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The New Master |
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The Master was born in 1936 in Surrey. He was evacuated to friends in the country during the phoney war in 1939. His father, who worked in the Customs House next to the Tower of London, died in 1942 and he was sent to the Royal Masonic School at Bushey. This was a charity school where almost no one had two parents and some were careless enough to have lost both. Considered somewhat of a dreamer he left school at 16, when his mother was told 'that he would not benefit from any further education'. Fortunately the school, in addition to providing two suits of clothes, arranged two interviews for those leaving. One of these was with a QS, E C Harris, who did not exactly interview him but told him to report as the office boy on £100 a year. Having qualified, by correspondence course and evening classes, as a Chartered Quantity Surveyor he decided he was not wedded to the profession. He joined the Economics Department of the National Building Agency, at a time when it was oth |
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erwise full of very bright young people, selling research to the industry and its clients. Overcoming some difficulty in understanding the language of the economists he became head of the department, when it was virtually the only part of the NBA that was financially viable. In 1969 he was invited to join John Lewis, when it was just about to start a major expansion of its department store and Waitrose divisions. His initial responsibilities were for architecture, engineering and maintenance but over the years these grew and others were added, the transport fleets, fire control and prevention, health and safety, facilities management, a castle, a country club and a golf club. He joined the Principle Executive Committee and the boards of John Lewis plc and the John Lewis Trust for Pensions. He was active in the RICS on various committees and councils and was chairman of the QS junior organisation in the RICS centenary year. The Department of Construction Management at Reading University invited him to join its advisory board, and he was subsequently involved in various working parties and research work. He was a founding director of the Reading Construction Forum and founding chairman of the Design Build Foundation. National Service saw him commissioned in the Royal Engineers. As Assistant Adjutant at the School of Military Engineering he spent most of his time rowing for the Thames RC and the RE, including a particularly inglorious entry for Henley. |
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In 1963 he married Beverley, who was working in the City. As her father was the Vicar of St Gabriel's Warwick Square they enjoyed a free wedding. The previous year they had bought a Georgian ruin in Canonbury, which took five years to rebuild. Beverley doing most of the work. Both their children are Paviors and last year they sponsored their Mother for the Freedom of the City of London. Guy entered the Livery by servitude and runs a hotel in Winchester. Ali trouble shoots IT in John Lewis. She is married to Andrew, a consultant anaesthetist and has one son, Christopher. Beverley was a member of the Red Cross Street Market in the City for many years and of various other charities. For 23 years she has been a Magistrate on the Inner London Bench, sitting on Family Proceedings and Youth Court. Since his retirement John has served on two charities, CITY and CRASH, he chairs the Executive on the latter. He is a member of the Army and Navy Club, the MCC, City Livery Club and the Savage Club, where he is the Vice-Chairman. Beverley and he fish, he shoots occasionally and reads and drinks wine when he can. |
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