The man who showed the Bank of England how to make money
BRITAIN'S hire-pur-
chase king, Mr Gib- son Jarvie, sits in an office that looks like the library of a country house. It stands high a theatre," he says. above Eastcheap in the fine headquarters he built for United Domin- ions Trust after the war.
Jarvie is n short, benign, eigar-smoking Scot, who will be 77 in October. More than 40 years ago, he brought the hire purchase idea to London from New York, where he was work- ing in a bank. He began with £10,000; his enterprise last year showed assets of more than £120 million. Unless I miss my guess, the latest figure, out soor, will be more than that.
By TUDOR JENKINS
night, he likes to be properly dressed. "There is no time to change and eat in time to go to
Lunch he prefers to take at the office with his top executives, "in that way, one can talk about many things that otherwise we should have no opportunity of discussing."
A barrister
are
In his panelled room shelves full of law books. He is a barrister, but has never practis- ed. Now and then, when he has a tough problem to solve, he distracts his mind by taking down one of these books and reading a while. When he restores the law book to its shelf, his problem has resolved
itself.
Beside his desk is an informal photograph of Montagu Norman, the controversial head of the Bank of England before the war. "He was
my friend," Jarvie. "A great man. Few realise how immense were his services to Britain."
says
Norman once called Jarvie to the Bank of England to explain
He drives to the office from his town house in Hyde Park Gate. Mr Jarvie has had this house many years. Now is just a place to sleep in. He never lunches or dines there. Mrs Jarvie rarely goes to the house; she does not like London life.
Usually he dines with friends at a restaurant or at one of his clubs. He belongs to five clubs
in London.
Weekends, he goes 10 Suffolk. There he joms Mrs Jarvie at beautiful Gedding Hall a moated manor near Bury St. Edmunds. But he cannot stay long. "Some- times I don't leave London till Saturday morning, he says, "ond have to come back on Sunday evening,"
He also has an estate in Scot- land. "When I left home as a very young man to work in New York." Mr Jarvie recalls, vowed that sooner or later I would have a place of my own in Scotland." He now has 16,000 acres in the Lowlands.
Two tests
The Jarvies have no problem about what will happen to their estates and fortune when they are gone. They have four chil- dren and 12 grandchildren. The
his financial methods. It ended with the Bank investing £500,000 in Jarvie's company three "The only time it has done such a thing."
Enjoys work
daughters have two children each. The son has six. Says Mr Jarvie: "My son met and married an American girl in three weeks. He announced they were going to have six children. Against a wall is an 18th. They've done it." century grandfather clock. Jarvie I also have grandchildren. bought it at a Knightsbridge "If you want to invest some store. There he was shown 12 money for them," says Jarvie, old "grandfathers." He said to "consider hire-purchase. It is the assistant: "Don't tell me bound to keep growing. Fine the prices. I shall choose the for grandchildren." one I like." He chose the one Ask if he has any extrava- now in his office. Believe it or gances and Mr Jarvie answers not it turned out to be the without hesitation: "Cigars."
He smokes no more than three cheapest.
What fun does Mr Jarvie get or four a day, but they are out of his wealth? He gels a lot Havanas of Churchillan dimen- of fun out of his work. He en- sians, joys it reaches the office soon after 10 o'clock, is often there till 2.30.
So he has not been to a theatre for years. When he goes out at
في
THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1960.
sense" he says. "There are two tests for a good cigar: Look at it and feel it."
-In his view, a cigar should
have a sheen, "That is the oil in the leaf. Without the oil, the leaf is dead."
He passed me his case. I can say his elgars are good.
Jarvie takes tremendous care to keep them in condition. They
are stored in the wine-cellar at
Hyde Park Gate. Before smolting he has them plerced; he doesn ruin them by using one of those barbarous cutters you and on many business men's desks.
Mr Jarvie is not a wine man. There are a few wines he likes, and he sticks to those. Like me, he holds that a lot of nonsense Is talked about wines by people who pose as connoisseurs.
Secret dishes
One night he dined with sever other men. The wines chosen, " one man began discoursing about claret. He talked about the five chateaux, and named four, but could not recall the fifth.
"Chateaubriand,'
Jarvie, for a joke:
suggested
That's right," replied the bore, "Chateaubriand."
Nobody seemed to realise that Chateaubriand is a dish to eat not a wine to drink. I felt rather Bat
"Nobody laughed," says Jarvie,
JAK AND GEORGE
ARE BACK
FOR
the benefit of those who weren't at Silverstone the other day, I would like to an- nounce that the British Grand Prix took place as advertised.
London Express. Jarvias
Tearing up Silverstone
-the
wrong
Good food is one of his de- world a great deal. As soon as lights, Mr Jarvie travels the he goes aboard ship he sees the chef about the secret dishes that
Brittany, upped and declared Stratford are never shown on the' menu.
way round
Jack Brabham, the eventual winner, and John Surtees and other Lance Reventlow and all the turned from chasing pedes I am not superstitious. Only Jekyll Jak disappeared and Yellow fing? Pile ots the chased each other's hot bottoms peasantry
tintopped `daredevils' triang and scarifying the when they charged us 35 6d. Hyde Jak was revealed a speed left? A vague feeling of memes
on the roads
of for two pints of bitter at Stony flend with staring eyes diving in thing not quite right began to
did
uneasy and out of the pits, peering up winkle into the part where 189) for 77 laps and 225 miles round Copse Corner and Maggotts that this motor-racing lark was suspicion begin to dawn that exhaust pipes, babbling incoher- tomach had been Curve.
dead city.
this was going to be one of those ently about disc brakes and seconds before, days.
Jolly lucky
One of his favourite dishes is roast chicken. "But no garnish- ings," he says. And he likes the skin. "Most people discard the skin as something repulsive" he says. "But properly done, it is
The smell of protesting rub- the best part of the bird. It should be cooked gently until it her and bofling petrol reminded
me of burnt skunk. bubbles."
The poise
was that of a thousand demented dervishes dancing in hobnail boots on a corrugated iron roof.
STOWE them
For a sweet. Mr Jarvie likes strawberries or raspberries. He under glass in Suffolk. "Here's a lip," he says, "Add a dash of vodka to these fruits. It improves them no end." He also grows his own melons. Throughout his life Jarvie has bem a great believer in the Empire. He believes there are
And one and all-drivers and | spectators-sublimely, surremely. rapturously and deliriously happy.
Anything Brabham "could do, he could do better and quicker. Silverstone, he opfied was } pushover.
LAB
sparking plugs, and admitting unashamedly that he would sell his sout for an Aston Martin.
No time
Fearfully I tried to recall some-
Ad. Silverstone, which I dis covered to be a one-time niz-
I shall never know how he field wrapped round a Northamp- tonshire corn pasture, they made managed it, but, the next I saw us very welcome. A black and of Jak he was all dolled up like thing I'd read in the Süverstone yellow flag fluttered breezily a pukka Stirling Moss urgently programme....something about over, the High Octane occasion, waving a pair of Grand Prix: yellow flag meaning get ready an ambulance raced by, and two gloves, and inviting me to join for danger....and something else men trotted happily along with him in the passenger's seat of a about all races being run lei
What's more, he could prove it any time I liked. He was well known in the
motor-racing world. Once they heard he was coming up to Silverstone, every one would stand respectfully a stretcher. acide, raise their spanners in salute, and let him show them how the job should be done,
I should never have listened, I SUDDONC, but Demon Jak, anow known as the Willendeni
+
Unashamed
murderous-looking piece of clockwise direction, which would motal that throbbed like thunder have put those pits on our right. and quivered Uke a palpitating the wheel, at 90-odd m.ph., this However, with Demon Jalt at bulldozer.
was patently no time for discus- This, said Jak, was his special, sion of racing régulations. I
An advance copy of the pro- souped-up, rear-engined, side- closed my eyes, stopped baring Nevertheless, they can con- Spitfire, can be pretty per gramme, entering into the spirit valved, Anglo-Italian, 1,500 ce my teeth, and sut tight till the Jarvie chooses them with the great opportunities for young cider themselves jolly lucky that ruative about his prowess at of the gala, announced that sports job, in which he would petrol ran out.
meticulous judgment of a con- noisseur, "This business of hold- ing a cigar to the car and listen ing to the crackle is all non-
N
"I want to sell the television rights to a very rare stomach operation!"
LOVEWELL
BEAUT
PRODUCTS
merit you buy me and
GP
men In those countries. "The trouble is," he says, "young men don't want to go abroad any more. I see that in my business:"
Own
Why is this? "It is a corollary," says Jarvie, "of prosperity at home. Everyone is doing well, so why go abroad?"
Most people having done so well as Mr Jarvie would have retired long ago. He has thought of giving up. If he has
no
a secret ambition, I would say it is that he wants to go on work- ing until he drops. From the look of him, that should be a long time yet.
--(London Express Service).
there is still a Silverstone for the wheel, them to see, hear, smell and rave about. For, earlier, disas ter all but overtook the whole shooting match-and the disas ler's name was Jak.
Maniac Jak
*
Big race
to stick close
today's big race was No. 13, and advised us that, motor racing being dangerous, all-persuna ki- tending at this track did so entirely at their own risk.
now demonstrate for me the I must say the officials were thrills and ecstasies of the track. very nice to me after they had And, to be honest, I must say led Jak away. Mr W, M. Couper, Jak handled that heap of the Deputy Clerk of the course, screaming horse-power superbly, even let me ride round the track Away we roared, skidding with him in his Jaguar, in a Besides, he borrowed 30s., and However, you must not think expertly round Copse Corner, clockwise direction, and with a experience has taught me that Silverstone is a sad sort of place, beiting like bats out of hell large placard bearing the word the only chance of settlement is Far from it. Laughing young along Hanger Straight, and "Relax" to restore some kind of men in natty blue overalls dash laughing merrily as other cars calm to the disordered populace. Anyway, off we went. Quite hither and thither.
Aliverstone I repeat, was, back As indicated above the Royal cheerfully in the creamstances,
The giria look gorgeous, there got out of our way and timorous Automobile Club and the and I tried hard not to see any are rainbow coloured umbrellas le men scuttled behind the to normal for the other day's hay bales at our explosive gala performance, But Jak is British Racing Drivers Club gloomy significance in the fact and pink roses climb coyly up approach.
et still suliḍing, and that 309, I have recovered in time, but it that it was balting with rain, or the walls of the lavatories.
the life! As we lent him'seems gone" forever- zipped past the pits on our left anti-clock-wise, a whole crowd of yelling ent- thustasts jumped in the air at Jak's virtuoso performance, and one man got so excited he began [waving a big yellow flag.
was a very near thing.
The whole sorry story began when a maniac Jak lately re-
that the first outilt we met on the M1 was a funeral procession, or that we parked for lunch out-
side a cemetery.
Normally Jak is cutely obser- vant of all such beauties_of_ nature but Silverstone evidently did something to him.
ARE OLD BOYS ALWAYS
GOOD FOR 'A TOUCH'?
THE grey-flannel suits
By ANTHONY LEJEUNE
of Madison Avenue mingle oddly with the tail-coats of Eton and the But an increasing number are straw-hats of Harrow: trying something new, Four
schools Tonbridge, Charter but it looks as though we house, Bradfield, and The must get used to the idea. King's School, Elyre already employing the firm of John F. The public schools are follow- tleh, specialists in educational ing the example of the churches fund raising; and six more and starting to employ modern schools plan to do so. high-pressure techniques for raising funds,
a. bathroom. "What do they need a bath for? he said. "The young men are only up here for eight weeks at a time."
"And that's the chind point. Ancient schools, like ancient We believe an appeal should colleges, and that certain facili- have a definite duration, not ties are considered necessary drag on."
now which were not even thought desirable when they One of Mr Hooker's men, were built. Science laboratories Lleut-Colonel P. A. S. Robert- are neededk and
swimming son ex-Grenadier Guards, is
baths, and more studies.. now camped ale. Tonbridge or ganising maps and card-indexes More important-and more John F. Rich is a British of Old Boys "like" as he puts significant still new scholar- They need the money. Let borrowed from America. The tin."
firm, but a techniques are it himself, "a military, opera ships or bursaries are needed. there be no doubt about that managing director, Mr. M. A Most public schools are expen sive but not zich; and many of their endowments have rea- trictive clauses about how' the funds are to be used
The result is that 75% of all pubile schools have now launch
ed appeals for money. The tar gets vary.
ETON asked for £1,000,000. MARLBOROUGH and WIN- CHESTER want £500,000 each. CLIFTON wants £400,000. BUGBY and WESTMINSTER want £250,000. SEPTON AS | for a modest £100,000.
TECHNIQUE
Many schools still use the old-fashioned method of direct mail-appeals, and the resulta p
Hooker, explained yesterday:-
COST BASIS
They are needed particularly
The firm does not charge on for the sons of old boys who a commision basis. (That cannot afford to pay today's fees. Schools Aré would be immoral," says Mr Soring Hooker.) Its fees Charter- anxious not to raise tees still "We're all English and we house is paying £3,000 → me more. were all at publie schnola, our worked out on a cost basis, selves, I was at Marlborough.
They do not want to become If the emple of church the preserve of the merely rich. There's nothing exclusive or snobbish about this. It's just fund-raising is anything to go They do not want to price out of that if you were running an on, the new techniques can the market thom profesional R.A.F. Benevolent Fund you'd double or treble the income people whose families have been
from an appeal.
tzy, to use ex-RAF, men.
"There are three points about
our technique. First, we be-
leve direct mail appeals have
SPARTAN
the backbone of the public school, pretem for centuries, ・・・
If cash can only be attracted by Madison Avenue methods.
What do the schools want the those are the methods which
Jost their impact. We prefer to money for? Mostly for the will have to be used, approach people Individually maintenance of old buildings and
We have created an organisa
through other old boys of their the construction of new ones. tion-work in Wich independent own generation to bec
"Second, we're building up Public school bors often live schools and churches are bardh far have been reasonably suce a expertenced staff, who can in condition which in State put to it to survive.
Thə. Qunori and the Queen in the school and identify theen zwembad Motser have both contributed selven with it for six months or gra
to the Westminster Bohood fung,” a “your or howevir. Jone
ted and
should not be surpris when they turn to the organisg- tian-mum to help then run
This was
George Whiting
➡{London Express Service).
MEET MR CLOGGHEAD*
* CLOG; ANYThing that fINDERS MOTION
OR RENDERS DIFFICULT.
Applely
ANYWHERE ANYTIME
DON'T get impatient: irritation gives rise to indis-
cretion: DON'T Insist on your rights: your obligations are
more important.
DON'T use your hom unnecessarily...