, despite the quietness and the reserve, he could make things work. According to the feedback, he was democratic and compassionate. Perhaps he was not really one for opening up outside of career coaching sessions, but he was very good at maths homework. Better than I proved to be at any rate.

  Martin’s Journal – Schooldays

  I remember when he was very young I told Ben some of my school stories and he was astonished to hear that I had once been young, let along young enough to ever have had need of a school. But I was and did, however it might appear to look at me now. The old chap who often sits next to me in the lounge was telling me about his time at school yesterday, but I got the sense that he was slightly confused as to whether he was still there now or not. Whatever afflictions I have, I am grateful that I still know where I am, insofar as anybody does. Although, of course, this place does have its similarities with a school, and these sorts of institutions are somewhat disorientating, so perhaps he was not as out of it as all that.

  So here goes – these are my recollections of school.

  At the age of five I started at St George’s School. My mother duly delivered me to the door that first morning, telling me to be a good boy and to come straight home when school was over. It never occurred to her that it would be necessary to come and collect me!

  St George’s, a private school, was owned by two sisters called Holmes (no relation); the head was young, cool, self-assured and well able to cope with small boys. Her sister, considerably older, looked and sounded like the witch we were all convinced she was. Reading, writing and simple arithmetic were quickly mastered in those days; it was certainly easier that way.

  When I was seven, the school was sold to a Mr Davies, who had a French wife and a bilingual son called Jim. St George’s then became a school for boys of all ages, and was moved to a large house in Cleveland Road (now demolished). A few years later the s
chool moved to a house in Drum Street which has also now been demolished. Soon after this move, Mr Davies returned to his beloved France and the school was sold to a Mr Gill.

  Assistant schoolmasters in those days tended to be slightly odd, always underqualified and generally underwhelming people. I do not think many would be allowed through the gate of a modern-day school. At least I would hope not. My form master at the time was a Mr Gronis, tall, gaunt and pale. From time to time during lessons he would throw the window wide open, shout “Excuse me, boys,” and spit into the garden! He did not last very long.

  His place was taken by a Mr Vine, who was tall, well dressed, athletic and a first-rate boxer. This man seemed from another world, talking easily of music and the London theatre. He seemed to have been everywhere and done everything. He did not have the T-shirt. In the 1920s no one would have been seen dead in such a thing.

  Mr Vine was also a scout master and during the Easter and summer holidays he would go camping in France, accompanied by two or perhaps three boy scouts. Foreign travel was unheard of in those days unless you were rich, so I longed to take part in the expeditions, but my father refused even to consider it. It was just the way he was. Perhaps it was fear as to what might happen to me. Perhaps it was the money. Perhaps it was about control; who can say? It was another note of discord between us.

  Two days before the start of the summer term of 1930 my mother told me over breakfast that I would not be returning to St George’s. Instead I would be going as a boarder to the old grammar school at Shaftesbury (founded 1702). All arrangements had been made, but this was the first I had heard of it! In retrospect I believe that having been so lavish in my praise of Mr Vine my parents had invited him to a dinner party, and realised that he was gay and therefore in their eyes a bad influence. It was not unusual for parents to make decisions about their children’s futures in this way at that time. Children did not have a voice in things in the way that they do today. It was always the case that your parents knew best; that was just how things were.

  In the first week of the war, many years later, Mr Vine paid a flying visit to the Island, and we had a drink together. We sat in a Ryde pub, not exactly as equals, for I still looked up to him, but at least on some sort of level. He was still fascinating, and for all that things did work out alright for me at boarding school, I do not think any of the teachers I met there came close to him and I wish I had been able to have had him as a teacher for longer.

  It was whilst we were drinking that he revealed that for some years he had been working for British Military Intelligence and that his trips to the Continent were a cover for his activities, which entailed mapping airfields and identifying the sites of munitions factories. It was very much the case that he had lived and would continue to live a fulfilling life of adventure. In the 1970s one of the Ryde Rotary members encountered Mr Vine at a family dinner party in Derbyshire. He had recently retired and been awarded the OBE for services to NATO Intelligence.

  However, that was all in the future and did not change my current predicament of being fourteen years of age and about to start a new life at a boarding school. My mother assured me that her brother had been very happy there. Well, yes, but this was a cricketing school and he had been good at that. He had also been a day boy, whereas I was going to be a boarder.

  I was certainly apprehensive; leaving my parents for the first time, despite the strains in my relationship with my father, was always going to do that. Whatever you are leaving, there is nothing more frightening than the unknown. They say that in prison camps it is the pessimists rather than the optimists who are more likely to survive. If you think something is likely to be terrible, you have no expectations that can be dashed, no emotional needs that you are seeking to have fulfilled. If you have higher expectations, it is their dashing that will do for you. All of which is to make this somewhat too dramatic. Whilst I was pessimistic to begin with, the truth is, in the end, things did not work out too badly.

  The old Shaftesbury Grammar School at which I was about to be admitted as its newest pupil no longer exists, thanks to the disastrous Shirley Williams, one-time minister for education. Rather, it was destroyed to make room for a massive comprehensive school, whose hideous buildings now cover the once famous playing fields.

  It was the case that normally one would not have been admitted without passing the common entrance exam, but I was accepted because of my mother’s brother, Bill. He was an old boy of the school and a mainstay of the Old Shaftonians cricket team which toured the south coast during the school holidays in August.

  So it was that the day before term started we drove to Bill’s farm about three miles out of town and had a brief interview with Dr Tovey, the principal. He was a larger than life character who managed to inspire affection, even though most people, young or old, were terrified of him. I never quite worked out whether it was all an act, or whether that was just the way he was. I suspect the latter; public school life bred and fostered a range of characters you just wouldn’t see today.

  During the interview he asked how I felt about coming all this way to school, a question my parents had never thought it necessary to ask, which I thought to again when he did ask me.

  I was apprehensive, to put it politely. School stories were popular in those days, and I had read many Tom Brown’s School Days. It was obvious from those books that schools were exceptionally violent places! One was likely to be caned by the headmaster, and even more likely to be beaten by prefects. Bullying was of course an ever-present hazard. You had to think to survival first. Anything more that might follow was a bonus.

  If you liked sport, the school was the perfect place to be, and in particular it was a paradise for cricket players. Our 1st x11 played against much larger public schools such as Sherborne, and we sent our 2nd x11 to play the 1st x11 at minor public schools like Claymore. In the summer term, cricket was played every day, except Sunday, from lunchtime to suppertime. Prep was from supper to bedtime, then we were up at 6am to do more prep before breakfast. The school had one of the most beautiful playing fields in England with a view over seven counties, Shaftesbury being a hilltop town.

  Whilst cricket was not my game, luckily I had inherited from my father a measure of skill in the gymnasium. They were very keen on gym at St George’s. Boxing was compulsory, although I have to admit that I was not all that keen on it. I have an aversion to punching people on the nose and an even stronger aversion to being punched myself. However, I had had a measure of skill instilled in me by the mysterious Mr Vine and was able to hold my own, the key to survival at boarding school.

  On arrival I was introduced to a boy called Bobby Baker. He had white blond hair and the air of having seen everything that could be seen. In those days Christian names were only used by close friends. Everybody at school was known only by their surname and initial. Young Bobby was in dormitory three, as I was, and duly showed me around the place, finishing up in the music room. He asked me what I thought of a song which he was sure would be a BIG hit. Popular music was played by bands at the time and most of us listened to the BBC Orchestra. I did not know the song, so Bobby sat at the piano, and played and sang ‘Love is the sweetest thing’. I have to admit that I had not expected to be serenaded with love songs! In that moment I really could have been anywhere, but I somehow thought as I listened to him sing that perhaps things might work out alright here.

  When he had finished singing, Bobby said, “I am fed up about Jimmy Kennedy leaving us, as you can imagine.” Seeing a blank look on my face, he added, “You don’t seem to know much, do you? It must be coming from the Isle of Wight, I suppose. Jimmy Kennedy is only the man who wrote this. The man was junior science master here, unlike the end of last term. He is now making so much money he no longer needs to work as a teacher.”

  Eventually Bobby reluctantly closed the piano lid. “We can’t loll about in here, we had better go out into the playing field and chuck a cr
icket ball about,” he said, so we joined a group of fellows doing just that. Amongst them was a chap called Sheyale (a name I had never heard before nor since.) He was cheery, self-effacing, and obviously very tough. It was to be a stroke of luck for me.

  From that evening we were always together in our spare time. He was in the form below me. In those days your form was dependent on your ability to pass end of year exams, and you did not move up automatically. People were scared of Sheyale, so I was spared the kind of ragging that new boys usually had to contend with.

  A protector is a powerful thing to have. My first morning in class, I found that by chance there was a prefect in the form, at least one year behind with his studies as he was considered academically to not be very bright. Daniel Young went on to build up a big business in agricultural machinery and is today a very wealthy man. I had known Daniel for years: his father owned the farm adjoining my Uncle Bill’s, where I spent many of my holidays. My cheery “Hello David”, was treated with a curt nod, and “Holmes”. He was a prefect, a man apart and not to be engaged with familiarity by an ordinary boy!

  Sheyale had warned me that there were two bullies to contend with. One, Stevens, was a day boy in my form, and known to be a local street fighter. “Fight him if you have to,” said Sheyale airily. “You probably won’t win, but that won’t matter if you put on a good show!” The other, a boarder called Roger, Sheyale dismissed with contempt, “You can take him out any time.” To my somewhat doubtful “Can I?” he said, “Oh, he is a very big chap and enormously strong, and people are afraid of him, but he has no idea how to fight.”