Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Mark Solly
MANX HERITAGE FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT
‘TIME TO REMEMBER’
Interviewee: Mr Mark Solly
Date of birth:
Place of birth:
Interviewer: Roger Rawcliffe and Sue Lewis
Recorded by: Roger Rawcliffe
Date recorded: 16th November 2006
Topic(s): History of the Finance Sector Cultural resistance to changes in laws The abolition of surtax Legal career Appointment as Deputy Assessor of Income Tax Sir Ronald Garvey Ronaldsway Aircraft and Martin Baker The Palace & Derby Castle Company and Casino Company Registration Tax Local legal and financial personalities Captive Insurance Companies SIB [Savings & Investment Bank] collapse MEA [Manx Electricity Authority] and Mike Proffitt Isle of Man Post Graduate Medical Centre Bank account-opening restrictions
Mark Solly - Mr S Roger Rawcliffe - RR Sue Lewis - SL
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RR ... he started a piece of research ... however, he [unclear] ...
Mr S Well I’d ... be interesting to hear or see how it comes out because, last night I was at a Maitland’s ‘Jolly’ and Charles Cain said a few words, and ... either it was a matter poetic license or ... umm ... a complete re-writing of the script. Umm ... you know, he ... he attributed most of the legislation ... umm ... to the Keys of the 1986 election. And he drew attention to the number of university degrees, professional qualifications there were in that House of Keys by comparison with err ... with today. But of course, many of the things like exempt companies, exempt insurance companies and what have you, that was all before. So, anyway, as I say ...
RR Well, Charles in notoriously poetic in his approach, you know ... (laughter)
Mr S Well, let’s ... let’s ... let’s not be too particular. (laughter) But it is interesting, I mean, you see things in the paper, and I mean, it’s ... well, again, my memory may be faulty as well, but umm ... err ... the business of re-writing history is quite interesting.
RR I’d like to attempt to re-write history.
Mr S But, well, carry on and I will try and be brief ...
RR Err ... what ... what ... what I’m ... I’ll just try and give you the flavour of what I’m trying to do ‘cos it’s ... it’s ... it’s ... well you’ve done a lot of excellent stuff on all this. But that’s not what I’m ... really what I’m doing. What I’m trying ... what I was asked to do was write a history of the finance sector. Well that’s ... and, on reflection, as I turned that over in my mind, and ... the way I’ve come out, is to try to give a history of what’s happened in the last 45 years, since 1960, really, set in its context before 1960 ... how the Isle of Man can, because of its peculiar jurisdiction, you can have debtors and etcetera, etcetera, coming here, smugglers and ... doesn’t deal with the history of smuggling, I mean, it’s not intended to do that, it’s merely pointing out that it’s the peculiar nature of the country ... of the Island’s range, with the anomalies to enable us to do these things, and ... and therefore to talk about the things we’ve done. But it’s also to talk about the effect of all these things on the Isle of Man, so that ... and on the Manx, so that the Manx people, who all burn down houses in the 1970s as SFSO in the 1980s, and complain about building and all these things, err ... how 2
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all these jobs, all this work that we now do, reflects on that issue, and how that issue actually has got precedence in – when all the boarding housekeepers came, there were people who moaned, all these boarding house peoples had come and nobody spent any money on Ramsey. And, when you go back a bit further, they didn’t like the half-pay officers – policy about [unclear]. And then people of course come, and they build things, and they build in a new style or whatever it may be. So it’s ... it’s ... not intended to be a simple history of the finance sector – not by me, and I think ... and Charles did say, he didn’t wanted narrower. So Sue’s actually been doing this ... also been doing these bits of work, as it happened, on other ... other things that had been being said at different times; subversive literature, if you like, and ... and ... and these things which are all part of the picture. It doesn’t mean to say that they’re right. (laughter)
Mr S No.
RR But it is part of what I am talking about – what I’m trying to do.
Mr S Well, without going back beyond – much beyond 1960, other than to point at Methodism, or and that err ... that as a cultural route, I think one of the things I would like to say, ‘cos I think it’s ... it’s interesting as to what this sprang out of and it is even now, where are we, fifty years later, umm ...
RR Virtually, aren’t we ...
Mr S ... umm ...’61 – 45, anyway, I mean, how different it was; but again, not only how different it was, but even then there was a fair bit of humbuggery there. I mean, when I say that, the umm ... I mean, the licensing laws were very restrictive. Umm ... I mean, I was particularly familiar with this, because through the 60s I was involved with running the Easter Rugby Festival, and these were sort of ... there were seven ... there was err ... Good Friday was in Douglas, err ... Saturday was at King William’s College ...
RR I’ve done that.
Mr S ... and then err ... the Monday was back in Douglas. And umm ... I mean, it was the devil’s own job, you really had to stand to attention and tug forelocks and do all sorts of things to get a ... umm ... a special liqueur license on Good Friday 3
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and Easter ... no ... was Easter Monday ...? Well, it was certainly ...
RR Easter Monday would have been alright, but Easter Sunday you would have had to have had a license.
Mr S Easter Sunday, of course, and so, you know, it’s ... but at the same time, we had First Deemster Kneale, falling between the gangway and err ... (laughter) and the vessel that had been set to pick him up.
RR He went ... he came off the royal yacht or something ...
Mr S Anyway, I ...
RR ... he stepped, off the side and the ... the bank went down there, and he did that in one step, into the water (laughter) ...
Mr S ... but we don’t need to dwell on it ...
RR No.
Mr S ... but this is repressive ... err ... no, not repressive, a cultural resistance to ... umm ... err ... well, alcohol and gambling, of course. And of course, it was back in again, they’re looking for umm ... commercial opportunities and what have you. And there’s a big battle, or much lobbying and ... travelling and what have you, and so there is a casino. But there are ... there would have been forces that would have strangled it at birth ...
RR And ...
Mr S ... they could. But then, by contrast, that got up and running, and err ... ran into a bit of rascally business shortly thereafter ...
RR Were you on the great Casino Raid? (laughter)
Mr S No, I was just the right side of 21 at the time so, while I was called back to the office, umm ... I was then stood down ... umm ... but within half a dozen years, the thing that they’d ... err ... the government had invested a lot in, called the Manx Hospitals’ Lottery, err ... that failed ... 4
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RR Yes, I remember it.
Mr S ... err ... sorry, it didn’t fail, it was ... I think one or more MHKs sort of kept batting at it, I mean, it was going to run at a loss ...
RR So it never really started, did it?
Mr S Yes, it ran for three years and err ... the first year made an expected deficit, the second year I think was better, and the third year, of course, the knives had been out and it disappeared beneath the waves. Umm ... and Fred Faragher is now commemorated at the gateway to Castletown Football Club – another retired policeman with not a great deal else to do. Umm ... so, anyway, that ... that I think ... it doesn’t do to lose sight of that ...
RR Yea.
Mr S ... and of course we’re then, courtesy of UK Government, we’ve got exchange control, and courtesy of Isle of Man Government we’ve got the Usury Acts. Err ... so it’s all pretty buttoned down as far as ... and, of course, there’s the Birch and the hanging and that sort of thing, as well.
RR If you look in the umm ... Tynwald debates, for example, looking at the amount of heat it generates, egalitarian society, in some ways, in instinct. It’s not like Ireland, which is, even though they are Celtic people, their temperament is so different from ours where anything goes. But err ... the Manx [unclear], which is found in small communities all over the world, umm ... is always being talked about, but when we get the introduction of the abolition of surtax, of course, they all say, ‘We don’t want all these rich fellows – we don’t mind the poor, rich people coming, but we don’t want the rich, rich people to come.’
Mr S I have to say that I share that sentiment at the moment. I think they’ve got it terribly wrong at the moment. The last thing we want is a number of Jeremy Clarkson’s, Alan Lloyd’s and what have you, because ...
RR Well, Jeremy Clarkson and those wouldn’t get any benefit, because ...
Mr S We have such pusillanimous government that they won’t ever face up to these people, so ... anyway, that’s another issue, so ... 5
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RR No, that’s umm ... knowing Jeremy Clarkson’s issue, I don’t think he’ll get any tax advantage from it – he’s got a Manx wife, unfortunately ...
Mr S No, but it’s ... you come in with huge sums of money which is a distortion in terms of power.
RR I’m not sure that he’s got enough money ... err ... to be distorted ...
Mr S No, but look, I mean, you can just ... your nose to the home team, you know, the ... the ...
RR I have sympathy with him, you know.
Mr S DOLGE [Department of Local Government & Environment], for one, will just do the circling wildebeest act. And then, of course, we’ve got this foolishness of umm ... Number 5, The Parade, I mean, that’s absolutely scandalous. Anyway, sorry ...
RR But they ran the business, and yet ...
Mr S Pardon?
RR ... I mean Taylor and [unclear] did ... the other one ... but its Taylor’s the one on Number 5.
Mr S Hmmm.
RR They were in Strix and Strix was doing good work for the Island and for themselves and that was great. And they were just over the road, weren’t they ... early on?
Mr S Ummm ... yes, Cosy Cinema, yea.
RR And umm ... they then ... but you see ...
Mr S But actually, the other thing is; have you seen this ummm ... rocket launcher that is ... (laughter) ...
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RR Yes, yes ... the space craft ...
Mr S Oh, amazing, and to attenuate that with (laughter) ... sorry, let’s stick to the prospectus, Roger, or we will be here ... because we’re going out to dinner tonight. (laughter)
RR We are going out to dinner. What time are you picking Valerie, did you say?
Mr S Quarter past seven ... (laughter) ... seven fifteen.
RR You ... you were born in Bombay ...
Mr S I was.
RR ... and you came and went to school here.
Mr S My mother was Manx. She trained as a nurse at Nobles Hospital ...
RR Yea.
Mr S ... and then she went to Zanzibar.
RR But you came to school here?
Mr S I did.
RR So then ... and when you’d been ... were you living here, then, as a sort of family?
Mr S Well, I used to holiday in the first couple of years with my grandmother and my aunt who lived in ummm ... ummm ... Ballabeg, Lonan.
RR So then you ... when you’d done that, you then articled to ...
Mr S No, I had a couple of years in the Merchant Navy.
RR Oh yes, ‘course you did, didn’t you?
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Mr S And then I was articled to [unclear].
RR Articled to [unclear] Walkers.
Mr S To Jim Cain in particular ...
RR To Jim ...
Mr S ... on the 23rd June 1962. (laughter)
RR Written in ... (laughter)
Mr S Well, it was five years, and it’s a long time, so I do ... but the interesting thing ... it was a similar thing with the sea, and of course, indentures, and much of the language actually was taken from the prisons, (laughter) I mean, you got remission for this, and you got ... anyway ... hmmm ... so, yes, ’62, I started ...
RR And your brother was younger, wasn’t he?
Mr S He’s two years younger.
RR Oh is he, and was he also articled to Pannells?
Mr S No, he ummm ... he was Shannon Kneale ... I’m not quite sure ... I can’t remember who his principal was, but err ... Shannon Kneale.
RR So then you were with Walkers, as it was ... still at that time?
Mr S Yea – ’62 to ’70 when I went to Shannon Kneale for a few months, and in September – with effect from September ’70, I was Deputy Assessor of Income Tax ... in succession to ... ummm ... well, ummm Jerry Mangham had been the successor and one ... sorry, no, err ... the previous twosome was err ... Assessor ... one Hector Matthews and Jerry Mangham.
RR And they were the ones who brought in the 1970 Income Tax Act.
Mr S Hmmm.
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RR You came in when that was already installed.
Mr S That was enacted ... umm ... probably the February and I arrived in the umm ... in the September.
RR And that’s still the major Act?
Mr S Yea.
RR Right, so ... and then for a very long time, you were in one post or another, in the heart of government ...
Mr S You could call it that, although it was a bit detached at times, I think.
RR Was it really?
Mr S Because that’s part of the discussion, I think, as well (laughter) which we ... ummm ... well, we were ... again, I say detached, because we were out at Eastcliffe, you know, which ... err ...
RR Near the hospital?
Mr S No.
RR Near the old hospital?
Mr S No ... err ... across the road from the holiday camp, next door to the prison.
RR Oh, right up there?
Mr S Hmm.
RR ‘Cos there is an Eastcliffe up the other ...
Mr S It’s now umm ... it’s either mentally or physically handicapped, I think, is it? Do you ... ’cos you ... people go to get their company seals there, I think.
RR There’s a disabled centre up there, somewhere ... 9
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Mr S Well, it’s just across the road from the prison anyway, ‘cos again, we used to ... certain records used to get burnt in the prison incinerator, before they were dropped up at the Foxdale Deads.
RR And that was Elspeth, of course ...
Mr S [unclear] insisted on that ...
RR Foxdale ... recirculation plant! (laughter)
Mr S More or less.
RR I saw it – I bought some [unclear] here – twice ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR ... and there was one very windy day, and I was sitting up there by the ... by the umm ... the mines, near the Round Table, and they ... it was a checkpoint, which you were obliged to go through, and I was intrigued because the corporation dustcart kept coming and tipping stuff down the shafts ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR ... and a moment or two later, off it went, a few minutes later ... this was then distributed by something whooshing the system. (laughter) It came shooting out, (laughter) high in the sky and was scattered all round the place ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR ... and we sat there for a couple of hours so that we got a whole series of these things came one after the other, (laughter) and they did the same thing and Jim Cain was saying, the other day, that the ... the ... a lot of the old umm ... Walker’s archives were disposed of in like manner.
Mr S Hmm. Well, among a couple of documents ... oh, sorry, a couple and I’ve forgotten the second one ... the first one is probably worth a look, is umm ... is McDonald or McDermott, the Royal Commission Report of ’58 ...
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RR Yes.
Mr S ... and there’s at least one, if not possibly two, umm ... volumes of autobiography by Sir Ronald Garvey, because, of course, he was ...
RR There’s one ...
Mr S ... he was a very sort of ... he was very energetic and, again, I think it was probably before I left college they were trying to sort of seek out something in Mica Company or something, they were doing aerial and what have you of Foxdale, because they were really struggling to find umm ... industrial, or umm ... you know, business opportunities for the Island.
RR He came, and I ... I can ... I ...
Mr S But Garvey was ... sorry, Garvey was certainly a very ... he’d been in Fiji before he came here ...
RR Exactly.
Mr S ... and he was a very energetic ... umm ...
RR And very commercial for the Island.
Mr S Yes, and, if you read in Tynwald debates and what have you, and I mean, such and such a business man, and if he was a business man from across the water then, of course, he was much ... umm ... much highly – you know, they were umm ... almost saint-like umm ... their words were almost ... sort of holy-writ ... But anyway, that was ... so that was Garvey. But it was a new resident ... it was about residents ...
RR Yes.
Mr S ... and the new Resident Policy became...
RR That was what 1960 was about, wasn’t it
Mr S That was 1960 ...’61 surtax was abolished and ’62 the umm ... err ... the rate 11
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was dropped from 4/6d to 4/3d. And, of course, we have the new residents, not immigrants, because immigrants, presumably, are of a duskier hue and have nasty personal habits. (laughter) And I ... one of my early memories, and I think this is true ...
RR So diplomatic [unclear]. (laughter)
Mr S ... oh a lot of them did, in fact a lot of the names of houses and places and ... this Ballacob – I was reading Elspeth Huxley the other day – Ballacobb up there, where they keep ... old people keep getting knocked over on the road – it was the Cobb family from Kenya that that’s called after.
RR Hmm.
SL Is it really?
Mr S But umm ... I think I remember ... umm ...’cos I remember being hugely amused about it at the time, I wonder whether it was a Panorama programme ... umm ... about the Island – I don’t think there was the full fifty minutes or hour devoted to it, but they must have devoted – it was up there with the spaghetti harvest – much laughter, and the thing that I think I remember was, of course, the BBC had done, what is not an unusual trick by all accounts, rounded up some new residents in a living room in Maughold, (laughter) and of course, promise of arrival and interview at six o’clock, but by the time they arrived at nine ...
RR They were well gone.
Mr S ... they were all at flying speed, and the main topics of conversation were the price of gin and the servant problem (laughter) ... so forever and a day, it’s up in the white highlands of Maughold ...
RR Wasn’t [unclear] on that programme?
Mr S I don’t remember.
RR There was some awful thing [unclear] ...
SL I’ve got ... I’ve got some stuff from early nineteen ... 12
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RR ... [unclear] said some awful things, and then went back to England – and then came back.
Mr S So ... again, I don’t know I ... I suppose the ...
RR ... [unclear] the surtax and all that was ... that was really to do with new residents, was it?
Mr S It was, because, of course, the population was down to 48,000 in 1961 and falling, because the ’50 had been terrible years, of course, it’s hardly surprising, really, because that tourist industry provided ... well ... well, three or four months, and if you didn’t have a house ... a boarding house, or thing ... what did you do the rest of the year? And of course, the other thing that I suppose happened, and again, I ... there’s a bit of umm ... umm ... imagination, call it, or guesswork, but my mother would frequently talk about, you know, putting bowls of gruel or food out at the barn door, so ... because there were presumably umm ... I don’t know, this would be in the ... noughties, the tens, twenties ... umm ... there was presumably a fairly sort of ... well, err ... rural poor that umm ... would just live off the land. So, presumably, as ... as you got into the 30s and 40s, the farmers started cutting their workforces ... umm ... and the ... and presumably this rural poor umm ... I would have ... err ... I’m sure there’s a better expression for them, umm ... err ... they presumably just got squeezed out or taken into homes or something.
RR You also had the seasonal workers, some of whom might have been these same people ... who worked in the boarding houses, labourers for a few months, and might do a bit of building work and so on; but were ... so they had ... and had had, since the 1920s, the winter work schemes ...
Mr S Yes.
RR ... of tree planting, mostly...
Mr S And they, of course, they would then be shipped away to do the sugar beet in Norfolk.
RR Yea, Norfolk, yea.
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Mr S So, anyway, that err ... that came along. Now one of the first breaks, surely, and I don’t know what date, but I ... I think if some ... well, I mean, probably you know Mrs Holt, she’d be able to help you, but of course their offices are Edwards & Hartley, but I ...
RR Yes, yes, I sat next to her at lunch the other day, and I ... she said that they came ... err ... in nineteen ... I wasn’t writing it down ... nineteen ... which is Ronaldsway Aircraft ... they came in 1952, but they didn’t ... their first production, the first thing they sent an invoice for was 1954 ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR ... umm ... Bill was saying ... following what you said to me off the record the other day ...
Mr S Well, I was going to say, I would say that again if you umm ...
RR Switch that off?
Mr S Would switch that ... well, it’s just ... umm ...
RR Well, you don’t need to say it – I know it. And Bill was saying to ...
[Recorder switched off]
RR ... not to do with income tax, but of a similar nature, that ... umm ... at one time a quarter of the building work in the Island was generated by the Holts – or something of that nature. I’m not quite sure I’ve got that somewhere ... well, if he only came in 1959, and the reason ... do you know the reason why they came?
Mr S Well, Albert Hill always claimed to be the prime mover of getting them over here.
RR We may have been enormously attractive to them, but Martin Baker, the ejector seater was doing very well, and they were subcontracting a lot of the components to other firms, and one of the Martins or Bakers who were cousins to each other, cousins of the Holts ... Holts, whichever ones they are, said, 14
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‘Well, this is nonsense – why don’t we set up a components factory?’ So that’s what this was. This is what Joan told me last Sunday – ‘cos I was sat next to her in Ramsey. I was chatting to her of the time it used to be ... it was interesting, anyway ... and she was in a ... in a ... in a good conversational mood. And then we had one or two, like Voltrex came along there somewhere ... I’m not quite sure when ...
Mr S Hmm ... and Mr Roberts [unclear] ...
RR ... [unclear], who has just died ... but this was before 1960 ... these were in ... well that was in the 1950s – Joan Holt ...
Mr S Was it quite?
RR Yes it was.
Mr S Well, I remember Albert Hill, I don’t know what date they arrived, but I mean, that would be easily checkable, I’m sure.
RR The previous – well, I know, she gave me the dates. She came in 1959 ... she must have been quite young then, I suppose ...
Mr S Yea.
RR ... but her mother came, Mrs Burrell, – her father had already died. Umm ... Mrs Burrell was a formidable lady, and she set the thing up – this is Joan Holt’s mother [unclear], Holt’s grandmother, and ... there was a stocking factory, wasn’t there? Err ... Polly Peck, was it?
Mr S That was up in Ramsey.
RR Polly Peck in Ramsey it was ...
Mr S Err ... hang on, was it Polly Peck? No ... umm ...
RR Well it was something like that ...
Mr S ... no, it will come to me ... it’s not in the front of my mind ... 15
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RR No, it will come to me, it wasn’t ... yes ... yes ... yes – Elizabeth will know. The shoe factory, I think, came in that time – or did it come later?
Mr S I don’t know ... I can’t remember.
RR It was ... I’m almost sure of it. But that was the policy of the previous Governor.
Mr S He was very keen to attract new business, yes.
RR Yea. And, particular, they had a go at manufacturing and they introduced some legislation to carry ... advanced it.
Mr S There were probably grants ... and of course ... umm ... but of course there were also one or two wonderful good humour men who pitched up as they always do, (laughter) and umm ... took the home-team for some very substantial sums of money (laughter) ... now they’re in the government but ... (laughter) ... umm ... but one Leslie Salts, I’m not sure what his dates would be, but he ... he was a great ... err ... [unclear] entrepreneur.
RR He was around ... err ... I remember Leslie Salts, and he bought The Mitre in Ramsey, amongst other things.
Mr S Oh, what he wasn’t going to do for the Isle of Man!
RR [unclear] Bill ...
Mr S Who?
RR Came in the 1960s.
Mr S Bill Kerruish.
RR You know – he went to jail.
Mr S Oh, Arthur William Quilliam – no umm ... Albert ... Albert ... Albert William Kerruish.
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RR Yep.
Mr S Yes ... err ... yes.
RR He came ...
Mr S But he ... he was done on the back of false accounting, wasn’t he? But umm ...
RR But he didn’t come until the 1960s, ‘cos I was introduced to him.
Mr S No, well, he was Crockford’s man in the Island as if he was ‘moleing’ away (laughter) ...
RR He was ... I was introduced to him. I ... had always ... I shared a flat with a fellow called James Murdoch of Shore & Company in London ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR ... and his grandfather was Shore ...
Mr S Abdulla Quilliam was a name he went by, or an antecedent went by, he was ... he was Albert William Kerruish ...
RR He was Albert William, yes. He wasn’t Quilliam – he was Albert. And I, this chap, shared a flat with him ... err ... and he, Bill Kerruish, was a partner of Shore & Company, whether he was a full equity partner, I don’t know. And he was told, James Murdoch who, incidentally was the London correspondent for Ramsey Crookall & Company, so there was another connection. He was ... he said he was going to meet this wonderful man who’s going back to the Isle of Man to show them how to do it, you see (laughter) ... that’s another expression, ‘Show them how to do it!’ sort of thing – come here and go to the Channel Islands.
Mr S This island is full of people who’ve been broken with their wisdom! (laughter)
RR We’ve got some big [unclear] out of it, I mean, dear Peter Long is still telling in the Isle of Man exactly what it should be doing. And ... what’s his name – Bruce Taylor was quite good at giving us all various pieces of advice. 17
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Mr S Hmm.
RR Anyway, Albert William Kerruish came, and bought into ... he bought into the Palace & Derby Castle. ‘Cos he was quite [unclear] ...
Mr S Yea, and The Casino ... he was ... he was their mole over here when ... before they took it over.
RR And ...’cos Elizabeth’s mother refused to share ... sell any shares to him. Shares were [unclear] trying to buy the shares to The Palace & Derby Castle, and she said, ‘No,’ – she thought it a bit cheeky of him being [unclear] anyway, which I think I have some sympathy for her. Then she said, ‘And he’s Abdulla’s grandson,’ and then she said, ‘and besides that, his eyes are too close together,’ (laughter) ... good logical sequence for why she was not going to sell her shares (laughter) to this outfit. But that was all about 1960 ...
Mr S And she was proved right about that.
RR She was absolutely spot on! (laughter)
Mr S But it was more to do with The Casino ...
RR Yea.
Mr S ... ‘cos, again ... but you see, it reverberated on, because Walkers were the auditors of umm ... the main company by this ... well, I think the public company was umm ... The Palace & Derby Castle, but err ... Palace Entertainments was the cinema and whatever, and umm ... and maybe even held all the land, and ... but it was loo ... all the land was looted, and err ... I mean there was err ... people like Tim Holland, and umm ... well old ... I’m not quite sure where Dudley Cunliffe-Owen lived in that lot ...
RR But the ... but they ... they didn’t come in immediately, did they, ‘cos we these ... these ... Sauls’...
Mr S No, we had the Americans, Mrs Saul ...
RR Hmm. 18
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Mr S Yes.
RR And the great Casino Raid, which is Mrs Saul’s undoing ...
Mr S Hmm ... umm.
RR Well, I didn’t know ... it’s included – that is actually in print, because, Don Newby gave a talk to Rotary ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR ... and he gave me his notes, and I did an article, that you may remember, on the accountancy in the Isle of Man, and there’s a little bit, as a light aside, was the casino raid.
Mr S Well, of course, one of the wonderful asides of that was a testament to Manx even-handed justice, wasn’t there, where the Deemster, when summing up, said that we can’t have beastly people like this in the Isle of Man, and they ought to be hung, drawn and quartered (laughter) and, whatever the verdict was, they would be deported straight – forthwith, either after the verdict ... after the not guilty verdict or after they’d served their prison sentences! And then the lady, oh golly, recorder for Burnley ...?
RR Rose Harbron.
Mr S ... Rose Harbron comes over and just made monkeys of them all, and umm ...
RR She made monkeys of George Moore.
Mr S ... and err ... they all ... they all umm ... they were all turned loose on gross misdirection of the jury. (laughter)
RR George got the bit between his teeth, I think, quite red in the face I’m told. This ... the indignation about it all.
Mr S So ...
RR Now what other naughty people can we think of? Now we got the whole matter 19
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of ... of err ... what’s he called – Binstock.
Mr S Well, Binstock was early 70s, wasn’t he? He sort of ... back of ’69 – ’70. Well, I think, when I moved to Shannon Kneale in 1970, so we’re talking about – I think that the old Victory House was still there ...
RR What was that? Was it an office block?
Mr S It was a hotel.
RR It was a hotel?
Mr S A straight up and down hotel.
RR ‘Cos there was some shops along there somewhere, wasn’t there?
Mr S Oh indeed there were, yes, there was a sort of shopping ... now Bill Kennaugh, I think ... sort of one-time entrepreneur, he was getting on, he had a shop along there ... yes, there was a lot of shops – well, there were shops all along there. Wouldn’t be difficult to get hold of some ...
RR So Judah did Victory House, did he?
Mr S I think that was ... Dougie Bolton would know about that ...
RR I’m seeing Dougie next week.
Mr S ... because umm ... err ... because umm ... Judah was a client of theirs – Sugdens – because I can remember, certainly Roger Breadner, possibly brother John, going off to Florida to visit Judah on ... on business.
RR I think Roger Harper ...
[Tape fades out]
Mr S Umm ... maybe so ...
RR A year or two ago he said he’d be going out to see him in Spain, ‘cos he went to 20
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Spain.
Mr S ... ‘cos he’s leading a blameless life on the Costa now, but ummm (laughter) ... yea.
RR It was exchange control, wasn’t it, that ...
Mr S Yes, he was ... he was ...
RR ... that he got the wrong side of?
Mr S ... he was skimming the premium off – it was the dollar premium on exchange control. And I’d need notice of how it worked, but ummm ...
RR (laughter) That’s what I was going to ask you! I remember it.
Mr S ... to buy dollars to go to the States, you had to pay a premium, but when you came back, you had to cash the dollars in, but you didn’t get the premium, or something, so this was one, a deterrent from going to the States, and two, of course, was a nice little earner for the British Government, but he’d devised some sort of carousel or whatever (laughter) which is now, for exchange control, read VAT, (laughter) which sort of had these large sums of money going into his pocket rather than the exchequer’s pocket. And then he just disappeared off to Spain. But, he was probably the one that umm ... fuelled what was a significant umm ... property boom – sort of ’71 – ’72, because I think every farmer worthy of the name, umm ... was holding some sort of an option from Judah on his property. (laughter) And umm ... err ... so there was a lot of umm ... well, I think that happened, there was price inflation of property, and of course, then there was the ’71 election, and the following the ’71 election, because the other topic had been development and umm ... because, of course, Judah was going to build housing estates all over the place, so as a courtesy of the ’71 election we got the Land Speculation Tax, we got the umm ... because that was ’75, umm.
RR What, the Land Speculation Tax was?
Mr S I think so, yes. Company Registration Tax, which is not really worth bothering with, was ’74, and there was a ... and Work Permits, of course – that was the 21
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Control of Employment Act, which again, I think that was ’75. Umm ... so that was again, now, of course, you’ve got the people coming in, you’ve got people interested in development, and there was one particular plot of land at umm ... out Peel way, I think, and, I remember some of the players – John Shasha, Alvin Harding, to name but two. And of course, this land was sold by Ian Anderson, err ... probably one year, and for a couple of ... I don’t know, let’s say a hundred pounds, (laughter) and a couple of years later it arrived in a company at £12,000. Well, that is not that extraordinary, what, of course, lit the touch- paper, I think, was those one, two, three, four sales were all registered at the same time, (laughter) so we had land being sold by Ian Anderson for £100 and on the same day, some good humoured man [unclear] company, it was called Western Estates, and don’t record that, please, umm ... had paid £12,000 for it, and of course this ... and of course, Ian knew he hadn’t had the money, he ... umm ... so who had the money in between, so we must have a Land Speculation Tax ... which of course, was a complete and utter misnomer, because umm ... if you’re going ... the ‘wheeze’ was to penalise land speculators, but, you know, they were specifically exempt! (laughter) ‘cos if ... I mean, to penalise, you were obviously going to charge them more than the standard rate of income tax, which was 4/3d, but that’s what it was to be, and because those that were in business doing umm ... err ... property development and what have you, were specifically exempt, they went ... they went that route anyway. So, in the end, when it was finally repealed in ... golly, when was that? I think it might even have been after I left the tax office in ’84, so ...
RR I think it was, I think it was after ... it was in the ‘80s, and ...
Mr S Well, the only people who were getting hit by it were owner occupiers and even in that socialist ‘nirvana’ across the water (laughter) was specifically exempt. So it was ... and that’s what we get when we do our own legislation. Umm ... and of course, again, we’ve also got, rumbling along behind all this, we’ve got the social bits of hanging, flogging, homosexuality, abortion, and whatever. And so, you know, so we never really opened up, in fact I, you know, this ... all this present touchy, feely, ‘Can we have civil partnerships,’ rather like Methodism itself – it’s quite incomprehensible to those of us that lived through the 1960s in the Isle of Man. (laughter)
RR We still ... we still don’t have, presumably have civil partnerships here.
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Mr S No, it’s out for consultation ... it’s out for consultation, (laughter) isn’t it?
RR Oh well, so we’ve got a few experts to pay yet, have we ...
SL Yes, a good point on that.
Mr S ... from across? – I don’t know. (laughter) Well, there are one or two ... one or two wealthy umm ... new residents, of course, umm ... attained some sort of notoriety, didn’t they? What about Julian Holt, do you remember him?
RR Oh, there was a ... I’ll tell you about Julian Holt ...
Mr S I don’t need to know, I just say he was taken up to the hospital one night to have a ... to have something that was battery driven removed from him, (laughter)... anyway ... let’s ... let’s move on!
RR He was the Holt’s Shipping Line, Holts ...
Mr S Yes, oh, indeed, mighty ...
RR ... and he had The Sizzler, that’s what it was called ...
Mr S err ... he did ... well, that was after ... after Irani, yes.
RR He was Julian’s, he had a friend who ran it, and he lived in that house along Peel Road. And when we came to live here, Elizabeth said, ‘I don’t want to live in Quarterbridge Road,’ where she’d lived all her life, ever since her mother came here, and so we went and looked at that house in the Peel Road, which was then [unclear], and err ... we went round; and the chap who took round ... J ... J R James ... this was what – about 1980 – no, ’79, and there was one bedroom covered in teddy bears – a bed covered in teddy bears, and that was ... whatever he was called – not Julian, but ‘a friend.’ And down in the cellar – it was one of them that we went around with and he says, and it was locked, and there was no key on the outside, and he says, and I said, ‘What’s in there?’ He says, ‘I’m afraid you can’t go in there, that’s the games room.’ (laughter)
Mr S Hmm.
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RR Mind you, when the Leventhorpe’s went into where ‘trendy’ Trevor had been, there was a games room.
Mr S Hmm.
RR But his ... his ... his ... err ...
Mr S His was more about moving pictures and mirrors, wasn’t it? (laughter) Anyway, umm ...
SL My mind’s boggling!
RR Going back to ‘trendy’ Trevor, I thought he had something to do with Victory House.
Mr S He may ... well, I’m not awfully sure. I think ... I think ... you see the other ... the other thing is, which again, umm ... can be said of another one of our ‘wealthies’ – they don’t necessarily part with any cash. So whether Binstock had options on Victory House and what have you, I mean, it was ... I mean – it was stunning. I can remember going to see Eddie Edge there, when he and his father had an office, and it was ... oh, I don’t know, it was an old hotel, and I remember you went through these big arch doors, the floors and the staircase were all wooden, and deeply pitted wooden floors, and of course, the ... Eddie Edge’s office was just inside the umm ... err ... the main door, and of course, this December that I ... or January that I visited him, of course you have to push mightily on the door, one, because it’s a big heavy door, but the other thing is, it’s got a big heavy draft excluder behind it, and the boy sitting in sort of ... well ... in the semi-light, hunched over a paraffin burner. (laughter) I mean, this is truly Dickensian, (laughter) and this is ... you know, this was what you had ...
RR Well, I’m not sure Walker’s office was that much better, was it? Jim Cryer always told me, when he was an articled clerk he had to get the coal and light the fire at Walker’s office.
Mr S I don’t remember, I ... I ...
24
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RR Well perhaps you were too big to be ... doing it. But Jim had to do it, he tells me.
Mr S Jim Cain?
RR Jim Cryer.
Mr S Jim Cryer ... well ... Steam Packet [Isle of Man Steam Packet Company] had stand-up desks and fires.
RR I remember those.
Mr S Umm.
RR You used to get your ticket ... at [unclear], and you got your ticket, and at the end of it, you came away with a piece of cardboard like that, but the number of pieces of paper which were all separately filled in, (laughter) and you had carbon paper as far as I could see. But it was ... that was amazing, that they were sitting at these desks, just through a sort of hatch. And that went on ... almost to 1990 ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR It went on a long, long time and they didn’t know where ...
Mr S Well, I remember, and of course I’ve seen it in action in various films, not least of which I think the umm ... oh golly, that wonderful ... oh dear, I’ve forgotten, but the train and the two cricketers, oh, come on ... anyway, no, but umm ... going on, going ... this is on one occasion, it would be going to camp from college, and of course, you’re ... we were led onto ... because I didn’t normally travel by boat, because I would stay by ... I would stay with grandmother and aunt, you see, but on this occasion I ... I guess we’re fed on board, half a dozen then come off and, in true sort of POW style to get a paper or something of nonsense, and then, of course, eight go back on. (laughter) Umm ... now the boys must have known what was going on. But then, of course, you know, they would go and come round, three hours into the voyage, they’d come round to pick up the tickets – or get would get the tickets. Now of course it wasn’t that difficult to dodge them, but those that were conscientious to want a ticket, 25
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would go down to the gents, ‘Tickets please’! You can hand them under the door.’ (laughter) Brilliant! Anyway, umm ...
RR Going back to ... were there any other characters like Leslie Salts that we ...
Mr S I’m sure there were, but I can’t think of more.
RR I can’t think.
Mr S Well you see, again, Dursley and Dougie ... Dursley Stott and Dougie were probably – and I think there was a friend of Dursley’s who he’d been at university with, but, Richard King is somebody that ... but I mean, I’ve never met him, I mean, they were a generation before me. But they ... they ... umm, sort of got umm ... well, Dursley was the stockbroker, Doug was the accountant ... it was probably, by today’s standards, small – I mean, everything was – umm ... some sort of unit trust ...
RR Oh ... did they ...
Mr S ... oh, did they call ... was that Southern Cross, or something they called it? They eventually sold it to Barclays.
RR Oh, it became Barclays Unicorn, then ...
Mr S Yea, or some such ...
RR I’m seeing Dougie so I ...
Mr S Ummm ... and they, I mean, in 1 Athol Street there, they ... they were the sort of ... and again, Dougie has a tale about ...’cos Doug – again, this was one of ... apparently one of Doug’s great umm ... virtues as a partner, that he would do, not a great deal for months on end, then he would disappear off to ... Sir Douglas Clague, err ... he would disappear off to Hong Kong or somewhere and come back having closed some multi-million deal which would represent substantial fee income to the firm, or whatever, and apparently, Peter Kneale, advocate, you know, one point despairingly says, ‘Well Doug, when are you going to cut me into one of these deals?’ (laughter) ‘cos Peter wanted some of the action. But the other tale in that context – now whether it’s true or not I 26
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don’t know, but Renaldo Hardy passes his cheque for fifty grand over for his share of the goodwill of Sugdens (laughter) and Dougie picks it up ... and leaves ...
RR Leaves the firm altogether.
Mr S ... leaves the firm yes, so ... well, again, we come back ... well, there’s ... there’s, again, I think you’d probably have to look at the Tynwald debates, but of course, the political prime movers were Dougie Bolton ...
RR Not ... John Bolton.
Mr S ... John Bolton, Clifford Irvin ... you see, and old Bill Quayle was a bit of a player there, although he was probably more to do with the tourist industry and what have you. But he was a sort of a great big amiable ... a large amiable soul, and he had Peel Engineering ... now was it? Anyway, he built the drum for the Manx Hospitals’ Lottery, I remember (laughter) ... umm ... an amiable chap ... umm ... and then of course there was Len [unclear] Collister, who ... he umm ... he recruited me to the tax office – he was Chairman of the Civil Service Commission. Norman Crowe, I think, always ... he was Chairman of the Finance Board, probably at that time. And of course, the first Treasurer was Ken Carney.
RR Ken?
Mr S Oh I think that’s Carney, but Jim Cain would know.
RR Oh, yes, yea.
Mr S And then if he left in ...
RR I think that’s right, yes.
Mr S ... and then he left in something like ’67 or ’68. And a guy called Allan Smith was Treasurer for umm ... I think it was only about eighteen months, and I never ... well, I don’t know what happened, but I think the tale was that there’d been some big bust-up between him and Charlie Kerruish, but what the truth of that is, I don’t know. 27
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RR And then Bill came.
Mr S And then Bill Dawson.
RR Bill came in ’69. He came on the 5th – 6th of October 1969 – because it was halfway through the tax year.
Mr S Yea ... umm ...
RR I’ve got ... I’ve got ...
Mr S ... well what about – what about somebody ... now, he was ... he was, again, this would be something to talk to Jim Cain about, J. R. Quayle, who was the hard man, sort of chairman or whatever of the Isle of Man Bank, and of course, he was then followed by Howard Pearson, and I think Howard Pearson was a seriously good ... good thing for the Isle of Man, because he came out of ... the Westminster, or NatWest ...
RR [unclear].
Mr S err ... well, yes, that’s right.
RR I think he’d been the Chairman of [unclear], hadn’t he, or something, and he came to retire to the Island and they made him Chairman of The Isle of Man Bank because he’d just been retired by [unclear].
Mr S Which was good for the Isle of Man, because I think one of the things we tend to lose sight of is just, you know, are these ... serious and influential people that come to live here, because, you know, I can remember it being said of Lord Cromer, err ... Governor of the Bank of England, who went to Jersey. You know, I mean, somebody like that, who has ... carries the baggage that he does, I mean, he can have things done on a ... just a friendly telephone call and you know, the home team just couldn’t even dream of. And so, to get a big hitter like that, because, again, there are other pools in here about when – how to attract business and what have you. Because it was – I remember it being said, one of the Chairmen of Lloyds, and I don’t know when this was ... now is the name, Jeremy Thompson known – would he have been Chairman of Lloyds? Anyway, this man said that he wouldn’t go near the Isle of Man – it was just a 28
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den of pirates, or something. Now that is seriously bad news, but to get somebody like Howard Pearson coming over here, who’s good news.
RR He persuaded ... you know, [unclear] and Singers to set up here.
Mr S Well, that’s ... sort of ... I didn’t know that, but what I know is sort of a ...
RR That I do know, because ...
Mr S ... what I’m saying ... umm ...
RR ... because, Brian Mylchreest was the first Chairman, I think. And he was all party to it.
Mr S Well, you see, people like Brian Mylchreest and Leslie Vondy [sp ?], and ... they were the sort of ... I don’t know – the dung beetles of the financial services industry (laughter) – it was interesting – they weren’t financial people themselves but ...
RR No.
Mr S ... but they ... they would always know somebody who would know, and umm ... they were ... there were more ... there were more than ...
RR Yes.
Mr S ... and they came to rest. Well, Brian was certainly one, Leslie Roger ...
RR Leslie Roger was certainly one. They were both on airlines, they were both on Manx Airlines – the old Manx Airlines.
Mr S Hmm.
RR Before the new Manx Airlines ...
Mr S Yea. So we get to ...
End of side 1 29
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RR … until … perhaps a year or two later. But …
Mr S Well, Singers, and, as I heard last night, Singers opened in ’71, as did the Savings & Investment Bank, and …
RR As did also [unclear].
Mr S ... and Slater Walker.
RR Slater Walker.
Mr S Slater Walker, yea, and so, so ’71 was a … was a … umm … was a year of new entries – oh God, that was the name I was trying to remember last night – Alan Lewis – I could remember the Lewis bit, but I couldn’t remember the Alan. What is it when you’ve got to remember them – I thought the hard disc had been wiped and ... there was something I said ... well, I’ll remember that in time.
RR I can’t remember at all (laughter) what it was.
Mr S Do you remember, Sue?
SL I’m not sure.
Mr S No. So something must have been happening then. Of course, again, which I ... I think is sort of interesting culturally, that then, we were unashamedly a tax haven. And actually, there was several law cases – was it the Earl of Howe where ... you know ... every man can organise his affairs to keep the, you know, to hang onto his money ...
RR Yea, absolutely.
Mr S ... and this – that was how people lived. And some of the mantras that were offered at that time were not really contradicted. And of course the Revenue dumped on the Customs & Excise, and the Customs ... ‘cos the Revenue in the UK, they were the officers and the gentlemen and they were educated and civilised. The Revenue – they were still locked in sort of rum-running and beating up (laughter) and those sorts of practises ... 30
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RR (laughter) Seizers in the middle of the night!
Mr S so ... and of course they didn’t talk to each other – they weren’t allowed to talk to each other.
RR No, it was much better.
Mr S But now ... now we’ve got everybody colluding against us. Now, instead of a nation of citizens we’ve got a nation of spies! (laughter)
RR It’s a disaster with Customs & Excise ...
Mr S Most definitely! And ... and people would blamelessly say, ‘Well, I don’t care what ...’ you know, ‘I don’t care what my client may have done elsewhere, as long he’s not broken the law in the Isle of Man, I’m happy,’ ... which means he was quite capable of breaking the law in the Isle of Man, and probably was, and as long as I didn’t know about it I would deal with any rascal that came to my door. (laughter) And of course, that’s not unlike the City of London where we have Maxwell and the various other good humour men as long as you personally ...
RR Maxwell was our Member of Parliament. One of the few people to tell you in public that he ... he was telling a lie and not be sued for it.
Mr S Hmm.
RR I did ... I was with Sir Philip Wombwell and Elizabeth’s mother.
Mr S Well that is another tale, you see, the ... the ... Wombwell and who ... err Ailsa, they tried to breathe life into the Isle of Man railway ...
RR Steam Packet?
Mr S ... ‘cos that’s another story, isn’t it?
RR Hmm.
Mr S Because, you know, that failed and then they tried and then they failed and umm 31
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... err ... and of course, now, it’s a national treasure – or what’s left is. (laughter)
RR A national and expensive treasure. (laughter)
Mr S Well, yea. Umm ...
RR And John Clucas with the trams ...
Mr S Well, there was another ...
RR ... didn’t get re-elected because he ...
Mr S Lucian Landau and his umm ... umm ...
RR Oh, Landau, yes, that’s another story. That was a bit later, was it?
Mr S Probably ... oh, hang on, John ...
RR Landau had ... was it the whisky?
Mr S Yea.
SL Oh, not the great whisky player ... saga?
RR He invented a way of making whiskey by [unclear] process.
Mr S Well, it sort of follows on with this fellow Dixon ...
SL Yea, and Scottish Distillers then took them to court, finally ...
Mr S It’s ... it’s ... I think this ... err ... Roy Dixon’s son, Andrew, bought it out at the end, and then, yes ... it’s a different owner, but it’s the same ... same thing ... umm ... what is it, what do they call it?
RR Kella.
SL Kella.
32
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Mr S Yes, I know, but umm ... what was the process, or the absence of process? Anyway, it was just Manx whisky.
RR One of them ...
Mr S It didn’t have ... it didn’t have a ... fermenting ... would it be? No, whatever, anyway, pass.
RR Well, you don’t ... you don’t age it in casks.
Mr S Well, then there was also, of course, that interesting bunch came to rest, probably in the late sixties, up on the Jurby industrial estate. Now they were not necessarily financiers, but you got Brian Leahy, oh, sorry – Patrick Leahy with his Mannin Tea & Coffee Company, and you got old man Emery, whose son Roger’s still about, who they ... they were Emery Holdings – I think they were into some sort of mail order.
RR I don’t know what they – by this time, they were owning investment companies.
Mr S Well, I think they were up to some ... there was some trouble ...
RR Well I didn’t know that, but by the time I came ...
Mr S But anyway, Brian or Roger will talk to you, but there was an industrial estate up there, and umm ... a number of things came out of it, but it wasn’t financial services. Umm ...
RR No, but it’s all part of the picture, isn’t it, of what’s going on ... the question of tax ...
Mr S What’s happened ... what happened to Barfield Engineering, or something – a big plant outside Peel?
RR I don’t know, I can’t remember that at all.
Mr S And then there was one – one’s just died – Freddie Baldwin – wasn’t he into scallops, or ... and of course, what’s his name Croft – Terry Croft ...‘cos he was big on the scallops and the like, wasn’t he? 33
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RR Yes, there was a [unclear] fish thing in Peel, which got burnt down ...
Mr S Err ... I ...
RR Freddie Parks was on it also.
Mr S Yea, well, now, was that ... a real fire or had the budget been taken away ... (laughter)
RR No, no, no ... [unclear] budget [unclear] ... I don’t think, I think someone didn’t like Freddie Parks.
Mr S Oh, I see.
RR Freddie Parks was at school with me – most of the time an accountant – a long time accountant. Freddie ... Freddie Baldy ... who was the other chap ...
SL Terry Croft.
Mr S Terry Croft.
RR Terry Croft.
Mr S Terry Croft ... who’s got the ... well, there’s Tom works for ... well, he’s a stockbroker and of course ... umm ... oh dear ...
RR Freddie’s wife plays bridge down here and she’s playing at this instant just down the road. And she’s famous for always trying to claim one more trick than she’s made! (laughter)
Mr S Oh golly – Tim Croft – he’s carried on the business I think. It was ummm ... but Terry Croft, he was ... I don’t know what become of Terry Croft, but all those scallop shells that went around the [unclear] ...
RR Going back to the tax business, when I first came, that was ... we had ... someone said ... Mark Moroney was always [unclear], and Mark said he was there when John Crellin did ... err ... what did they call that case? I can’t think what it was ... the famous case with all the steps going all through on the same 34
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day?
Mr S Fergus Dawson?
RR Yea, Ferguson Dawson.
Mr S Ferguson Dawson.
RR Ferguson Dawson ... and I said, ‘well, [unclear], part-qualify.’ But he said that was early as 1971 or ‘2. But I think these had a legal structure to it. When I first came, I remember I umm ... what are they called? Bennett Roy refused ... had refused to sign an audit certificate; and I was asked ... I was put in as an arbitrator ... court witness or something – expert, to go and see whether it was reasonable for him not to have signed – to have refused to sign an audit report. And in order to do that I went and looked at Kingston’s stuff; when he was up at ...
Mr S Was it [unclear]?
RR No, he was then at umm ... well Percy Gowing lived one of those houses – not that one, the other one. Where ... where Mrs Bowland lived – which was later a nursing home; up ... up the ...
Mr S Oh yes, by the Electricity Board.
RR Yep, up there. So I went ...
Mr S Springfield!
RR Springfield. Anyway, I went to Springfield and there were all these files ... and ... and if you looked in the file, you know, I looked out to see the quality of administrations to see if it was reasonable to say, well, this thing’s not in control. And of course, there were ... paper wasn’t there and ... and there was no structure – these were just ... sealed them.
Mr S Hmmm.
RR [unclear]. Now, when we started getting involved, which was really in my time 35
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– well, Terry Thomson brought a lot of [unclear]. And when Terry Thomson went and later Geoff Crowe went, I found myself saying, well, we really ought be in this type of work, umm ... we had a great debate as to how to tackle it, and I ... was it alright to say what you’ve just said, as long as they don’t know about it, it’s nothing to do with us, we’re ... our stance always was, that we couldn’t guarantee the scheme would work without it being tested in the courts; but we set up things we ... we believed worked, and we would contend with that. That probably isn’t good enough now. But at time, that’s what we did, and Rory Robson, you see, helped us in the ... in the sort of debate that went on. Charles Parkinson in Guernsey was more rigid than that. He’d be saying unless you are absolutely certain that it’ll be approved, you shouldn’t be doing it.
Mr S Hmm.
RR Now our office in Jersey was much more casual than that and in due course they left PKF family ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR ... so it wasn’t ... I mean, it was a debate going on. Umm ... we hadn’t been doing it in the 1970s, but my ... and I had a look at one or two other things, and they were badly constructed at the best; and just cheating the Inland Revenue at the worst. Now that would have started, I suppose, in the 1970s – some of the firms ... some of the smaller operators, too, I think.
Mr S I’m sure there was a fair bit of it because I ... I honestly, I mean ...
RR That will come ...
Mr S I honestly believe now, particularly in the banking sectors, I think there’s less expertise about this thing called, ‘off-shore’ – I mean, your average banker doesn’t know the difference between residence and domicile.
RR No.
Mr S I mean, that’s not necessarily for the record, because I don’t want to be throwing stones at them, but I think there is serious competence issues here. Umm ... 36
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RR Well I think that’s absolutely true, and when I was on Singers, errr ... and they were doing this sort of [unclear], and I tried explain that to [unclear], I’m absolutely sure that nobody, from the top man down, had a clue. They were providing an off-shore service and they had no clue as to whether anything that their clients were doing, or they were doing, was actually going to ...
Mr S Well, I mean, last week ...
RR ... succeed.
Mr S Well, last week it was High Street, Wigan; this week it’s Victoria Street, Douglas; and what’s the difference, the transactions are all the same. Residents – oh well, that’s the name on the ... that’s the address of the ... the account holder, isn’t it? Oh well, that’s his residence. ‘Oh, really? Well ...’ And I mean ... and they don’t know anything different – they really, really don’t! And umm ... ummm ... but again, they don’t need to. But of course, they are then open to all sorts of skulduggery when they get out of the bank, ‘cos again, bankers don’t read books, they don’t study, they just do what they’re fed. They take what they’re fed by the bank. And the bank is not interested in off-shore, and so they get all ...
RR They churned, and they processed ...
Mr S ... and then ... then they move out of the bank into other businesses and they haven’t a bloody clue.
RR No.
Mr S ... but of course they do call themselves out of [unclear] because of course, frequently they are senior people from [unclear], and banks are expected to know, but they really don’t.
RR Hmm.
Mr S Anyway, I’m not here to verify ...
RR We got [unclear] in recent years; which has happened, for example; Peats Trust were what I call, amateurs. Where there were some people who did know 37
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something about it; how good they were is another matter. But there were people, but then because they’re Coopers, they’re told that we can’t have shareholding in trust situations, so they’ve now detached [unclear]. Now some of the tax people who know a bit about tax are detached with it, but that will run out ...
Mr S Will they?
RR ... and they are only lightly attached, I think. The same with ... with Shannon Kneale’s lot, that’s all gone.
Mr S Well, this again is another interesting ... I ... I ... I don’t want to digress, but this again is, I think, an interesting because, I mean, I’ve spoken to you about the Municipal Treasurer’s in the Treasury, and that’s when you get ... and I ... I think it ... it’s ... it’s about probably, the smaller the community and the more stable the community the more likely it is that, you know, people are cloned. And there is not the variety, the change and the interest that there could and should be. And so, I mean, back in the ... referring to the McDonald/McDermott Report of 1958 where they split the Government Treasurer and Secretary posts, who more natural, in a population of 48,000 to have, than a Municipal Treasurer as your Treasurer. And they did ...
RR Hmm.
Mr S ... but now, but they don’t even do accruals; I mean, this is the lowest form of accounting life you can have. Sorry, you are not a Municipal Treasurer are you?
RR No. (laughter)
SL No, but even I know what an accrual is! (laughter)
RR But the likes of the British Government doesn’t do accruals.
Mr S Anyway, anyway, so ... but no, again, again we ... we come to ummm ... we ... we ... we come to – well, you know, I’m sorry, there was another point in the government – it’s about government contracts, it’s about err ... you know, who you recruit to do this; people will recruit ... and, of course, St John Bates cited that wonderful example about umm ... well, I think it ... it ... an advert that had 38
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appeared in the paper, and of course, you know, where you have got politicians, or sort of GCSE and no more, people running the show, they don’t know anything other than what they know ...
RR Exactly.
Mr S ... and so, there is no higher sort of ... and more worthwhile set of qualifications for surely a legal draughtsman than five GSCEs and a couple of years in the lawyer’s office ...
RR Hmm.
Mr S ... and that’s what we get here; because the top team haven’t a bloody clue what the game is.
RR No.
Mr S Sorry, I’m getting excited, but it’s ... (laughter)
RR Although, although let’s ... let’s just think about Bill coming.
Mr S Yea.
RR Bill did get a lot of things in the end. He seemed to have quite an open mind, and was certainly willing to listen.
Mr S Well ... you quote me on the subject before, I think he was a visionary, that was err ... and I ... I’d stick with that word, but the other word ... well, I ... I ... but the other thing was, he was incompetent, and he had no leadership skills at all. And so, and again, be circumspect about how you use this ... (laughter) ...
RR Oh, absolutely, no .... (laughter)
Mr S ... because you see, what the ... what the...one of the most classic and crass examples of this was, that umm ... and we are now ... must be about ’76-77; I’m the Assessor, he’s the Treasury ... Government Treasurer, and I can’t remember how it run ... and it’s a long time ago ... I hope this is true, I think it’s true but I wouldn’t really want to be on oath over it; the ... I probably got one or two call 39
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about, ‘Look, captive insurance, we’re being told by the Treasury that the captive insurance companies are exempt from tax; you know, why? Or are ... first of all, are they; and if so, why?’ And umm ... so I ... I think I ... well, I don’t know; and so, I think Jim Killip and I would have gone round to see Treasury Bill and he didn’t know. He’d been telling people that would be exempt, but he didn’t ... he didn’t ...
RR And he got it ...
Mr S ... oh hang on, hang on, I’ll come to that in a minute. He ... but he didn’t know why they would be exempt, but they were exempt in Guernsey, he thought. (laughter) Now he had not talked to me about it, he’d not ... he was out there telling people that they were exempt. So umm ... I was invited to ...’cos I was [unclear] ... that was later, maybe, anyway, I knew Ray Keow [sp ?], who was the Controller in Guernsey and Jeff Harmer who was the ... no, he was the Controller in Jersey and ... what’s the other word – the Administrator – Ray Keow [sp ?] was the Administrator in Guernsey. And I spoke to Ray and said, ‘Well, you know ...’ and he was very circumspect about them, in fact I think there were a couple of occasions he didn’t answer. But then we met and the most he would say is, ‘Well, have a look to see what Simon had got to say about umm ... mutual trading.’ So I did, and I spoke to him about it, I said, ‘You can’t be serious?’ And he said, ‘Well, that’s the way we’re doing it, you know, we’re not ...’ Now, basically, this was fig leaf stuff, because you ... you set up your ... alleged ... your ... your insurance company in Guernsey; the parent in the UK pays the premium to the umm ... its subsidiary in Guernsey, umm ... now as far as ... as far as the company ... the UK is concerned and the Revenue are concerned, they are told that that is an insurance premium paid.
RR Ummm.
Mr S When it arrives in Guernsey, the Guernsey authorities treat it as a transfer to reserve. Well, I mean, I think that was offering hostages to fortune, anyway; and the consequence of that was that, you know, well, and Guernsey were only ... they were exempt on what were laughingly called their underwriting profits; their investment income was liable to tax. So it was either – I think it was probably in an Income Tax Act of 1979, that umm ... umm ... the underwriting profits of captive insurance companies were ... umm ... exempt.
40
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RR I thought it was 1976, but ... that’s only ... it doesn’t matter ... that can be looked at.
Mr S Umm.
RR The underwriting publics were exempt.
Mr S Exempt, but the investment income continued to be ... I know! There were a whole rascally bunch of bums at the top of what then was laughingly called, Alexander Howden.
RR Hmm, oh yes! (laughter)
Mr S People like Alan Page and what have you.
RR I don’t remember that, but I know ...
Mr S And actually there was some roguery ‘cos I know there was some roguery on the menu (laughter) from some of ‘Treasury Bill’s’ children; ‘cos one or two favours err ... in the wind. And I know that from somebody here ... umm ... but there was Alan Page – and of course they very nearly went to prison, that lot, didn’t they, with old ... what was his name – Grobb [sp ?] ...
RR I don’t know anybody ...
Mr S ... well, he was ... he’d got into some serious trouble, but anyway, ummm ... so they had done a report which ... ha, that’s right! And, anyway, ‘Treasury Bill’ fed off that – I think it was probably ... no! Would it have been the ’78 Act? There was a ... anyway, ’76. ’78, ’79 – don’t matter, underwriting profits were exempt and umm ... but of course, I guess Guernsey was already moving then; umm ... and we were ... we were sort of in the doldrums, and then, that was finally put to rest with the ... what is now called the Income Tax Exempt Insurance Companies Act of ’81; when they gave the whole lot away and Guernsey had to come into line with us (laughter) ...
RR I’m sorry, I know that we did ...
Mr S ... ‘cos they did not like the idea of not charging the investment and income. 41
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Umm ... but we sort of went off at half-cock ...
RR But we were ahead of Guernsey for a short while; ‘cos that was about the time when I first became involved in ...
Mr S Yea, but it was never ... there was never a ... it never started moving. And in fact I think that ... actually, the real movement, I think, came in ... you know, there was the business with the bust-up in the Financial Supervision Commission; and ... well, I think Duncan Kneale was a very serious promoter and driver ...
RR He was, he was.
Mr S ... of the captive insurance industry.
RR And I certainly didn’t ... we ... I had a ... we were involved in one ... umm ... called [unclear], something and [unclear]; which was run in Guernsey, but not really an Isle of Man company, and we, in the end got it into administration to [unclear], ‘Hey, you can’t do that [unclear], so we did that. We then started to [unclear] some Japanese gentlemen ... and we all went to the bars a good deal and drank Saki. (laughter) Didn’t count that! And Jim ... Jim came and also set out – we didn’t get that. And then we got ... [unclear], and then we got ... I ... I got seven or eight, I think, at different times, and we ran some of them. Ummm ... but Duncan was very ... very keen to ... promote, which is always difficult if you’re the promoter and also the supervisor – you’ve got a straight conflict. And he was a good promoter. I actually think he was quite a good supervisor – I don’t think we had any ... any ... any particular difficulty.
Mr S Well, the ... I ... I think there were difficulties, but the ... that ...
RR That split-up when you were ...
Mr S The thing ... the thing ... yea, the thing ... the thing – no, is bust ... it bust in the first year, I think ...
RR Did it? Before you were [unclear]?
Mr S ... ’84 ... oh no, no ... umm ... err ... they arrived in ... well, SIB [Savings & Investment Bank] went bust on the ... sorry, license suspended ... 42
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RR License suspended.
Mr S Well, they ... yea – and there was no provision in the Act to suspend the license! But that’s what they told the world. I mean, this was serious incompetence. I mean, they didn’t bloody [unclear] ...
RR ... they didn’t have anybody competent to do it. They didn’t have any money to pay somebody competent – that’s it.
Mr S But, you see, the thing with, as I say, Bill, I was saying that ... the visionary, but he ... it wasn’t that he was a man of great excess [unclear] but he loved the flattery, and he was written into every Act of Tynwald. I can remember getting a call from ...
RR (laughter) Yes he was ... the government ... the Treasury.
Mr S ... I’ll do this. There’s another ... but I can remember [unclear] ... whoever it was who was the legislative draftsman, probably Weldon Williams, the Cinematograph Act of so-and-so, umm ... [unclear], (laughter) and he says that umm ... err ... in the UK it was ... I don’t, it doesn’t seem that it would be something for an Inspector of Taxes, more likely a Customs & Excise man, but anyway, I think he said, ‘You know, Dawson wants to be in there, but I don’t want him to be in; do you mind if I put the Assessor in?’ Now, I mean, I think I said, ‘Course I don’t mind,’ but I never heard anything afterwards ... after that. (laughter) But he was into everything. And of course, the fun thing was, that when SIB went down, so intent had he been on securing his own position, and having himself; he was the corporation’s soul, but the Finance Board hadn’t been properly constituted, (laughter) and that’s why they all got sued in their own personal names!
RR Oh!
Mr S So it’s not just the MEA [Manx Electricity Authority] that’s a balls-up – and that’s another story there – I’d love to know the answer why [unclear] are doing what they’re doing. But anyway, that’s ... that’s another ...
RR Well, I’ve asked them – I’ve asked – I’ve been in the office and asked them ...
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Mr S Yea.
RR ... and I regarded their answer as inadequate; and I said so.
Mr S Well why haven’t we got accounts for the last three years – audited accounts?
RR Well, and ... and they said, ‘But we get this inspection.’ And I said, ‘But just issue the accounts and qualify as you have to.’ So said, ‘Oh no, we can’t do that!’ Well, I mean, bloody great firm! Pomp!
Mr S No, the reason they can’t – the reason they won’t is they’re on the bloody payroll from the Treasury to vilify [Mike] Proffitt, and try and get ... anyway, that’s ... that’s ...
RR I don’t know ... that’s another thing – whether [Mike] Proffitt did the right thing or not ...
Mr S It’s downright crooked ...
RR Hmmm?
Mr S ... it’s downright crooked what’s going on ‘cos they’re just pouring money into lawyers’ pockets ‘cos there’s nowhere ...
RR Oh that’s right.
Mr S ... with no benefit, and no benefit to anybody!
RR All you had to do was issue the account ... heavily qualified, or as heavily as you [unclear].
Mr S Absolutely! But I mean, Barclays are going to get the money; if the Act ... if the court says the Act ... err ... says ... umm ... that they should ... they must tell the Treasury, then, actually, if there’s uncertainty, they’re going to change it anyway. If the court finds in favour of [Mike] Proffitt and the boys, they’re going to change it anyway, so what’s it all about? It’s upwards of two million pounds down the pan for nothing!
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RR ... and [Mike] Proffitt sold his house ...
Mr S The only thing ... yea, but the only thing will ... the guess is, from one of my chums is, that this is Alan Bell, in a ‘paddy’ to get [Mike] Proffitt, and if he ... and the [unclear] and which he won’t ... won’t be successful, wants to outspend [Mike] Proffitt, ‘cos they’ve got something like a five million pound director’s [unclear], and if they can outspend him, and then they somehow surcharge him, then of course, in order to do that, they will have to show some sort of guilty intent ...
RR Yes.
Mr S ... or whatever, and they’ll never do it, and Alan Bell will be well retired by then, so it is just a complete waste of money. There’s not even ... they’re not even, like Mount Murray, going to have a report that they can put on their ... they can put on their thing to gather dust; they’re just not going to do anything ...
RR No.
Mr S ... it’s just a complete waste of money. There is nothing in it whatever. Anyway, sorry, back into financial services ...
RR No, no, I ... I totally agree with you ... absolutely. I don’t know the facts – absolutely.
Mr S But again, let’s kid ourselves about the propriety of these companies. I mean, BCCI, when BCCI went under [unclear] ... I’m told that umm ... a diktat comes down from on high in Deloittes, all charging out – all those working on the liquidation – all charging-out rates are doubled. Now when we’re saying ‘doubled,’ I mean they’re not cheap in the first place (laughter) ...
RR No.
Mr S ... and all time is recoverable. And then, of course, as if that’s not enough, they have to secure the pension scheme by suing the Bank of England, and err ... well, I mean, there was talk of a hundred million pounds worth of fees that disappeared into that black hole, a large proportion, if not all, would have gone 45
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into Deloittes back pockets.
RR Hmmm.
Mr S I mean it is absolutely monstrous!
RR There’s nothing like a ... a ... a nice liquidation fee (laughter) to make accountants look very happy!
Mr S Now what was that ... the one ... E Mac [sp ?] or something, was it ... no ... that went on for ... anyway, look ... stick with the umm ... stick with what’s going to be published.
RR Let’s just ... let’s just look at the SIB.
Mr S Yea.
RR SIB was formed in 1965 as a Crellin ‘shelf’ company ...
Mr S Hmmm?
RR ... apparently. It came into operation 1971 or ‘2 ...
Mr S ’71 when the Harpers bought it.
RR The Harpers bought it ... operated it and ... I ... I ... [unclear] Julian ... I’d always been told that that one and the other one that went bust, ICFC or whatever it was called ... initially ...
Mr S That was Richard Tucker.
RR That was ... that was ... that was ... [unclear] ...
Mr S ICFC – International Financing.
RR ... that was Snow ... Snelling ...
Mr S Ridley Snelling, but Richard Tucker was the one that got caught. 46
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RR He got caught ... I don’t think ... I mean I think Snelling was [unclear].
Mr S Oh yes, well ... the main ... the bad hat was a chap called Wadley in London. He ‘disparooood’ [disappeared] (laughter) with the money.
RR I was auditor for a short time, I went to one of the Committee of Inspectors’ meetings – Jim was on the Committee of the Inspectors’, so I learnt ...
Mr S Would you like a cup of tea?
SL That would be really welcome, yes.
RR That would be super.
SL I must keep my eye on the time.
Mr S Sorry, carry on talking, I’ll try and minister while I ...
RR What was the other chap?
Mr S Wadley ... Snelling ...
RR Tucker!
Mr S Tucker.
RR Dear old Tucker.
Mr S Richard Lawford Tucker.
RR Was he a Lawford?
Mr S Yea, I think he hails from Cromer.
RR I know the [unclear] Lawfords, but I didn’t know he had a relation connection.
Mr S Yea. And his number reflects his birthday – 22nd February. So it’s ... it’s three twos and a [unclear] I know these things, he was at school ... 47
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[Tape fades out]
RR He was at Gladfield.
Mr S He was – what useless information (laughter) one collects! But if you’ve lived through much, you’ve collected some [unclear] ... schoolmasters ...
[Tape fades out]
RR ... the SIB ... so ... as I say, when ... when ... when I first knew about them ... putting the clients’ money together, and were giving them [unclear], because of the Usury Act, [unclear], lay it off in banking, and get [unclear] of the money. In other words, it was a pool. By the time that you got to wherever they finally collapsed, it was no longer a pool [unclear] clients. It may have been clients’ money in it – other people’s money, but it had gone into all sorts of weird and wonderful [unclear] which had [unclear].
Mr S So there was just one, it was The Fort Anne what done for Julian – a chap called Roger Brown. So when ... when ... when Julian started it, this Roger Brown who was never heard of ‘cos he demolished The Fort Anne and it was the old business of if you owed the bank a pound, the bank calls it in. But if you owe the bank a million pounds ...
[Tape fades out]
... I’ve talked to Julian about it and you know ... I mean, it’s lovely, these conversations, and I do like tripping down memory lane, but there’s nothing like the documents themselves ...
RR I’ve seen them.
Mr S ... just to just see how faulty [unclear] ... you know, Roger Brown, I mean, he was ... well, they ... they were into ... when they pressed all the right buttons ... err ... the great and the good, the Manx charity which was the umm ... Post Graduate Medical Centre, umm ... and them ... umm ... a project which was going to umm ... endear themselves to the great Manx public, so we had ...
[Tape fades out] 48
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... ships that brought Anna Neagle over for sixty glorious years, this was all raising money for the Post Graduate Medical Centre. Ummm ... and there were mock-ups of umm ... ummm ... The Fort Anne and what it was going to be, and whatever. And, I don’t know, whether he always did, but he then apparently acquired a taste for flying private aircraft, and ... and ...
RR So what was going into The Fort Anne at that time?
Mr S Well, it was all falling apart, because it was ...
RR Well I know it was falling down the hill at one point.
Mr S ... but this man was going to ... I don’t know whether he was going to level it and re-develop it, but this was ... this was going to be the project of the time. This is now the ... we’re late ‘70s ...
RR The time the Medical Centre was going to take the profit [unclear].
Mr S No, no, no, no, no. They were independent – no, how do you appear sexy to the great Manx public when you ...
SL Charitable works.
RR Oh I see – you would get involved in charitable ... yes.
Mr S You ... you ... and I mean, the Post Graduate Medical Centre, you know, they, well, they were the beneficiaries of a lot of energy and fund raising and, I mean, not a word against them, but ... but err ... but ... but how do you, you know ...
RR So he looked as if he was doing all the good things?
Mr S Oh, brilliant, yes, of course, I mean, Anna Neagle – Marjorie Robertson as she was [unclear] ...
RR Hmmm, (laughter) another useless piece of information!
Mr S Hmm ... and so it goes on. But, so ... but I think it was Roger Brown, and when Roger Brown ... 49
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[Tape fades out]
... for the last time, I think that that’s ... umm ... that’s when there was all sorts of muddle and mayhem in the dovecots and ...
[Tape fades out]
... and not least of which, of course, is Tom Whipp, who eventually took it. And that must have been ’78 time wasn’t it?
RR Err ... it must have been about then. Brian Mylchreest said he had some shares in [unclear] investment company, and ... Tom Whipp bought ... offered so much for the shares which was about a quarter of what he paid for them. So he rather ... and so Brian said, ‘Well, that’s pretty awful – paid all that.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s all I’m offering, and if you don’t want it, don’t bother.’ And Julian came round and painted a different picture – quite a long time ago.
Mr S Hmm.
RR Julian made good to the shareholders, for the bit they’ve lost.
Mr S Hmm.
RR So ... but Tom ... Bill Dawson got involved in that, too, didn’t he?
Mr S Well, the Banking Act, which allowed for licensing and what have you, that was 1975. So the answer is yes. In fact it ... in fact, and there’s another little story which I think I daren’t tell you before, but if you can switch that thing off...
[Tape fades out]
Mr S ... ummm ... what’s his name – came out of Guess Key Metal Folds [sp ?] ... umm ... there was Lord Brooks, Bill Knowles ... and what was it ...?
RR Lord Brooks was in this game, was he – or his [unclear].
Mr S No, no, no, no, no, no, well, this umm .... the great and the good that came up, I 50
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mean, these were reputable chaps, don’t you remember? Because, Hector [unclear], when we were talking about ...
[Tape fades out]
... Lords Brooks was getting rents off people who came to live in the Island. Umm ... I mean, this ...
RR [unclear] chap?
Mr S Who was ...
RR ... Austin, who lived up in Ballakill ...
[Tape fades out]
Mr S Bill Knowles.
RR Farmer!
Mr S Pardon?
RR Farmer was involved with ...
[Tape fades out]
Mr S George Farmer – yes. No, but terms of umm ... all I’m mentioning is that, you know, that whenever that was the ... the early ‘80s, there were ... there were a group of some pretty influential people who came to live in the Island ‘cos, I think Hector Matthews, was he ... did he set up ... he was one of the prime ... one of the guys who was interested in captive insurance companies and, I’ve got an idea he was Sun Alliance. I can’t be sure of it – and then of course ... that his widow’s still about ... umm ... Bill ... anyway, there was a group of them out Guess Key Metal Folds [sp ?] umm ... you know, titled gents and what have you ...
RR Yea.
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Mr S ... had ... who were very influential and umm ... you know, did a few things [unclear]. Anyway, sorry, I digress again. Now, what was I?
RR No, no, it was all very interesting. Going back to Hunter – Gill Hunter reckons that Jim Rapier was not here, but had had this big loan, and we went in and ... umm ... the day the license was suspended – or not, as the case may be.
Mr S Well, there was no provision in the Act for suspending it.
RR No, but [unclear] ... (laughter) ... and what [unclear] the Act. (laughter) All sorts of things, I mean, the supervision was laughable. There wasn’t no real provision in the Act for supervision. But they got – managed to get returns ... according to Bill, he had no authority to get the returns, but he got them, but then of course, he didn’t know what they were looking at ...
Mr S Hmm.
RR ... so they could see that there was trouble, but they then had the problem that ... with the one million and the one pound text; is if you’ve got a bank that’s a problem, and you withdraw the license, you’ve got a big problem, but if you don’t withdraw the license, you might solve it ...
Mr S Hmmm.
RR ... so you go on with [unclear] and you think it’s going to get better and in fact it gets worse.
Mr S The trouble was he’d left it until it was too late. Yea, I mean, it may be ... I ... I don’t know – we can only guess, and I wasn’t on the inside track; because he knew all this talk ... I can’t remember the names of the companies now, but Graylaw was ...
[Tape fades out]
RR Graylaw ... Pennine was involved, anyway ... Graylaw was Victor Gray, who I ...
Mr S God, I remember them ... 52
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RR ... there was a fellow ... there was another fellow who appeared to ... not to be as bad as he initially sounded in ... there was some garages called Pennine ... Motor – big motor company ...
Mr S Ah, that was Gray, wasn’t it?
RR ... they also had garages. And his garages and Pennines’ were ... that’s how they knew each other, I think.
[Tape fades out]
... he was, he had [unclear] ... Pennine – the man, whoever it was, I don’t think was, in the end, brought into question [unclear].
Mr S But of course, there’s a wonderful cock-up at the end of all that, wasn’t there, because umm ... Sue, they ... they ... umm ... the thing went bust in ’82, the scandal rode on, we umm ... we were ... inspectors appointed – goodness, the liquidators, inspectors appointed – all sorts of mayhem went on, and ... probably about, well, David Cannan became Treasury Minister in ... following the ’87 election so, in ’88, and he was err ... umm ... well, a conviction politician is about as polite as you can get – he made money available for the prosecution of these great ... these gents. And, so The Ocean Castle, because it had to be done out of sight, umm ... no umm ... The Ocean Castle in Port Erin was refurbished at great expense. The trial commenced and had hardly commenced but that there were applications, anyway, it was then what they called ‘stayed’, which means it was all too ... too late and it ... it ... it was not proceeded with. Well, I’m sure, actually ...
RR Whereupon the Acting Deemster died ...
Mr S Did he? ... I ...
RR ... shortly afterwards.
Mr S Oh well ...
RR They got somebody in his 80s to take this case – or late 70s.
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Mr S For the sole purpose of ploy ... (laughter)
RR Important!
Mr S ... but ... anyway, the defendants duly had their costs refunded, and then one of those defendants was acting for ... well, somebody we both know, who had fallen foul of the criminal law, and two years later was found not guilty by the court ... umm ... and his advocate, Mark Moroney, then applied to ... as he had had his costs refurbished ... err ... refunded, to have his costs, and they said, ‘No, we’re not doing it!’ ‘Well why aren’t you doing it?’ They said, ‘It’s against the law.’ He said, ‘Well, why did you refund it to all the SIB defendants?’ ‘Oh, ‘cos we made a mistake!’ So another few tens of thousands of public money went down the pan because ...
RR Well, I ... I got fees out of that because I was ...
Mr S Anyway, sorry, I’m digressing again.
RR ... I was ... I was to be an expert witness in that case, indeed produced a report on ... on ... the Lakeland [sp ?] Trust there.
Mr S What about Whiteland-Smith, he was another dreamer. (laughter) Umm ...’cos I was an expert witness at his trial at [unclear] Crown Court. Umm, but anyway, we get ... I guess the captive insurance moves, Noakes ... well, SIB goes down in ’82; in September ’82 Martin Owen was appointed Commercial Relations Officer, and he was a very ... very entrepreneurial – he had a real flair for it. And umm ... he put himself about energetically, and I think, round about then, both Duncan Kneale and Jim Noakes were appointed as ...
RR I think they were over ... past the end of the year ...
Mr S They started about [unclear] the first of January or the second of January.
RR They put in [unclear] to make a report ...
Mr S Yea ... yea.
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RR ... that the Bank of England expected a report.
Mr S Yea, yea.
RR So Martin came before that, did he?
Mr S I think he arrived in September. Well, you see, Peter Duncan had – I think ... before ...
RR He was [unclear] before the SIB went.
Mr S ... it was April or May, and they then had to recruit – well, they didn’t have to, but they did – umm ... they recruited Martin Owen ... umm ...
RR He was terribly anti – [unclear] and on Sundays he put on his S ... Sally-Pally uniform ... with his [unclear]. (laughter)
Mr S ... with his tambourine – yes. He was a ...
[Tape fades out]
... umm ... and so they arrived in the Treasury, pretty much unloved and what have you, and umm ... they had put themselves about, because it wasn’t just the Savings & Investment Bank, there were about half a dozen that went bust at that time as well.
RR Well there was actually ... actually there was Kingsnorth, which by this time was absorbed ...
Mr S Irish & Overseas.
RR ... and ... Fitzwilliam.
Mr S Okay. And there was Chancellor Finance, and even the IMF went bust in the Isle of Man – Invest & Mercantile Finance. (laughter) And that’s how funny it was, I mean it was, it was great!
RR So all these names are in your book, are they? 55
Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Mark Solly
Mr S And then there was the Falcon Bank who was licensed before it was incorporated, for God’s sake! (laughter) I mean, you couldn’t make it up, I mean it was just ... but the vision was there, but the guy was just out to lunch, he really was, he hadn’t a bloody clue! (laughter)
SL Not a scubby.
Mr S And there he was, and the fun thing was that he carried on bumping into the furniture for the next ten years before he went to his long-earned retirement. (laughter)
RR He was quite extraord ... ‘cos he was extraordinarily pleased with what he had done.
Mr S Well, as I say, he was a visionary, I – but again, there are other interesting things in there. You know, how difficult is it to set one of ... to set this ball rolling?
RR Yea.
Mr S Because, take ... coming at it from the other end of the telescope, now, I find it quite – well, startling, and actually reassuring that these several sort of umm ... umm ... attacks, even on this Isle – on the Island, have not really – don’t seem to have dented the business ...
RR Yea.
Mr S ... you know, that Mike and ... if ... if I’m doing my gloomy bit, ‘Oh you bring all those account-opening restrictions, limitations or whatever, people won’t open accounts. And then, of course you bring in a withholding tax, or the threat of a withholding tax, they’ll walk away; they’re not going to ...’ But they do, and they have and the bank deposits are increasing. Now does that mean that, below us ... until you get some sort of critical mass ... or once you’ve got a certain critical mass, unless you are incredibly stupid, it will continue to grow.
RR I don’t know, and this ...
Mr S Or what ... what ...what would de-rail it? 56
Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Mark Solly
RR The thing – well I don’t know. But going back to these last things; the only thing you could say about, for example, the account-opening – nonsense!
Mr S Sorry – the what?
RR The account-opening ...
Mr S Yes.
RR ... performances is that everybody in England and everywhere else has to suffer from it too. So that, in a way, we know we’re the same as everyone else. It’s all very tedious.
Mr S Well every now and again we’re told we’re not. And I mean, you can ring up and you can have a bank account in so-and-so, investments ...
RR Well you just try in Solihull or somewhere and you go through the whole hoops ...
Mr S Really! The same thing?
RR But I’m on the ... I’m ...
Mr S Okay, sorry I’m ... yea ...
RR ... I’m the director of a company which ... one of my few surviving. And the other ... one of the other directors is David Bishop, formally of ... a Liverpool solicitor – one of the big firms. And he’s the company ... he’s not the Company Secretary but he ... he does lots of stuff and they have a bank account in Liverpool. And he had to open this bank account and err ... whoops – he had to go through all sorts of hoops that you would have here ...
Mr S Yea, okay.
RR ... and he says that every time he opens an account he’s got it. So I think it’s actually fairly universal. With the tax withholding, in England you wouldn’t have it.
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Mr S I think the same applies, actually. It’s one thing opening a bank account, with all its rigour in your home jurisdiction for something legitimate, but if, as I believe, a lot of the ... you know, the money that’s stalled off here, it’s grey if not black, then you know, you’re not going to ... you know, why take the trouble. I would have thought that it would have dipped. I would have thought bank deposits would have dipped. But they haven’t ... so ...
RR But you would also have thought, after the publicity of the SIB collapse, that they would have dipped, and they went up.
Mr S Yea.
RR That was a one-off, ‘cos that was when we got something for nothing – clearly wrong. And then, where would we be with the government, we were ...
Mr S Well, there’s another thought – another game going on then. There was another game going on roundabout, because this is where this ... to what extent does this then tie into the umm ... the advent of South Africans in the Isle of Man, because, I think the stalking horse was DeBeers, wasn’t it, which was lodged in that Freeport in Shannon?
RR Yes. And didn’t that ... wanted to move?
Mr S And they were worried about the unions closing that down, with ... as the temperature rose over apartheid ...
END OF INTERVIEW
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