Herry's Archives

I was thinking today about how much things have changed since I was young. A lot has changed in personal hygiene! In the 50s there were only two or three kinds of soap; English Leather, Coal Tar / Lifebuoy or Camay. Deodorants didn't exist. You washed under your arms with Lifebuoy and hoped it would keep you sweet-smelling for a few hours. I remember when an exciting new soap appeared - it was called - I think - Dove. It had a different and interesting smell and was suggestively curved (aimed at the female market – we boys still used Lifebuoy). But there was still very little choice. There were only one or two kinds of shampoo - Vosene was one of them - and neither worked on dandruff so one had to use a strong coal tar preparation instead. It wasn't until the late 60s that a selenium-based cream was available and you could cure dandruff completely. Toothpaste too was limited to Macleans, Colgate or Pepsodent - and a flavoured one for children. Fluroide was introduced in the ...

My first visit to India - and to the Taj - was in 1972, when I accompanied Bill Birch Reynardson (later Miller's senior partner) on a visit. The Club had already established an interest in India in the '60s when Frank Ledwith made several visits in which he set up Rustom Mehta and his assistant Suresh Mankad from New India Assurance as the Club's correspondents. I had been with Millers for about five years and my travelling - often with Bill Birch Reynardson - had until then been confined mostly to former Yugoslavia which, although beautiful, had communist-drab hotels and certainly nothing as richly magnificent as the Taj. Its stunning position overlooking the Arabian Sea towards what would later become Bombay High and its powerful Victorian architecture next to the Gateway of India, made an instant impression. I had always been drawn to India partly because, like many Englishmen, I have family connections going back several generations through bot the Lawfords and th...

Herry celebrated his 60th birthday with a few close friends at Lainston House, near Winchester in June 2005. Once the home of the Craig-Harvey's (whose daughter Juliet used to call him 'Black Magic' for the dark colours he wore even then) the house was perfect venue for a dinner attended by Nick Duke, Charlie Skipwith, Will Martin, Johnny Cooke and Ian Hay - an all-Hampshire gang dating from his early years, and still friends today. We started with champagne on the terrace of the private dining room, and some seriously good wines during the meal. Herry managed to steer the conversation to each man's romantic history and away from his own, a ruse which he is sure won't get away at his 70th.... Click the heading for some more photos

We first attended Les Azuriales , the opera season created by friends Sarah and Mark Holford, in August 1997, and stayed at La Voile d'Or , the lovely hotel overlooking St Jean Cap Ferrat. The QCs Michael Howard and Belinda Bucknall were also staying there for the opera and Kei, then nine, nicknamed them 'the IQs'. It was that year that we heard incredulously, on the wireless, that Princess Diana had died in Paris. The next year - 1998 - we took my father Patrick , who was mourning my mother Annette's death in June. There we met my old friend Venky (S. Venkiteswaran) and we all went to the opera together. Click the heading for some photos from that visit. On a third occasion, in 1999 , we entertained Mauro Terrevazzi of the Vlasov Group and other local shipowners. Click here for a more recent visit to Les Azuriales - this time in London Return to Archive Index

Nick Duke's Stag party at Cobbetts 11th April 1974 Nick Duke, who had been Herry's best man at his wedding to Prue in 1971, married Jay-Jay Simms in April 1974. The stag party was held at Charlie and Lucie Skipwith's restaurant, 'Cobbetts', in Botley. Will Martin, Ian Hay, Nick Duke, Mike Lawford, Andrew Ward and Charlie Skipwith on the bottom. Herry took the photo