Longtime Ago People
In a world where family connections shape us, stories bridge generations. Many of us carry cherished memories of those who touched our lives, which I think deserve to be shared.
Each episode I hope will feature guests recounting touching, funny, and inspiring memories, celebrating the impact these individuals had on their lives. I aim to beautifully remember loved ones, offering listeners nostalgia, warmth, and connection.
I am looking for people to reflect on the impact of these relationships.
Longtime Ago People
The Father Behind a 60s & 70s High‑Street Icon
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Bill Sharman - Howard 1955
father/son
When I sat down with Howard, I quickly realised that a burger can be a time machine. What starts as a chat about Wimpy on one of the hottest days of the year becomes a walk straight back into post‑war Britain, when “hamburgers” were still a novelty and Wimpy was quietly inventing what we now think of as British fast food. Howard’s dad, Bill Sharman, isn’t just working in restaurants — he’s learning the product from the ground up, shaping standards, and helping to build a franchise model that felt genuinely new on the high street.
We get into the details that make business history feel human: where the name Wimpy came from, why quality control mattered more than any secret recipe, and how table service changed the whole feel of eating a burger in town. There are brilliant snapshots of the era, too, celebrity openings, the Savalas brothers drifting through the story, and the strange glamour of international travel when flying felt risky enough that you’d buy life insurance at the airport before boarding.
But the conversation soon shifts from brand building to the cost of it. Howard talks about a father who was kind, reserved, and often absent, shaped by wartime service and a generation that rarely showed affection out loud. We talk about retirement, regret, and the danger of life feeling hollow when the work stops. It’s a reminder that behind every iconic brand sits a family living with the consequences of ambition.
If you care about UK food culture, franchising, leadership, or simply the human side of building something that lasts, there’s a lot here to take away.
If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone who remembers Wimpy, and tell me what Wimpy brings back for you — a taste, a person, or a moment in time.
Bits & Bobs
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Memory is Fragile
"In a world where you can be anything, be kind."
Hot Day Hotel Introduction
SPEAKER_01You're listening to Mum and this is a long time ago, people. I'm actually sitting here with Howard. We're in a place called the Solent Hotel, which is in Whitely. But Whitely. It is one of the hottest days of the year. And we've actually managed to find a quiet Airlands hotel which doesn't seem to have aircom. So anyway, we'll see how we do. Yep. Disappear into a puddle. Howard, thank you very much for your time today. I very quickly realised this story wasn't just about fast food chain. No. This is a story about a father who helped introduce something completely new into Britain. Maybe a little bit about a son that that grew up watching it happen. Yep. First question for you. Yes,
Absence And The 1966 Final
SPEAKER_01mate. What's your earliest memory of realizing that your dad wasn't just working for Wimpy, but he was helping to build something completely new in Britain?
SPEAKER_00My earliest memories are probably his absence more than anything. Because when it took off in the mid-60s and he was made international director, he was away a lot. My earliest memory of the what he was involved in was the fact he wasn't there. He was at work. He was at work. Or overseas. Or overseas. And when he retired. He read out a list of the countries he had visited. And he had visited most countries in the world with a either to inspect or to promote Wimpy over there. So probably my earliest memory of him would be his absence. And then my earliest memory of Wimpy would have been 1966 in the World Cup. Funny enough.
SPEAKER_01So we're in the middle of the 2026 World Cup. 60 years of hurt. Yeah, 60 years of hurt, too, right. And tonight, obviously, there's a big England game as well. So hang on, just just rewind that. Tell me a little bit about that story then and the 1966 World Cup.
SPEAKER_00He came home early in the week of the final coming up on the Saturday and said, I've got tickets for the World Cup final. Now I was 11. You go, that's fantastic, thank you very much. The the big obviously the walking down Wembley Way, you know, the whole occasion was just terrific. But what I specifically remember was that in those days, if you wanted a pair of glasses, you had to go to the optician, order them, and they would take weeks. Now obviously, 24 hours of delivery to your door. But then it was a long process, and we had to go to the optician during the week and say, Could you please get my son some glasses? Because you couldn't see. Because I couldn't see. And I remember walking into the stadium, wearing a pair of glasses, national health glasses, and thinking, Oh my god, I can see the pitch. I can see the players. So you can clearly remember. I mean you're almost 11. I clearly remember that. My I still have the programme. What I haven't got is the poem that I wrote when I went back to school at the beginning of the next term when you do what did you do during your school holiday? And mine was I went to the and I wrote this poem. And I can't, I haven't found it. I don't know anyone that's at the World Cup final. I didn't know that you were at the World Cup final. 60 years, 60 years. It was fantastic. So I remember that was the corporate thing. I remember that it was I've been invited to the World Cup and you can come with me. And I remember that being something that happened at work for him.
Joe Lyons Takes A Burger Risk
SPEAKER_01Let's go back a bit then. So let's go back into the 50s then. How was he involved? He was working for Joe Lyons, and I think he joined Joe Lyons in 1930.
SPEAKER_00For people that don't know who Joe Lyons was. Joe Lyons used to be a restaurant chain. They used to have the Joe Lyons corner houses, they used to have the old-fashioned waitresses in the black uniform and the white apron and the hat. And it was a tea room. It was an old-fashioned corner house and he had the tea room. And he was working for Joe Lyons. Then the war came. He went and did his five, six years' service, then came back and started working with Joe Lyons. But he always told me when I started work, make sure that if you work for a company, they know you exist. Don't sit back. And when I joined Abbey Life as an associate, um, and I obviously, like all um IFAs at the time, associates time, you the first client you sign up is your parents. And I signed him up, and every time they wrote to him, he would phone me up and say, Your company needs to know this, your company needs to tell them, tell them, tell them. He said, Because he would did that at Joe Lyons, and apparently he pestered the board of directors. And in 1953, I think the a guy, after uh Mr. Gold, came over from America and talked about Joe Lyons selling wimpies, selling hamburgers. And the board said, Who do we know that can do this? And they said, Bill Sharman, he's always a pain, he's always putting his hand up looking for work, we'll get him to do it. And he apparently was tossed the car keys by the American who turned up Mr. Gold, Mr. Gold, who got and they gave him his car keys, so they had to park his car, and then he went and came back in and they called him into the office and said, What do you know about hamburgers? And he said, Nothing. He said, Well, you've got to learn how to cook them and how to sell them. And they gave him the gig, and from that he started. So
Where The Name Wimpy Came From
SPEAKER_00where did the name Wimpy come from? I I think it was named after Popeye, after the Popeye magazine, because there was the character of Wimpy in Popeye is the one that eats the burgers. So they I think they nicked it from the old Popeye and olive oil and and Wimpy. Do you remember the Yeah, no, no, I remember it. He was always eating hamburgers. Yeah, hamburgers. So they nicked it from there. And that we started, or he so I'm told, by having a burger van tied to the back of the car, and he would take it to Blenheim or some place parkour and start flipping burgers at the front while my mum and my sister and me would be sat in the back, you know, we'd be in push chairs or whatever. My mum would be looking after us and he'd be out in the front flipping burgers.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so even to this day, I think a wimpy burger tastes the best. So do I. No, I I honestly do. I'm not just saying this. I and so how did the recipe come out? It was it like a cocoa, it's a secret recipe, or what?
SPEAKER_00I don't know, I don't think it's a secret recipe. Not that I was ever that I ever knew or was ever found out. Uh the irony, I think, for me, one of the things that I find they call it a hundred percent hamburger,
Quality Control Over Secret Recipes
SPEAKER_00but it's actually beef. They've always had a good quality the one thing I strongly remember is there was a great, great quality control. You know, if anybody stayed away, stepped out of the right place to buy the meat, the place to get the buns, you know, the presentation of the product. They found out that the franchisee was drifting away from their ideal, they would either pull the franchise or you know, say, come on, get back in line, stop. Get back in line. Don't go and buy cheap beef. So they were very pro-quality, and I I I don't know, as I said, I don't think there was a secret recipe. A secret recipe. Did he go from the flipping burgers to opening the very first restaurant? Yep, yeah, or the restaurant. First restaurant, um uh which was somewhere in London, they opened the first one, and then gradually that was their they owned the first one, Joe Lyons owned the first one, and then they came up with the idea of franchising it, which I think in the 50s and 60s was quite a novel idea to have a franchise as opposed to being company owned, and franchises now are quite common. And McDonald's was obviously the big example of that. But in the time, I think the franchises were quite an interesting way of actually promoting the business. So that's what they started to do, and they started to launch them throughout the UK. The first one I ever went to was in Ride on the Isle of Wight, where I lived.
SPEAKER_01I mean, they were iconic, they were that's where we went to to have a burger and to catch up with friends, uh, definitely in the 70s and even into the 80s. I mean, I know they were going long before that.
SPEAKER_00And I think they they struck a you know, everybody talks about the swinging 60s and the cool London and all that stuff. But I do think they caught obviously that that American vibe at the time, which it was cutting edge for them, wasn't it? It was we hadn't had burgers before. This was a new thing for the UK.
SPEAKER_01We can't it's I it's the first burger that I can remember. Yeah, long before obviously McDonald's or yeah. So you mentioned straight up front the first thing you remember is him being away.
Franchises And The American Vibe
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I mean, how long was he away for? I mean Oh, weeks, months. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But he he always came back with some sort of trinket or yeah, uh I mean I've still got some of the stuff he brought back, which was quite trendy at the time that you uh you didn't see anywhere. One of the things I vividly remember, you know, when you bear in mind that you're wearing a uh a smartwatch and we've both got mobile phones. And he came back, I always remember with a on on his watch, you could put this little piece of like it was a calendar. Yeah. It was so cool. Oh, it's so cool to have the date on the what on the strap. On the strap. You clipped it onto the strap each month. So every month you just take it off and put the next month on. And I thought, yeah, and it was a lot of American influence that I think, you know, because it was the burgers and uh and therefore when he went to America and he came back, it would be always you know stuff that he brought back that was uh the merchandise for Wimpy itself, so key rings, yeah, the the the plastic dolls, the you know, all of that stuff. I had huge banner in the garage. Uh um, but uh those are little things, and he had a diary at the time, which for me was fascinating because it had this now it would be a a uh file effects all right, but in those days you went, ah, it's a little diary with little quotes and you could tear the corner off and make you know, it was nothing like we'd ever seen, I thought, at the time, and it was just you know, to for a teenager at that time, worth going to his office and seeing all this stuff was I loved it, I absolutely loved it.
SPEAKER_01I remember my first digital watch. Dude. Um, and you had to press a button to for it to light up to see it. It was this just this red text, and it would say sort of 450 or something, and that was it. Yeah. What do you think your dad would make of modern day technology? If you've got a calendar on his watch strap, what what what would he make of the technology we have now?
SPEAKER_00I think it would be like I think we're I'm heading that way, which is whoa, it's just it's it's too quick, it's it's too much. Um, you know, it's it's still not second nature to us. I think if you're like your
Travel Trinkets And Modern Tech
SPEAKER_00children, my children, yeah, second nature. For me, I l I love what it does, I love what it can do for us, but it's still frustrating. Would he love it though? Would he love it? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. He was he was it sounds like he would have definitely had it if he could too. I I think he secretly wanted to be a journalist. Ah, right. He was uh he was a a very good writer. Wimpy used to have a in-house magazine, and he used to uh their their office was in Chiswick above a pub called the Windmill, and his column in the uh monthly magazine was called Windmill Tilting. Uh and he used to write a little piece every edition of this magazine. He loved it. He loved that writing, and before the war, apparently he wanted to be an journalist. So I think if he could see what was going on with technology today in that sort of area, the the the information that the internet can give you this. Yeah. You know, looking at a lot of information. I think he would have loved that.
SPEAKER_01Talk to me about your your secret visits, your incognito visits to wimpy restaurants from a child's point of view, what was that all about?
Quiet Inspections Done The Right Way
SPEAKER_00They could be embarrassing because he wouldn't he wouldn't announce himself, so it wasn't as if we were you know fated as we walked through the door, which would have been in hindsight would have thought probably I would have I would do now, which is I'm here. But he was very you know discreet. We'd walk in as a family, we'd eat. And if there was something that, as we were saying earlier, the quality, the standards were were really strictly enforced. If there was something that wasn't quite right, he wouldn't make a fuss. What he would do is we'd leave, he would go back in, yeah, he'd call the manager to one side and just say, I've noticed that you've got a sign in the window saying fish and chips or something. You're not allowed to do that. And they say and he'd say, But I'm Bill Sharman from head office, and that's when it would come out, that's when he would tell them who he is. He would never announce himself walking in. The local wimby bars knew who I was as I got older, so they knew that when I walked in that I was uh related to you know one of their head office's bosses. Wasn't there some teenage story where you got outed by your friends or something? Yeah, they'd uh yeah, because they would say, His dad works his head office, he his dad's Bill Sharm, and they and then they would go, Oh yeah, and then they'd start not not kale, but you know what I mean. They just make a little bit of fuss. But he wouldn't do that. He wouldn't he would never big himself up. He was very discreet, very, very reserved. And and I and I now, as an adult, having worked for all these years like you, I think that's a really n respectful way of dealing with the manager that rather than giving him a public dressing down to actually call him to one side and say very differently very quietly, whisper in
Celebrities, Culture And Going Global
SPEAKER_00his ear.
SPEAKER_01Your dad sort of moved in circles, which included people that worked in the restaurant industry, film extras, even TV celebrities. So uh tell me a little so my first crush, I think you can say it's my first crush in the late 70s was on a Saturday night, uh, where a Scottish lady would get on the teddy and I just couldn't take my eyes off her, and that was Lulu. So there's some connection with Lulu. You mentioned she did she did something, or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there I mean if you go back through the wimpy times, there's there's lots of pictures with celebrities wanting to be photographed either because they come to an opening or they were promoting the product, you know, as as happens so much nowadays, they would endorse a product. But there were the ones I remember uh he went to the Muhammad Ali Henry Cooper fight, uh which I don't know if you remember that. Yeah, no, yeah. Well, Hen Henry Cooper knocked out Muhammad Ali. I think it was when he was still cast his clay, and there was a big heavyweight fight. Muhammad Ali said that his glove had been come apart to take more time getting over it, and they reckon that you know if it hadn't been for that, Henry Cooper would have would have beaten it. So there was there was people like Pat Jennings, the old goalkeeper for Tottenham, Kevin Keegan did some stuff, you know. So he he would be he wasn't in the marketing department, but he would have been involved with the promotional campaign of the budgeting for it, presumably, and what was going on and what was happening. So but the biggest one was Teddy Savalis's brother, who owned a bridge tavern in Bournemouth, um Teddy Savalis, Kojak. Uh George Savalis, uh he was Teddy's brother. Kojak Bridge TV show. That's right, yeah. Uh they don't make TV shows like that anymore. And the the the his biggest pal was that Jules Silver, who was a major um restaurateur, owned Wimby Bar's restaurants, and he became he's in one of the James Bond films, which I always remember. He's a big, bald um fella, and he's held off the edge of the building by James Bond and Let Go.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I think I remembered that.
SPEAKER_00That's um it's either The Live and Let Die or It's one of the early Roger Moore lads.
SPEAKER_01No, hang on, I'll I'll have to come back to it. No, it's um And he's holding him. Yeah, definitely Roger, he just let he let him go. It's um it's for your eyes only, I'm sure it is. And that was um George Silver. Wimpy became I mean, they were they were just in every high street. Yeah, um mentioned the one in Ride. I mean to this day there's one in Little Hampton in um you know, just just down the road from where I live now. They're doing quite well in the current incarnation. It's a taste, it's the taste of the burgers. Yeah, it's different. It certainly is different. It definitely is taste, but it was as as we've already said, it was a it was a cultural place to go, it was the place to go where you and it was table service, yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and rest and wait waitress service, which I think you know was unusual. It it is now because most fast food places are in out gone. Yeah, and yes, you can sit down in them, but you're not there to be. So I think that makes a difference as well.
SPEAKER_01It's really funny. I don't really think of Wimpy as an international brand, but it it clearly was.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, everywhere. Yeah, South Africa, South America, Japan, uh, North America, yeah, you know, Europe. I mean, everywhere. I mean Australia. He he had a tremendous when I was I wanted to do what he did as a living um when I was growing up because I thought, wow, that's so cool. Um, because he travelled everywhere. But this is not nowadays flying, this is 1950s, 60s, 70s flying. So it was a hell of a difference. So every time I think he went to the airport, he used to take out the insurance policy that you could sign up at the airport. So that was his uh single trip insurance. Yeah, so just for that trip, he'd take out something, just in case this the plane didn't make it. I think he'd be I don't know if I've ever heard of that before. Have you not?
SPEAKER_01No, they used to have I mean obviously annual insurance and you can get holiday insurance, but just for this flight. Why is there something you're not telling me?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was literally that. There would be a place where you could just go and get some insurance to cover you for a journey. You know, because it was early days of international travel. So he was, as I said earlier at his retirement dinner, when he read out the number of countries he'd visited because of Wimpy, it's enormous.
Kindness, War Humour And Regret
SPEAKER_00I mean, Moscow, Tokyo, Australia, New Zealand.
SPEAKER_01When you think about your dad now, not as an international sales director or a Wimpy pioneer, but the man that came home late and loved his work, what's the one thing that you you you'd like someone else to think about him?
SPEAKER_00I would like to think that he was well, I know he was very kind to people. He was a very he married my mum and at a quite a late age, so they didn't get married till 53. So how old was he then? He would have been he was born in 17, so what's that? Uh 23 plus so he was mid-30s. So that's quite old. Yeah. But my mum was 10 years old. My mum was 10 years younger. And one of my vivid memories as a family, as a person, would be him stood, because his siblings were much older. So my cousins were much older than we were. So they were, you know, grown-ups when we were still children. One of my earliest memories was my dad at a family gathering, surrounded by my cousins who were men, young men, laughing and entertaining and being involved in them and being part of that. So I I remember him as very kind. He bailed us out a lot of times of normal stuff that parents get involved in, but he did that. Very well respected, very well liked, very gentle, never a disciplinarian, never laid a finger on us. My mum was the one that would dish out you know the discipline. He would never do that. He was he was too gentle for that. Um and I I just think, you know, every I mean I at every funeral people were always gonna say nice things about the deceased, but at his funeral his army mates were there and they were talking about him a lot. And I I I think he was just well.
SPEAKER_01They must have been impressed to see what he went on to do after the army.
SPEAKER_00I think he was well liked. I think he was well liked and well respected in what he did and was very sociable. And I think if I was gonna model myself on him, if anybody ever says you're like your dad, I would say thank you very much. That's such a nice thing to be said. If anybody ever said that to me, I think that would be a nice thing. And sadly, he was our relationship probably from teenage to probably when I was 21, was normal. You know, was you no dad? Um, and I remember, you know, to to this day when I saw the advert for taking a job as a self-employed life assurance salesman for Abbey Life at the age of 25. And I remember going to see him, and he's and he said, Um, well, can't you wait until you get a proper job? Yeah. And I said, No, that's just great, you know, I'm gonna make a fortune because the fella said at the interview, I'm gonna make a fortune. So, you know, 25, I believed him. And he said, I don't know why you ever ask my advice, because you never take it. I said, But at least I ask it. Yeah, and I uh because he died when he was 70 and I was only 30 odd. I wish that as we had got older, we had become closer, we played golf together, we did more together, and I wish there'd been more time, like we all do. Yeah, but in particular, he was 70, I mean he was of no age, and he didn't make it. And I just think, isn't that a shame that I didn't get more time with him later on to find out more about who he was and all that stuff? So and it it he had a tough, he had quite he was a son of a shopkeeper. They were a well-to-do family. Um he married my mum, who was ten years younger, and as I said, and she was a handful for him, and they had an incredibly turbulent relationship over the years. And I've got letters that he wrote to her from every trip he went on. So I've got these airmailed letters that you know, my darling this, and you know, how the kids and say hello to give Howard and Linda my sister a hug for me and all this stuff. So he was very he was a typical sort of Wardian parent, he wasn't hands-on in any way. And I always said when I got married, I didn't want to end up being an absent parent because I admitted uh you know when everybody else was with their dad doing stuff at the weekend or or playing football with them. My dad was taking you to the World Cup. He was taking me to the World Cup. He was taking me to the World Cup final. But then he wasn't he wasn't there for the next three weeks, and you know, at that age, I think I really missed that connection with him. Um, and because he was quite Edwardian in upbringing, there was there wasn't overtly displays of affection until later. Yeah. But then it's you've only got limited time. Yeah, and I think that was quite a lot for their generation.
SPEAKER_01Edwardian. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean that's it. They were they were children of Victorian parents, so therefore they were very don't you're seen and not heard, stand a corner, don't make a fuss, don't show your emotions. My his elder brother, um, who was the one I said who was flew to Canada in after the war and all that stuff, he when he took my cousin to Lansing College at the age of 11, they sent him to boarding school, they shook his mother shook his hand when she said goodbye. No hug. Can you imagine that saying to one of your kids, they're off to private school for you know boarding school, and you go, Goodbye, goodbye. You wouldn't do it, would you? You'd hug them, you'd probably have a tear in your eye and all that stuff. Not that generation. Be be well behaved. Sniff up a little bit or that's like so. Um I found this tie and a membership card for the British Order of Old Bastards, and I don't know where that came from. I've never seen it anywhere before or since. But what a great No, I love that. You just love to be a member of a club that was called the British Order of Old Bastards. I don't know. We're gonna have to do some research on that. I just thought I'd love to be a member of a club that was called Boo, British Order of Old Bastards.
SPEAKER_01Well, I know someone who's been in a previous episode that if there was such a club, he would be in it. Uh so I'm gonna give ask him, see if he can. Yeah, David Williams, I will give him um because if if anyone knows it exists, it'll be him.
SPEAKER_00And and the other thing that you know I very rarely talk to my dad about in hindsight again, which I wish I had found out more, but he served from 4T through to 40 C. He was in Signals, he was in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Anzia, all that stuff. And he wasn't frontline, but he obviously was following on and all that stuff. I remember saying to him once that he used to have the reunion of his old comrades down at in Eastport, and I said to him one time, when you and your mates are together, I said, You laugh so much, but you must have gone through such a horrible time that you can talk about it today, what would that have been, 30 years later, and laugh and have gales of laughter, not just giggles, remarkable. You know, and all that. And he said, You'll never be as close to anybody else than you were to those half a dozen guys that you've served with. He said, because you know, you were in the not figuratively, not literally, but figuratively, you were in the trenches.
SPEAKER_01You were in the trenches, you're in the sick of it all for sure.
SPEAKER_00And he said, You you never get you never lose that.
SPEAKER_01And that far away from home as well.
SPEAKER_00And that humour stayed with him. I was always amazed by that. I thought you must have seen horrible, horrible stuff. And we went to Italy on holiday once and went to us uh to Pisa and he said to us at the time, see that? We went, Yeah, why? What's that? He said, That's the bullet hole that when I got shot at by the Germans. And you go, really? You know, at twelve or whatever, you go, Oh my god, you know, but then later on you think, lying bugger, you know. It may not have been no, it might have, but now you never know, do you? And that's the sort of thing you go. Did you say that to just to impress us as children? Oh, did that actually happen?
SPEAKER_01Is
Music Memories And Retirement Blues
SPEAKER_01it any music any song that that you that you associate we would go in there in the seventies and and the eighties and sit and look at records that we just bought in in Woolworths and talk about them and any m particular music that uh jumps out?
SPEAKER_00Not from not specifically to Wimpy's to my to my t teenagers and early twenties. Certainly my I mean my decade is 70 to 80. Yeah. So that decade is I mean I c I m the the music that will trigger a an immediate response would be Benny and the Jets by Elton John because I'd started working uh in the part-time in the pub, our local pub. They had a jukebox. And I can if I hear the beginning of Benny and the Jets, I can smell the polish. I can smell the cigarettes from the night before. So the bar was polished, everything was shiny, but you still had that smell of the stale smoke from the night before and the beer taps. And as soon as I hear that beginning, I go, I'm in that pub. You're in that pub. And that's 50 years later. But I I I don't think my dad was we we lived in a very we lived in a terraced house in South London. His biggest regret I think he I think he was regretful of a lot of things. And I feel quite sad about that for him at times. And it may be a judgment. My sister and I have talked about it. We we think you he was probably he retired quite early at 63. He was he really had done well financially. He had the house in South London and he had the house down at Eastball. You know, lovely detached house in the country, beautiful. And a little th three-bedroom terrace house which we grew up in South London. My mum would never move. Now he would have, relatively speaking, George Silver, John Rabootti, friends of his who were restaurateurs, because they were franchisees, it's like they're incredibly wealthy, right? And you mix with them, don't you? You you know that they're there. And these guys used to turn up in a Rolls Royce outside our pokey little house in Beckenham and pick him up and take it for a drink and all this stuff. And he used to be so disappointed that A, he didn't have the house with the drive, so he could they could pull him to the drive. And and for him, when he came home from work, he had to go round round the back alley to park the car in the garage, and then walk through the back. I mean he he I think he was slightly disappointed. And when he retired, it all came to an end. You know, and all of a sudden, this man that had had international travel, even when he re when he first retired, he did a lot of consulting for a couple of years, and they would go on catering trips to America. So there'd be somebody from Burnley in somebody from you know um Oxford Banquets, other you know, all these mm sort of restaurant tur restaurant groups would fly to America. Basically, they go on the on a jolly, go round to the American outlets and try their food and come up, you know, see what's going on over there, and come back and give a report to whoever. And then George Silver, who was his closest friend, died, and that shut down all the avenues for him when he was retired. And and you know what it's like. I think he just gave up. And that's why I don't think he lived past 70. Because my mum didn't want to move. So she kept she she was there. She stayed in London, she didn't want to move. So did he live separately from her at the end? Sh and he didn't live separately from her in that you know they weren't separated or but he would drive down to the coast. So she came to the coast. She stayed there.
SPEAKER_01She never came.
SPEAKER_00She did sometimes. We'd have a Christmas there occasionally, but it was all stressful and she didn't want to really do it. So he'd go down there and he'd play golf on the Monday. And his life became quite empty after having such a life of travel and meeting and mixing and you know, and obviously I mean, people don't give you World Cup final tickets unless they're trying to carry favour. I mean, now I would go back and think, well, of course, some you know, some producer of beef or buns or crockery or cuttery or gave him it, yeah. Gave said, Oh, Bill, have a couple of tickets, take your son, he likes football. You you know that now, but at the time I I obviously had no idea. So you don't get to to be in that position of receiving such generosity unless you are influential in where you are. And when that all comes to an end, what do you do then? And that's uh that's I think is the sadness for him because he didn't live the retirement of cruises or travelling or you know, doing this with his wife. She was anti doing anything.
SPEAKER_01So when he retired at City Feed, that he wanted to retire.
SPEAKER_00I don't think he would have done. I think I think it was probably a dilemma for him because I think they'd been taken over. Uh there was a uh it was United Biscuits, I think took them over, and then there was the uh the usual stuff. Um somebody comes in and that's it, off you go, new uh set of executives. So I think they said, come on, Bill, it's time. I think there was an element of he had done enough travelling, and because he said to me once, once you see the inside of one hotel room.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he probably didn't want to go on a cruise then, did he? No.
SPEAKER_00He probably didn't. No. But he and I think he was slightly tired and jaded of all the travel, not the vis not the sights, but the actual planes, hotel rooms, you know what it's like. So I think he he got tired of that. So I think he was ready to probably slow down, but in those days it was that was it, wasn't it? It's you work, retire, take your pension, move on. And I just I look back and think, I think partly, as this is a therapy session, partly it's why I hang on, because I think shouldn't you if I give up work, because you think, oh my god, if I stop doing what I'm doing, what do I then do?
Marriage Strain And Hard-Won Lessons
SPEAKER_00What would you say to him now if he if you could talk to him? I would say get rid of your mother. I'd say bin her. I would say don't they had a very tortured relationship. I think ultimately they loved each other. They were not suited. She so I would say What was your relationship like really? With her, fraught, fraught, okay, but close. She was a very tough woman to to deal with, and she had all sorts of you know, now we would say, well, you know, she you can understand why she had the reactions she did at times, and it's amazing how life twists things so one person's point of view is incredibly different from an the other person's point of view. She was blonde, attractive, married an older man, his siblings were older than he was, he was the baby of the family. They he had three, four sisters who looked after him. This blonde bombshill turned up, and she for my mum thought they looked down on her because she came from a working class background in Chatham, and he came from a middle class family in North London. My mum f always thought that they looked down on her because of where she came from. When I met my cousin, my uncle's son, all those years later, he said to me, Well, they were jealous of her because she was young and pretty. Wasn't they looked down on her? They just they were they were jealous. So she thought they were looking down on her, because they were really envious and jealous of her. So all that years of stress and you know, b uh bitching and all that stuff was totally unnecessary.
SPEAKER_01So if going back to what you said then, if if um he could have left her, do you think they would have both been alright?
SPEAKER_00I don't think I think he would have been, yeah. I think he would have been. Yeah, that's probably all that. He had a twinkle. Yeah. He had a twinkle in his eye. He was a uh you know, I think he he was I I wouldn't say he was a charmer, but I think he was yeah, I think he was a bit of a nice little twinkle. Yeah, twinkle in his eye. We'll leave it at that. Yeah, I think so. So I would say to him, um I would say personally I would say, you know, change that relationship because I think there are certain things he could have done and he would have got earache for it, but it wouldn't have changed if so for instance he should have sold Ninfield the house in Eastbourne. He should have made her move. Yeah. And if she had bitched and fought against it, he should have just said, no, we're doing it, get on with it. Because I think she needed that firmness, and he was quite gentle, so he was quite eager to please her because I think he loved her. Um and then it got to the stage once where I I took him to a funeral of his brother-in-law, and I s he was moaning, and I said, Well, just call it knock it on the head, Dad. You know, I was 20 or felt I could sort of say that sort of thing. He said, But who's gonna iron my shirts? And you think after a while it boils down to who's gonna iron my shirt? That's the the whole basis of a relationship. They've been together for 40 years, and that was the the thing that was hanging it together was who's gonna iron my shirt. So I always thought that was just not who's gonna tuck me in bed at night, who's gonna look me after if look after me if I'm ill, who's gonna iron my shirt. So you know, find something to do post-retirement. Find find something, find your identity, P because he became Mr. Wimpy, and when you lose when he lost that identity, I think that's that's dangerous. It's dangerous, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But thanks, mate. No, thank you very much.
