THE
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1957.
The art of making money-
THE MAN WHO
NEVER LOST
HIS TEMPER
HD day that stockbroker Ted Lewis reached for the office top hat to walk round and see the bank manager, he had never heard of Bing Crosby,
It was 1932. All Lewis had on his mind was how to raise £15,000. And raise it quick.
Today, of course, he knows all about the singing Bing.
Such names as Tommy Steele, Wilfred Atwell, Dickie Valen- line and Ted fieath make him smalle appreciatively, too.
NOT A FAN
Not that 57-year-old Lewis is what you would call a record fan.
But it gives bim great pleasure, and considerable pro- ilt, to back these "top of the pops,"
of Vie
ls boss
For be £13,500,000 Decca Record group. And they are some of the show business personalities who now help him well nearly 30 million discs a year.
about
It was not long after his 3011 birthday that Lewis set learning the way to a fortune- the hard way.
He had his own stockbroking Arm in the Cily. He had all qualifico- the advantages and
tlons for a brilliant Stock Ex-
change career.
But he put all that in second
The second article in a series
which tells the stories of men
who began with little and anded up with fortunes
By ALEXANDER
THOMSON
EVENING STANDARD
CITY EDITOR
place to take over the Decca manager that uncertain day 25 bustness, then tottering alarm-. years ago. ingly after the 1930 slump.
Instead of a comfortable 10- to-four life In The City he plunged into on eight-to-mild night routing where the chance of
About Success seemed
certain as a soap bubble lasting
for ever,
Ted Lewis Is
quiet, un- assuming man with no side, Ho put away his Rolls-Bentley and rode to work on a "scooler car" during the petrol crisis.
What lessons has he learned from the big success he has achieved?
In his smail, plainly-furnished office near the Oval, he told me: "Never be afraid of commiting yourself to do something you believe in. Once you are committed, you have got to get on with it."
That was why Lewis had to hurry round to see the bank
WHIT SUN
As Decca's new boss he had Axut up to buy the Brureswick record business then controlled by Hollywood's Warner Brothers
They wanted £15,000 for
ing singing stor named Crosby."
TED LEWIS
Bing putting in much of his spurt
capital,
Now he jokes; "That year our best selling records were Bing Crosby's Please, which went to over 60,000 cople, and The Last Round Up, selling 80,000,"
But it brought problems, too. It meant still bigger calla on stender resources. And here, Ted Lewis stressed his second rule: "When you are building up a business you must always be tolerant,
Otherwise you may not get help when you need it
MoRL.'
Since then Ted Lowls has had many other best sellers. Today he has none of the old worries to trouble him.
Queen's visit
O at last it is official, and Rene............... The Decea group that he the Queen, accompanied rescued from the serop heap as by Prince Philip, is going to young man had a turnover of Canada and the U.S. in the 213 million last year. And it CVET.
autumn. earned trading profis
After the Bemswick deal be needed a great deal of tolerance. Money was shorter than There was so much to do, but so little in the kitty to do i with.
Fost
On ong occasion, the Once cut off the offiec tele-
phone. On another, when Die Christmas rush for records was on, the coal merchant refused further supplies of coal except against casti.
But Lewis Never lost his temper. Nor his smile,
CHAIN SMOKER
Tod Lewis is a chain smoker. As we talked he smoked many elgorettes. It must be a nervous habit acquired in the old days, I thought.
So I was not surprised at his third mile for success.
"You must never allow yourself to pet rattled. That just er hausts you, and then you are at a big disadvantage." There were many times when Lewis should have been badly rattled,
Decca group's
In 1933, the bank overdraft.
મ was stil hendache. But sales were at
£1,780,000.
Towards the end of my
Besides dises and #ramo- phones, it is also now one of our recent assignment in Wash- "key" makers of rnour for shipsington I became fed up with and aeroplanes.
all the backing and filling Soon It moves into one new which was going on about headquarters on Thames En-
the projected royal visit to bankinent.
Lewis's poky little office America. It seemed both where he has achieved so much absurd und undignified. will be replaced by something more imposing.
"But I doubt if I shall ilke it half as much," he confides.
Ted Lewis married young, and is sure that was the right idea. Hutton,
a parson's daughter, became Mrs Lewis
Like so many other parsons, her father had a ling for the Slock Exchange. She inherited his interest with considerable success,
He was 23 when Maiste
NO
Lo
'IT'S ON'
work in May,
one morning-lo the first went across the State Deparment and called on an old friend who holds a high position,
well-known
I asked him if he could tell Negroes.
..MacColl
and respected
me exactly what was going on. Later those invitations were
He made a telephone call and then said to me: "The royal visit as definitely on in the autumn. You can count on that. It will
She is a handsome woman whose portrait standa on cabinet opposite Ted Lewis's desk at the office. BUSINESS WIEF
Proudly, he says! "My wife
They live in Hampstead dur-
Lewis had said "Yes," although last progressing, and Lewis and has a very keen business brain."
draft of £50,000.
A LECTURE
13
be ounced soon."
withdrawn.
TOUGH
So, if the Queen visits Virginia.
she will find herself in the middle of a tough racial situa- tion.
I made a routine check with officials of the fritish Embassy. They insisted that they knew
Is that, perhaps, one of the One said to me: reasons which has made this nothing. am quite mure that the Queta royal visit one of the most long- will not be coming. There is not deliberated in recent diplomatic Decca already had a bank over his friends belleved, they were ing the week and on a 60-nere nough time left to make the story?
winning through.
Then another blow fell, Essex farm at week-ends. They arrangements, If she were com
ond two grand- we would have heard by Charmingly, but fly, the have a son
now." bank said it had decided to put children.
And he added: "The ambar- Is Ted Lewis, at 57, now The bank manager agreed to Decca
he heads of its
millionaire? He brushed that sador, Sir Harold Caccia, knows the bigger loan but lectured him breaking-up department,
nothing about it. If I were on not having asked for the "I was stunned," Lew re- question
you I would forget the whole money before doing the deal. calls. "I hart enough breath telephone call.
thing."* Lewis replied that if he had left to persuade the bank to All I would say is that men done so there probably would postpone sentence of death until have made a million not ave been any deal.
the end of the month. That doing a great deal less, And now he says: "That gave us three preelous weeks." - might have been the end of the An offer of £120,000 of
Dobentures Decca story. For the Brunswick Convertible transaction gave us our first rent shareholders falled. Two weeks break.
were left to find the money. "It brought us
Finally, with two days to go, catalogue, which included a ris- it was all found with Lewis
American an
END OF
TERM
REJECTED TERMS
nsido
to answer
out
NEXT WEEK:
to
The
success
man whole
Он
story started football field. A
London Express Servies.
GENERAL DISARMAMENT POSITION
TERMS
COUNTER
TERMS
COUNTED
REJECTS
isll
THE SITUATION WILL HOLD TILL WE GET BACK, DON'T YOU THINK?" :
JOHNNY HAZARD
THEY'LL BE WARM IN THERE AS LONG AS THE HEATING SYSTEM POWERED BY
THE NUCLEAR-REACTOR KEEPS FUNCTIONING AND IF THEY SHOULD FACE ANY OUTGIDE
PANGER
LAKITTY'S TO SIGNAL ME WITH A FLARE/
AND CHANCES ARE JUST AS GOOD THAT WE'RE ON ALLIED HOKKAIPO ISLAND AS ON THE SOVIET KURILS! AND THAT I'LL
FIND OUT SOON AS man
Copyright in all countries,
By Frank Robbins
***I REACH THAT VILLAGE UP THERE I SNOW'S LETTING UP...LUCKS WITH USI BETTER CHANCE OF SEARCH PLANES FINDING UP?
of
0TH
RIGHT
In
THER British officials
Washington assured me that; since the Queen is certain to go to Canada for the official open- ing of the great St Lawrence River Seaway next year it was "obviously impossible for her lo cross the Atlantic this year as well.
But it now turns out that the Americans were right. The Qucen Is indced going 12 America
She will face two very tricky problems during her vel,
The 350th anniversary of the founding of the first British Celony at Jamestown, Virginia, Jooks like being transformed into a commercial advertiser's droom. Even before his recent stomach trouble President Eisenhower snubbed the Jamestown celebra- tions by refusing to attend the Internationat näval review Norfolk, Virginia, next door to Jamestown. Ships from navies all over the world have been gathering at Norfolk, including Britain's giant fat-top, the Ark Royal, and her attendant des- troyers.
But Ike seld No.
at
If Ike saya No to. James- town, should the Queen go?
2
*. INSULTS
A red-hot colour problem, Negroes have been insuited
by the present Governor of Vir- ginia.
The Governor has announced ihat sooner than let Negro children attend hitherto white schools in Virginia he will close the schools,
And before a recent banquet in connection with the Juries- town, celebrations, invitations were sent "by mistake" to some
situation calls for a
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