The CV

suggestion that the stuff was nicked had backfired, he then said the film was out-of-date and thus inferior. I killed that one off by offering a money-back guarantee.
    This exercise had a twofold benefit. Firstly, I made some money and saw how cutting prices generates sales. But I also learned a valuable lesson about what happens when someone encroaches upon the territory of the so-called elite, be it disturbing their business or upsetting what they perceive to be their special rights. They go into arsehole mode and use rather sneaky and spiteful tactics.
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1963 – 1967: Early career
    I started looking for another job and saw a promising newspaper advert for a trainee cost accountant with a statistics background. The firm was Richard Thomas & Baldwins, an iron and steel manufacturer located on the corner of Gower Street and Euston Road.
    The first obstacle I had to overcome was telling my father I was leaving my Civil Service job. His mentality was that you didn’t leave your job. You worked for a company and you got ‘grandfathered in’ – for ever. He wasn’t happy that I was flipping jobs so quickly, but I brought him round by explaining that I’d now attained experience in statistics which, if I got this new job, would eventually allow me to become a qualified cost accountant.
    I did get the job and the pay was a bit more, about £10 or £11 a week. I was planted in a small office with ten much older men, all of whom were either qualified or trying to qualify as cost accountants. These guys ended up doing me the biggest favour of my life, as I’ll explain shortly.
    The function of this department was to produce a weekly report on the output of the factory in Wales for the directors. My job was to get the daily output figures from the blast furnace and put this information into a format which would become part of the directors’ report. Each day, a chap called Alun, who had a strong Welsh accent, used to phone me from the factory and read me the output figures.
    The lads in the department warmed to me because I was forever messing around and telling a few jokes here and there. One of the things I did was put on a Welsh accent whenever I spoke to Alun at the plant. One day he called up and said, ‘Hello, is that you, Alan?’
    I replied in a Welsh accent, ‘Yes, it is me, Alun – this is also Alan.’
    ‘Where has that Welsh accent come from?’ he asked.
    I explained to him that when in Rome, you do as the Romans. I said it was to show my devotion to the firm, and that having dealt with so many Welsh people within the company, a bit of the accent had rubbed off on me. Anyway, I told him not to let it bother him and to carry on giving me the daily figures.
    He was obviously a bit thick. ‘Righto, Alan,’ he said. ‘Are you ready?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Pig iron, 17.4 tons.’
    ‘Righto, Alun. Pig iron, 17.4 tons.’
    ‘Sinter, 2.6 tons.’
    ‘Righto, 2.6 tons, sinter. Thank you, Alun,’ I said. ‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow.’
    ‘Hang on, don’t you want to hear about the slag?’
    I waited a moment, raised my voice and said, ‘Alun, I’m fed up listening to you moan about your wife.’
    As the words came out of my mouth, I knew I was in trouble.
    He went bloody mad. ‘How dare you talk about my wife like that? I’ll have you know I’ve been married to Glynis for eight years. She’s a wonderful lady. You have no right to call her that. Admittedly, we have no children at the moment . . .’ and he carried on ranting and raving. ‘I’m going to complain about you, speaking in a Welsh accent and insulting my wife . . .’
    ‘It’s a joke, it’s a joke . . .’
    ‘You London spivs, you’re all the bloody same. You don’t know what life is like down here in Wales . . .’
    ‘Okay, son, okay, don’t worry, speak to you tomorrow, see you.’
    My little joke flew around the office. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for word to get back to the powers that be and I was bang in trouble. I was told that the chief accountant had received a complaint and I was to report to his office the next morning.
    I prepared a little speech overnight explaining that it was just a joke and that we East End boys, well, we make jokes like this. It wasn’t meant in any nasty way; it’s just what we chirpy chappies do.
    I knocked on the boss’s door at nine o’clock and he told me to come in. It was a bit like standing in front of your dad and knowing he’s going to tell you off for