Herry's Archives

Herry's Office Retirement Speech - a more personal affair than the many that had been made at the 13 parties around the world - and his last official appearance in Thomas Millers' offices One should never follow a Stephen James’s speech, as he is one of the masters of the art. And having had more than my fair share of speech making over the past two months, starting with a farewell party in Hong Kong in March, I have used up my entire miserable stock of jokes. And I can asssure you I’m not going to repeat the speech that I made at Trinity House in April, which was far too serious for this company. I shall miss so many things about Millers and so I thought I might just take you through a typical day here both to remind you and to fix in my memory what a remarkable place this is and how many remarkable people it contains. Some of you know I always come into the office fairly early and park my car downstairs. It slots into a space that was bequeathed to me more than 20 years ago ...

Retirement is a strange thing. You find yourself voluntarily walking away from friends you've worked with for many years - in my case nearly 40 - and a business and an industry that you love.  It's an industry that's full of interesting and intelligent people – a few of whom are here tonight – and lives on a daily diet of fascinating news and events. Like the proverbial butterfly in the Amazon, much of what happens around the world has its effect in time here in EC3.  People come and go of course, and a number of my friends have already retired, but surprisingly few people ever leave the industry that we're in, and for some reason most of us, despite a peripatetic lifestyle and more entertaining than may be good for us, remain pretty healthy.  That being said, I'm mindful of the example of Dawson Miller who retired as senior partner of Millers in December 1970 and died in January 1971! It's a truism, but our business is built on friendships and hard work....

Herry had his 50th birthday party at Stocks in June 1995. The party was catered by Charlie Skipwith and his family and he also supplied the marquees (actually scout tents!). Radha was over from Australia with her then boyfriend George. About sixty people came and Herry made a short speech. Click the heading for some more photos