Fly by night extract

Fly By Night From Austin 1300s to Boeings - the untold story of DHL and the Kiwi who helped turn it into a global giant...

Chris Reid

THE SECRETS OF SUCCESS Chris Reid was pretty much your typical kiwi kid, but in 1975, something would happen that changed his world and impacted millions.

Reid, with his trusty Austin 1300 car, became one of the first courier drivers for a tiny company in London calling itself DHL.

Pulling in mates from New Zealand, Australia and the UK, Reid and his gritty band of colonials helped turn DHL’s London office into the heart of a global empire that today operates jets, helicopters, boats and drones.

How did they do it?

This inspirational story of how Reid battled governments and international laws to make courier services legal shows that you can’t stop an idea whose time has come...

About the Author Chris Reid left New Zealand in 1974 on his big OE, expecting to return a year later and resume his career as a lawyer. Instead, he spent nearly two decades on a rollercoaster ride around the globe as a pioneer in the courier industry. Now a business consultant, he reflects on his journey and the lessons to be learnt from it.

Thank you With thanks to Dale Budge for many tireless hours getting the manuscript into readable form. Ian Wishart for believing it was more than a nice story. And my wife Jane for managing most of the family duties while I was in far flung places away from home.

Dedication To all the friends and colleagues I had the privilege to work with along the way. We saw the opportunities, pushed the boundaries, and all shared in the results. We had so much fun that at times it was hard to call it work!

Fly By Night

Chris Reid

The Business Engine Ltd

First edition published 2015

by The Business Engine Ltd PO Box 31583 Milford Auckland 0741 NEW ZEALAND Email: info@thebusinessengine.co.nz Web: http://www.thebusinessengine.co.nz Copyright Š Chris Reid 2015 Copyright Š The Business Engine Ltd, 2015 The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Fly By Night is copyright. Except for the purpose of fair reviewing, no part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including via technology either already in existence or developed subsequent to publication, without the express written permission of the publisher and authors.

All rights reserved.

ISBN

978-0-473-32754-5 (print) 978-0-473-32755-2 (epub) 978-0-473-32756-9 (kindle) 978-0-473-32757-6 (pdf )

Cover photo by Dreamstime Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro and Clarendon Cover concept: Ian and Heidi Wishart Book design: Bozidar Jokanovic

Contents The Beginning..................................................................................................... 10 Law, Rugby And The IRA............................................................................ 15 Back To Nepal And Everest......................................................................... 26 DHL — Business Is Booming....................................................................... 32 The Post Offices Fight Back....................................................................... 46 Invading The Middle East............................................................................ 65 Growing Pains..................................................................................................... 81 The Postal Battle Of Britain — A Turning Point............................. 89 African Business Safari................................................................................. 96 Romance And A Change Of Pace.......................................................... 103 Adventures With Creswick....................................................................... 117 Change Of Direction..................................................................................... 140 Time To Get Off The Bus............................................................................ 151 TNT — Big Life Changes.............................................................................. 157 A Bite Out Of The Big Apple................................................................... 167 Rocking In The USA..................................................................................... 179 Knocking Back The Teamsters.............................................................. 188 Heading Back Down Under...................................................................... 201 The Endless Asian Journey..................................................................... 208 Back Home.......................................................................................................... 230 No Passport Required.................................................................................. 235 Where Are They Now?................................................................................. 246 Postscript............................................................................................................. 253

The Beginning

THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT how a small bunch of guys — many from New

Zealand and Australia — built the global brand, DHL. Along the way, you’re going to tap into that entrepreneurial, can-do spirit that this part of the world is renowned for. But to understand the recipe for business success it is often worth studying the ingredients a little.

In my case, the story begins in England, where I was born in 1950 — the son of a kiwi couple, Noy and Phyllis Reid, who had moved to London after World War Two to work for the NZ Tourist & Publicity Department in London.

Our home in those early years was in Thames Ditton, near Hampton Park in Surrey. It was a nice leafy village very near the river Thames, a short train ride from London. I went to the local school and prospered well. My younger sister Jenny completed our happy family unit.

The first big change came in 1957 when Dad was transferred to Melbourne. Mum was not at all happy to be leaving. She loved our 10

The Beginning

life in England and for some reason did not fancy Australia. For Jenny and me it was just an adventure, but I remember being a little concerned about Mum’s reluctance. What was Melbourne all about?

We travelled to Melbourne by ship which just became a 4 week holiday, despite rather futile efforts for me to be doing some school work. We soon settled into life in this strange new city. It was so different, but exciting too. I went to Grimwade House, the feeder school to Melbourne Grammar. I soon made friends and consumed myself into cricket, Aussie Rules and some school work.

My Pommy accent concerned Mum. She was worried I would be bullied, so made me enrol in boxing tuition. Being tall for my age, I was up against older boys and soon lost count of the blood noses.

I did well at the school sports — athletics, cricket and Aussie Rules. There was plenty of competition which I seemed to thrive in. It was a great environment to grow up in.

We first lived in Albert Park near the city and a couple of years later moved to Toorak. About this time we bought a small house in the bush near Dromana, about 50 miles from the city. Dromana had the most fantastic beach. It became a regular getaway on weekends and school holidays. In the summer I almost lived at the beach with some local friends. I got my first job helping out at the local boat ramp trailer park.

By 1961 I was living the Aussie dream — thriving at school, plenty of good mates, engrossed in sport and catching fish off the pier at Dromana. Life was just great.

Then it was announced the Dad had been promoted to the NZ Tourist & Publicity Department head office in Wellington. We were moving to New Zealand. This time I was the unhappy one.

Leaving everything behind for this strange new country! We had been to Auckland a couple of years earlier for a quick visit. But this was Wellington, and it was permanent.

I really struggled settling in. I was enrolled at Scots College — an 11

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hour’s bus ride from where we lived in Karori. The weather was bad and the beaches almost non existent. Oriental Bay — I could not even call it a beach! The sport was rugby, rugby and more rugby. I really missed my Aussie mates and the life we had in Melbourne.

I became a problem for my parents due to my struggle to adapt.

Even my sister Jenny was admonishing me for being a nuisance.

Over time things got better. I managed to adapt to New Zealand’s national game and did well at cricket. I did develop some good mates and really ended up thriving at Scots. We were a small school compared to the large boys’ public schools. We were always the underdogs in sport events in particular. It bought the best out of many of us.

Our house in Karori was on a hill with good views over the city.

Once I got over the problem of not still being in Melbourne, life became fun. We had some great family holidays. Our favourite spot was Lake Waikaremoana. It was a horrible drive from Wellington, but a magic place. We fished, walked in the bush and got to experience the amazing natural beauty of the Ureweras.

When it became time to leave school in 1968 I really had no real idea of what lay in front of me. Most of my friends were going to University. That seemed a good way of postponing any big future decisions. I enrolled in law, not because I had any real passion for it but because it just seemed slightly more exciting than the alternatives. By the second year I was actually starting to enjoy it. My exam results were at least passable and it seemed like I was going to become a lawyer. By this stage I moved into a flat with three other mates. It was not cool to be living at home when you were 20!

I was keen for some holiday work during the three month summer break. Dad knew the manager of The Hermitage hotel at Mt Cook. There was a landscape team there each summer helping with maintenance and upkeep of the grounds. In the summer of 1968 I was on the bus to Mt Cook.

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The Beginning

It was the start of an amazing adventure. I loved the outdoor work and grew to like the mountains. Most of the other landscape guys were my age. We all got into the mountains on days off. As the challenges of the terrain got greater I learned the basic skills to look after myself; ice axes, crampons, ropes and route finding.

Every summer for the next 4 years I was back to Mt Cook for more work and more climbing. Three of my best mates came from this group — Peter Rough, Bill Whelen & Harry Taylor. Years later we are still walking round in the hills and reliving past conquests.

Shortly before my graduation, Dad died of a sudden heart attack.

It rocked our family back. He had supported me through the difficult times and greatly encouraged me in my sport and university life. Matters got worse. My sister Jenny died of a brain tumor a year later. She was 21. This was absolutely tragic. Suddenly there was just Mum and me. I came back and lived at home.

Mum was amazing. She insisted I follow my dreams — at this stage to go overseas and see the world. She would be fine. I was not so sure.

By now I was working for a large firm of Wellington lawyers, on the path to a legal career. It was challenging and exciting work.

I was getting some excellent experience and definitely felt this was where my career was headed. Mum and I were getting back on our feet after the loss of Dad and Jenny. I had a great mate in our flat, Peter Knyvett. He was also a lawyer starting out on the same path as me. We talked about going overseas to do the Kiwi OE. Mum was all for it and surprisingly my employer agreed to let me have a year’s leave to get the travel urge out of my system. Then I could return and get my career properly started.

Having had the experience of the mountains, I was keen to include this in our trip. Mt Everest of all places! We agreed to do the trek from Kathmandu to Base Camp. Following this we would travel through India, Iran, Turkey and Europe to London. It was to 13

Fly By Night

be a three month trip. We flew out of Wellington late March 1974, with brief stop overs in Singapore, Bangkok and on to Kathmandu.

We had packs on our backs and a rough itinerary of what the next three months held.

We trekked to the Everest region in 21 days from Kathmandu.

No tour group — just the two of us with a young porter to carry our tent and help with the language and logistics along the way.

Nightfall would find us dossing down in local tea houses along the path and on occasions in our small tent. We ate with the locals — rice and dhal. On a big day we had some eggs! In a month we both lost a good deal of weight. We made it to Kala Pattar, a small peak overlooking Everest base camp at 18,514 feet. In front of us was the tallest mountain on earth guarded by the fearsome Khumbu icefall.

It was an awe inspiring sight.

Back in Kathmandu with mission accomplished we were ready for some luxury. Next stop Delhi. No luxury to be found; people everywhere, grotty accommodation and dodgy food. We made a lightning trip to the Taj Mahal and headed for the airport.

In the next month things got continuously better. We visited Tehran, Istanbul, Rome, Vienna and Zurich. The further we went the better the food and accommodation. Nepal was by now a great, but distant memory. Pete headed to London from Zurich while I stayed another week and visited Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

By the end of May it was time to get on the plane to London and prepare for whatever lay ahead.

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Law, Rugby And The IRA

was finally back in England. Terry Jacks was all over the radio singing something about Seasons in the Sun, while some guy called Reginald Dwight was getting airtime under the stage name Elton John, crooning about someone called “B B B Benny” and his jets. The news story on everyone’s lips was Richard Nixon and Watergate.

I spent my first two weeks living in luxury with my mother’s friends in Surrey, Joy and Kenneth Lacey. I soon realised that I had to move into London and get into the real world. Quite a few of my mates were in London and the person who helped me find a place is now a High Court judge — Rob Dobson. He was a mate of mine from my university days. He told me to come and stay with him at 67 Landor Rd in Clapham North. Clapham North in those days was a pretty dodgy area, right next to Brixton and a high-crime area. I’d bought myself a car — a little Austin 1300, so I packed up my belongings and drove from luxury in Surrey to the hurly burly of Clapham North — talk about coming back down to earth.

IT WAS 1974, AND I

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There were six of us staying at the place in Landor Rd — it was pretty chaotic, but we all had our own room. There was a pub across the road that was run by an Irish guy and the tube station was at the end of the road. It was mid-summer in the UK and surprisingly hot.

The Oval cricket ground was close by and I spent a good amount of time there sitting in the sun. One of the guys I was hanging out with asked me if I was ever going to get a job. I guess that gave me a bit of a nudge to get off my backside and I started looking.

My intentions were to get a legal job, given my law degree background. I went to a couple of agencies, but could see they weren’t too keen on Kiwis because Kiwis didn’t stay long and were considered unreliable. One day I saw an ad in the paper from a firm in Gray’s Inn — Wright, Son and Pepper. They were looking for a law clerk.

I rang up and spoke to a lady who instructed me to send a CV. I didn’t have a CV, so I wrote a letter and got someone to type it for me and sent it off. About a week later we were literally walking out the door to go down to the Oval — there was a test match on — when the phone went and it was the woman from the office of Wright, Son and Pepper asking if I come in that afternoon for an interview.

Back inside I went, out of my shorts and into my suit for the tube trip into central London.

The Inns of Court is an area where many of the law offices are located in London. There are four in total, including Gray’s Inn. Lincoln’s Inn is the biggest and probably best known. They have been there for hundreds of years. I found the right place and met John Wright — a guy in his 60s and the ultimate conservative English lawyer. His son was another partner at the firm. He asked me what I had been doing and what my aspirations were and I gave him a reference from my firm in Wellington explaining what I had done with them. Basically he wanted a general dog’s body. I answered all his questions and he said he would get back to me. I didn’t hear anything for about a week. Then I got another call from the same 16

Law, Rugby And The IRA

lady asking me to come in and see John Wright again. So I bowled in there and he sat me down and told me I was “the best out of a bad bunch”. How motivating! He questioned me about my commitment and how reliable I was going to be. I promised that I was absolutely committed. The next question was about money. He asked me what my salary expectations were and I said I needed £30 a week in the hand. I wished straight away that I had said £40.

He got his accountant in and they worked the tax rates. In the end they agreed to pay me the equivalent gross of what would get me £30 a week in the hand. I started about a week later.

I recall going in there on my first day and sitting in a big open area. There was another law clerk who had been there almost longer than the senior partner. His name was Henry and he would have been in his mid-60s while I was in my mid-20s at the time. John introduced me to Henry and gave me some pretty meaningless things to read through. It was getting a bit warm in the office — there was no air conditioning — so I took off my jacket and put it behind the chair. About two minutes later Henry explained that jackets were not to be taken off until Mr Wright said it was OK to. I was dumbfounded, but I put my jacket back on — what an introduction! I was now seriously in the real world in London. I was living in Clapham, travelling into London every day by tube and working fulltime. It was good and I was very happy to have settled in so quickly.

The work initially was pretty mundane, but I enjoyed the very different legal process to what we had in New Zealand. Surprisingly, Henry and I got on quite well given our big age difference. He was an Arsenal fan so I used to wind him up every time they lost.

I really wanted to play rugby in London. Dad, before the war, was a foundation member of the London New Zealand rugby club, based at Wimbledon. Before he died, we had talked about me going to London and he told me that I should play for London New 17

Fly By Night

Zealand. Mum wanted me to play there as well because that was where Dad had played. So I went to training on a Tuesday night to check it out. The field was on a terrible slope which meant a very lopsided playing surface. It was used as a car park during the Wimbledon tennis tournament because it was right next to the tennis stadium. We had a bit of a run around. It was all very casual.

Most of the guys were Kiwis. After training we had a few beers. I found most of the guys very boring. Very few had decent jobs and they seemed to spend most of their time telling themselves how great New Zealand was. I was there to learn about the UK and experience a new environment. The club just did not seem right for me. I got talking to someone at work about it and he suggested I try out the Rosslyn Park rugby club. He explained that it wasn’t far from where I was living and he’d heard good things about it. So I found Rosslyn Park and went off to -training and it changed my life. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Rosslyn Park was in the second division — the top end of the division below the premiership. It was a pretty big club. Andy Ripley, the No 8, represented England and there were a few other top players at the club. I got down there and ran around during the first few practices. Trials were scheduled a couple of weeks later. I had always played blindside flanker or No 8 in New Zealand, but there were a lot of guys playing in those positions at Rosslyn Park.

I got chatting to a guy at the club and he suggested I pick another position or I’d end up playing in a very low team. So I put my name down for prop. I had never played prop before. After the trials I was put into about the fourth team. It was a fantastic team and I developed some lifelong friendships there.

The team captain was Paddy Sweeney, an Irishman. He was a builder. His second-in-charge was Tony Marley, who was also Irish and an openside flanker. He was twice the size of anyone in the front row, but there was no way he was going to agree to play prop.

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Law, Rugby And The IRA

As a longstanding team member and a mate of Paddy’s, he pulled rank. He played flanker and I played prop. They were great guys.

At one team practice very early on it was dark and we were doing warm-up laps. I saw a guy in front of me wearing what looked like Wellington College socks. I picked up a bit of speed and would you believe it: it was Steve Waller, whom I knew from school days in Wellington. I asked him what he was doing there because I didn’t even know he was in England. He was in the advertising game. His agency had transferred him to London. He was married to Di and they had been living in the UK for six months. He was a halfback and a bloody good player, with plenty of fire in his belly.

About the third game of the season we were going to play out of town and were travelling there by bus. I was sitting there with Steve and there was a Pommy guy named Dave Allen sitting with us. Dave had a multi-coloured bag with his rugby gear in it. I asked him where he got the bag from and he said it was from his work.

He was in the courier business and explained that his company sent documents all around the world. Steve and I looked at each other and said to ourselves that it sounded pretty dodgy. We had never heard of couriers carrying documents. I remember saying to Dave that I wouldn’t mind one of those bags and asked if I could buy one. He said you had to work for the company to get one. I got to know Dave, who has since become a lifelong friend. He was the other prop in the front row. We ended up going pretty well as a team. There were some really great guys — Ian Stanbury, the fullback, was a plumber, Graham Lloyd, a big stroppy guy, played lock and worked for a merchant bank in the City. The guys in our team had a pact that no-one would ever agree to go up and play for a higher team. We were a team and were going to play together no matter what.

A lot of guys were capable of playing at a much higher level, but chose to remain together. We played hard on and off the field. It 19

Fly By Night

was a great environment. Sorry Dad, but the London New Zealand club never had a chance. This was the environment I was looking for, meeting new friends from different walks of life.

Every other week we would travel away to play at another out-oftown club’s home ground. We’d play the game, clean ourselves up and then have a meal and a few beers at their club before heading back on the bus to our own clubrooms. At about 7pm we’d be back at Rosslyn Park and we’d stay there drinking until about 9pm. Then it was down to the local pub, The Sun Inn at Barnes, until it closed at 11pm. We’d grab an Indian curry after that and then someone would be having a party and we wouldn’t get home until about 2am.

Steve, who I hung out with quite a bit, was married, of course. He’d leave home at lunchtime on a Saturday and not get back until late at night and in a bit of a state when he did finally get in the door.

It was causing a bit of a stress with his wife. I often used to end up driving him home. He would tell me to come in for a coffee. The reason he wanted me to come in was to cushion the blow he was about to get from his wife. That didn’t work — she didn’t give a stuff about me being there and she’d give him stick about being home so late and then she’d have a go at me for keeping him out late. They were a great couple, but they used to wind each other up.

I felt like I was settled into London life — things were going good for me — my job, the rugby, and I loved the social aspect of London.

After a while I started doing some property settlements for people buying and selling property. I had to do the transaction at the other party’s law offices. Often that other lawyer was out of town. John Wright said I could drive to meet the other lawyer because I had a car and he would pay me a car allowance. Some weeks I was getting more in car allowance than I was in salary. Henry was getting a bit envious of me being able to get out of the office and earn additional money through the car allowance. I saw a fair bit of the south of England on those trips. It was a great way to see the countryside.

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Law, Rugby And The IRA

As 1974 drew to a close end I was starting to think about what I was going to do in the coming months. I had been in touch with my old mate Dick back in New Zealand. He was thinking of going to Nepal in April 1975. He suggested we do a trip into in the mountains together. I was keen to go to the Annapurna region and maybe back to Everest. By April I would have been with Wright, Son and Pepper for about eight months and I felt I would have to quit the job. I couldn’t see a way that they would give me a month off to go to Nepal. I basically decided that would be my plan of attack, but it was on the backburner for a little while.

Mum, out of the blue, wrote to me and said she had a very good friend in Waikanae who was a retired chief justice of New Zealand, Justice Richard Wild. He was inquiring as to what I was doing in the UK and knew that I had trained as a lawyer. He asked Mum if I was interested in being what they call a judge’s marshall. He had a connection in the UK who was looking for one. When judges sit on a case out of town in the UK they get accommodation at judge’s lodgings, which is usually a beautiful old Victorian house. Quite often they take an up-and-coming lawyer with them as a personal assistant. That person is called the judge’s marshall and is there to perform basic duties like swearing in the witnesses and acting as the judge’s social secretary. I said I was keen and was put in touch with a man called Derek, who was the manager for a high-ranking judge in London. Derek rang me and asked me in January 1975 if I would be interested in being the marshall for Justice CroomJohnson. You bet I was keen.

Derek and I met at his office and he told me all about it. He said the judge was going to be in Manchester for a month presiding over an Irish Republican Army bomb trial. About two days later I met Justice Croom-Johnson, with my best suit on and extra polish on the shoes. He explained what I would be doing, that I would be staying with him and that there was a certain decorum that went 21

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on there. Every day I would have to go to court wearing a morning suit and a top hat and gloves. Every night, when we had dinner, we would have to wear a dinner suit. Derek explained that I could hire all the clothing I would need and helped me get sorted. The case was going to trial only a few weeks later, so I had to move fast.

The opportunity was perfect timing with my plans to go to Nepal pencilled in for April.

I went back to John Wright and told him what I was going to do. He went absolutely nuts. He yelled at me and got really pissed off. He made me go down to the Law Society in Chancery Lane and look through the appointments register to try to find someone who could replace me. He made that next week I stayed there rather uncomfortable. His son, who was about 40, and another lawyer there, almost apologised on his behalf. However, on my last day John came out and shook my hand and wished me luck. I think he realised it was the kind of offer a young lawyer just couldn’t say no to.

In February 1975 I drove to Manchester and met Derek. He showed me to the lodgings and it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t going to be finding the place uncomfortable. It was a massive Victorian building in Salford, an inner suburb of Manchester.

The building had huge chandeliers and a big staircase that looked like it was straight out of Gone with the Wind. Later that evening the judge arrived. We had a casual meal — there were staff to do everything for us, so we didn’t have to do a thing. They showed me to my room. It had a nice big bed, writing desk and ensuite.

The first morning I was there 3 February, happened to be my 25th birthday. I got woken at 7am with a big tray of tea, newspapers, the whole works. I kept thinking how fortunate I was to get such an opportunity.

The security was huge for the big IRA bomb trial. The IRA had been behind several pub bombings during that period and the subsequent trials generated a lot of media interest. All the streets around 22

Law, Rugby And The IRA

the courthouse were closed off, police were everywhere and we had a police escort in front and behind our car. The car itself was a big Daimler with a chauffeur. I was riding in the back with the judge and there was a cop, with a gun, in the car as well. We arrived at the court and went into the ante-room, where the judge gets his wig and prepares himself. We made our way into the court and the judge took up his place on the bench while I was sitting alongside the bench — just a step down from him. The place was mobbed with media and spectators and next minute the four accused were brought in from the cells — two men, Guilfoyle and Byrne, and two women, the Gillespie sisters. They were particularly evil looking.

They were on trial for a pub bombing in Manchester in March 1974.

The public gallery was packed, media from all over the UK, all focused on the judge and his young mate from Wellington. I almost had to pinch myself to believe it was really happening.

I had to stand up with a Bible and swear in each new witness.

We would go back to the lodgings for lunch, with police escort, and then back to court for the afternoon session. We’d go back to the lodgings at about 5pm and I had to be downstairs for dinner at 6.25pm in my dinner suit. At dinner I had to say grace. Derek gave me about three versions to swot up. At the time we were staying in these lodgings there was one other judge there, but he didn’t have a marshal. So each night there were two judges and me having dinner together. They were both well-known senior English judges in their early 60s. We would chat about various things and, after a few days, I was confident enough to contribute a bit. In the morning the judge wanted to get a bit of exercise by going for a walk and I would always go with him. There were police walking in front and behind and a police car went up and down the road alongside us.

For a guy from Wellington, the whole situation was a bit of an eyeopener. In these walks in the morning the judge would talk through some of the issues in the case and I would offer my opinion. I had 23

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taken notes during court, so I offered my two cents to the judge.

The lodgings had big mats in the entrance at the bottom of the stairs and were alarmed. If anyone walked on that mat all the alarms would go off. During the day they didn’t have the alarms on, but they switched them on at night. I was told by the police if I was to go out at night I had to be careful and not stand on the mat. I was there for three weekends. The judge would go back to London for the weekend, but I would stay in Manchester. I got to know the police quite well, because they were driving us back and forth and one of them asked if I would like to go to a football game. I watched Manchester City play Everton at Maine Road. It was the first time I’d seen a top-level football match. We were in pretty flash seats. Half the people I was sitting with were plain-clothed cops. After the game I went down to the pub with them and they were pretty good guys. Back on Monday morning, however, they had their game face on and it was like we didn’t know each other.

Because I had the weekends alone in the lodgings, they gave me permission to bring someone up to stay with me. The second weekend I was there I got on to Knyvett, who was in London. He came up there — his eyes popping at what he walked into. We did a bit of tripping around — the Yorkshire moors and to York. It was winter, so there was some snow on the desolate moors. We found some great pubs. Knyvett stayed the night and I told him about the mats. Imagine a mate of mine setting off the alarms!

On the third weekend, it was getting towards the end of the trial and the judge had to do his summing up for the jury. He decided that last weekend he would stay in Manchester to prepare for the summing up.

That same weekend another judge — Justice Bridge — turned up at the lodgings. He was even more senior than Justice Croom-Johnson.

The most senior judge at dinner was given the job of selecting the wine, so Justice Bridge had that honour. Needless to say we drank 24

Law, Rugby And The IRA

some of the best French wine available. We were sitting having breakfast the next morning and a letter was brought in for Justice Bridge. He opened it and it was from the Lord Chamberlain asking him to be the judge for another bomb trial — the Birmingham Pub Bombers trial, probably the biggest IRA trial of all. It was a massive pub bombing in Birmingham and about 40 people were killed. They wanted him to be the judge for that trial and he was reading it out to us live. He was puffing his chest out a bit that he had been selected for such an important trial. I kept a close eye on the trial about a year later. I felt like I was right at the epicentre of all this exciting stuff.

I got to know our case pretty well. Ultimately the four were convicted, which was no great surprise and the case wound to a close. The judge’s wife was up in the lodgings for the last couple of days. We had a big formal meal on the last evening after the trial was over. I told them about my plans to go to Nepal the following week. They invited me for dinner at their house in London when I got back. After dinner a couple of the cops took me out for a night on the town. They were as bad as anyone else when it came to having a few beers. I was a week away from going back to Nepal and this was hardly good preparation — fine dining, big meals and living in luxury. I went back to London, played one more game that Saturday for Rosslyn Park, and took off to Nepal for six weeks.

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Back To Nepal And Everest

MY PLAN WAS TO DO some trekking around Nepal with Dick Barnett,

then return to London, followed by a trip around Europe to the places that I hadn’t been. I was thinking I would then head back home to New Zealand after that and get into the legal world, hopefully with Findlay Hoggard. I took an Air India flight out of Paris to Nepal and met Dick at Kathmandu Airport. He had a grin a mile wide. It was great to catch up with him again. He had already set up in a Kathmandu lodge — a scruffy little guest house in the middle of the city. The rate was about $4 a night. We decided to go up to Annapurna, north-west of Kathmandu. It was an eight-day trek and Dick, who was 55 at the time, thought that we’d both handle it.

I’d met Dick several years earlier while working at Mt Cook back in New Zealand. He was a Pommy guy with an earring, a bit of a hard case, who’d lent some tools to Harry Taylor, Bill Whelen and I during our time at the Hermitage. We all shared an interest in climbing, so it was only natural to link up with Dick for the Nepal adventure.

26

Back To Nepal And Everest

The trip started in Pokhara — the largest town in west Nepal. It was an eight-hour ride in a small mini-bus, no air-conditioning and no legroom, to reach Pokhara. Many of the Annapurna mountains are visible from the start of the trek. They are an awesome sight, high with very pointed summits. The most visible is Machapuchare, known as the fish tail. It dominates the horizon from Pokhara. We headed to the Annapurna Sanctuary, staying at little tea houses, but it was just Dick and me this time, no guide. As it was “only” eight days, we took some food, mainly goodies like chocolate. We also took a small stove and some Darjeeling tea. Dick was a Pom who loved the best teas. There were a few other people on the trail doing the trip the budget way like us. I was impressed with how fit I felt, having spent the last month living in luxury in Manchester.

Dick was always pretty fit, so we made very good time.

On day six we stayed at a very famous place called the Hinko Cave. It was a huge overhanging rock with room for up to 20 people to sleep under cover. There was an Austrian team on the trail aiming to climb Annapurna. About 12 of their porters stayed the night in the cave with us. Dick kept them all amused with his pigeon Nepali.

Next morning it was snowing. No chance to go any further that day. An extra day in the cave was a real bore, lying around in our sleeping bags brewing tea and eating some of the small amount of precious food we brought.

Thankfully, the following day was fine and we took off for the Annapurna Sanctuary. It is a huge semi-circle of mountains and a spectacular sight. From the left is Manasalu at 26,700 feet, Annapurna at 26,520 feet, and Dhaulagiri at 26,800 feet. Nowhere else in the Himalayas can you see such a collection of major peaks so close together. At the head of the valley, at about 17,000 feet, is the base camp is for climbing Annapurna. We started to catch up to the Austrian expedition. For climbers who planned to tackle Annapurna, they were going pretty slowly. They seemed to have enough gear to 27

Fly By Night

climb every mountain in sight. We took a slightly different route through the snow to get out of their way. It was pretty slow making our way through soft snow. By midday we were at about 16,000 feet.

It was hot and tiring. Dick was done and I was not much better.

We took a few photos and went back to the Hinko Cave. Three nights there was three too many! Next morning it was flat out back to Pokhara, in just two days, for a nice meal, comfortable bed and then another eight-hour bus ride back to Kathmandu.

Dick wanted to go on a carpet-finding mission in Darjeeling. I thought I’d rather go back to Everest Base Camp and actually go to the camp itself this time. The previous year we had climbed above it and looked down on it. So Dick and I went our separate ways for a week and agreed to meet up in Kathmandu. I decided to fly to Lukla Airfield this time. The planes are small eight-seaters operated

by Royal Nepal Airlines. The pilot loaded us in and told me to get into the front seat next to him. As I got in he shook my hand and introduced himself as Pete Shand. He was a Kiwi from Greymouth and had been flying in Nepal for two years. Before Nepal he had flown round the Southern Alps for Mt Cook Airlines. It turned out we had quite a few mutual mates. We chatted all the way to Lukla, about a 45-minute flight. I kept looking down at the ground and thought back to a year earlier and how it had taken us three painful weeks to cover that distance.

Lukla Airfield has a natural slope into the hillside and this helps the plane slow down when landing. We were coming in to land and I thought we were way too high to make a successful descent.

Pete told me to watch and did something with the propeller and we dropped very rapidly and landed perfectly. As I was leaving he told me to catch up with him back in Kathmandu for a meal. It was a date he never kept.

I walked up to Namche Bazaar. Even in a year it had changed, with more small shops and tea houses. I met two English guys at 28

Back To Nepal And Everest

Namche. They were going to Base Camp as well, so we agreed to tag along together. They were pretty impressed that I had been there a year earlier. We walked up the same way I had previously, but at Lobuche instead of going up to Kala Pattar we went over the glacier to Everest Base Camp itself. That took about three hours in blazing sun. At times we would be stopped by a large crevasse and have to double back. Everest Base Camp is just an assembly of tents and shacks they put up when an expedition is going up the mountain.

There was a Japanese women’s expedition there. They were not happy about us sitting around. Here we are really at the actual foot of Mt Everest. In front is the Khumbu icefall, a massive tangled wall of ice. This is by far the biggest and most dangerous hurdle for any climb of Everest. Over the years a fair number of climbers have been killed in the icefall by falling ice. It is a terrifying sight.

It was time to get out of there and back to Kathmandu to meet with Dick again. We got back to the airstrip at Lukla and it was a complete shambles, as it had been a year earlier. This time there were about 30 people waiting for flights. The previous year there were about three people trying to sell tickets, but this time must have been 10. There hadn’t been any flights for two days because of bad weather, which is why so many people were still waiting.

So I, and my two English mates, sat there for about an hour and wondered what we could do. I looked at the two English guys and one of them — Nigel — suggested we walk back, but really go for it. The other guy had a sore leg or something so he decided to take his chances with the plane. So Nigel and I walked from Lukla to Kathmandu in eight days. It had taken us 15 days the previous year.

We just went for it. We started at daybreak and walked until dark.

We made very impressive time and I was feeling as fit as I had ever been. We raced up and down the hills. I was about four days late for Dick, but he wasn’t bothered — he was just pottering around Kathmandu waiting for me.

29

Fly By Night

Before we reached Kathmandu, Nigel and I ran into other people walking towards Everest. They told us a story about a plane crash involving Sir Edmund Hillary’s family. Hillary and his family were going to spend a year in Nepal. He had been up there numerous times helping build schools and hospitals. His wife, Louise, and youngest daughter, Belinda, were flying in to meet him at another remote airstrip not far from Lukla. Hillary was waiting for them to land when after several hours a Nepalese Army helicopter came to give the shocking news that the plane had crashed on take-off from Kathmandu. There were no survivors. The pilot was Pete Shand and the plane was the one I was in two weeks earlier. Louise Hillary had been sitting in my seat next to the same pilot!

It was a terribly chilling feeling for me and obviously a shocking tragedy. The news was all over Nepal — Hillary was like a god there.

We started hearing little bits about the story on our eight-day trip back to Kathmandu. Every day we would hear a bit more from the sherpas. By the time we got back to Kathmandu it was full-on news.

In Hillary’s book, he wrote that the disaster almost destroyed him. He blamed himself because his wife apparently didn’t like the small planes and he pushed her to do it. He admitted that he almost became a bit of a recluse after it. It really affected his relationship with his other two children, because he lost it completely for a few years.

Dick and I spent a little more time around Kathmandu and he showed me about eight carpets he had bought. He headed back to New Zealand and I returned to London for what I thought was going to be the last part of my overseas journey.

I took an Air India flight back to Paris. I hadn’t been to Paris properly so decided to stay three or four days and have a decent look at the city. Eventually I flew back to London and arrived at Heathrow on Friday, 18 April, 1975. I ended up staying with Steve and Di Waller, in Hammersmith. Steve was excited because that night was the end-of-season function for our rugby team. I had no 30

Back To Nepal And Everest

idea it was happening that night, but was excited about the good fortune. The function was at Toad Hall in Battersea — a great restaurant and bar. The first person I bumped into was Dave Allen — my mate on the other side of the scrum with the flash coloured bags.

I remember him laughing and taking the piss out of me that I’d be playing halfback next year with all the weight I had lost.

Dave was in my ear that night about what I was going to do now that I was in London with no job. I told him I was keen to have a bit of a look around Europe, but he had other ideas. Dave said he’d give me a job working with him in the courier business. I asked him what it was all about. He talked about the multi-coloured bag I had seen him with and about couriering documents around London. It was all a bit of a mystery to me. Dave asked if I still had a car, which I did. He said I could stay with him — he had a spare bedroom — and convinced me to forget about tripping around Europe and join the courier business. He was going to pay me £25 a week with a car allowance of £20 a week, with free petrol and accommodation. The offer sounded almost too good to be true. Steve Waller was listening to much of this, laughing about how bizarre it all sounded. I said I’d give it a go. If it didn’t work out I would just revert back to my Europe plan. It was to be a life-changing decision. Three days later, on 21 April, 1975, I started working at DHL. When I think back, I laugh about how it all panned out. I ended up choosing not to play for London New Zealand, but to play rugby at Rosslyn Park instead. Then I arrived back in London that night for the rugby party and bumped into Dave for that conversation.

I moved into Dave’s flat on the Sunday, began work at DHL on Monday and it completely changed my life.

31

DHL — Business Is Booming

THE MAIN REASONS DAVE WANTED me

on board were because I had a car and a bit of energy and he knew me pretty well. He took me on as a courier, driving around London picking up and delivering packages. At that stage DHL had an office in Brentford, West London, on the A4 — the main road to Heathrow. The building was called Strand House and our little office was on the first floor.

A woman named Susie worked in the office. She was a Pom and a bit flighty. Dave had met her through a friend of a friend and all she did was answer the phones and checked her makeup frequently.

She had a family friend, Colin Hall — also English, and about our age. Colin started about a month before me, also as courier driver.

The fourth person there was an Aussie, Peter McPaul, whom I had met the year before at Rosslyn Park. He was a mate of Dave’s. He didn’t play rugby but he was always along at the after-match and I got to know him quite well. So there were Colin, Susie, Peter and 32

DHL — Business Is Booming

Dave, the boss, and now me. DHL had just opened a small office in Amsterdam with Piet Heerema, a Dutchman, in charge of getting that operation up and running. That was DHL in Europe when I began in April 1975.

DHL had been established in the United States in 1969 by three American businessmen — Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn — they used the letters of their last names to name the company DHL. It was reasonably well established in the US by the time I started and by then it had moved to Asia, Hong Kong and then Australia. Dave came across DHL in Australia, where he had been living for a couple of years driving taxis and playing rugby for North Sydney. He helped start a small operation in Sydney. Quite quickly after that DHL started talking about setting up in the UK and Dave, being English, was very keen to head the London branch. Dave moved back to London in mid-1974 to start DHL in the UK. This was about the same time I met him at Rosslyn Park.

When I started with him in April 1975, he had been there for less than a year and DHL was running on the smell of an oily rag. The business was growing, and Dave wanted to take himself away from the driving so he could do a little bit more planning and strategy.

Hence, his plan to get me on the road.

Dave spent a day with me driving around London and showed me where to go. He introduced me to people I would be dealing with, mailroom managers and despatch staff. Most of the documents were carried in the highly coloured nylon pouches made in the DHL Hong Kong office. In 1975, the official dress for a courier driver was a suit. Yes we all wore a suit and tie, remarkable as that might seem. I was driving this crappy little Austin 1300, which I bought for about a grand and was wearing a suit. Freight would come in overnight from the States and would be unloaded off the plane. We would go to Heathrow at 7.30am, pick up these bags, take them to Strand House and sort them into areas of London in 33

Fly By Night

which they would need delivering. The drivers were assigned to their own areas of London. They would then jump in the car and start delivering flat out. The area I was assigned to was the Strand area, around the West End and Hyde Park. After a couple of days I got to know the area fairly well, where to park and the rest of it.

By about 11am each morning the deliveries were done. In the afternoon we had to go back to all the same places and pick up what the customers wanted to send out. So there was a bit of down time in the middle of the day. It wasn’t worth going back to the office, so I would hang out in town, meet a friend or read the paper and by about 1.30pm ring the office and find out if there were any other special pick-ups. Then I would tear around picking up everything and roar out to the airport by 4.30pm to get it on the plane and sent back to the US that night. Getting from the city to the airport on time was very tight. There was no time to look at the scenery.

It was flat stick. I got into a pretty good routine quickly and had everything well under control for my area. I felt at the time that it was fun and decent money, but didn’t think it would turn into anything long term. I still planned on heading back to New Zealand at the end of the year.

Dave, Pete and I lived together in Putney at 66 Lebanon Gardens.

It was a great place, which Dave had rented about six months earlier. We got on well, living and breathing work. Nothing else really mattered. We always had time for a few beers and rugby was always a priority for Dave and me. On Sunday afternoons we would go to the airport and collect material that had come in over the weekend.

This needed delivering on Monday morning. We sorted it at the house and stacked it in order up the staircase. I slept down next to the front door and had to clamber over all the bags to get up to the bathroom.

Three weeks after I began, Dave turned up for work one morning and told us that a new guy was going to start with us — Neil 34

DHL — Business Is Booming

Creswick. Neil was an Australian, younger than me by about four years and the son of some good family friends of Dave’s. He had come to the UK and Dave said he would find him a job. Dave told me that I had to show Neil my run because I was going to move into a slightly different area down the track. At this stage Neil didn’t have a car, so Dave lent him his car. Neil looked pretty weird. His suit pants were too short and he wore ridiculous blue leather boots.

Frankly I was almost embarrassed to be showing him around looking like that. After two days I told Neil he’d had 24 hours longer than I had had to learn the ropes and that he was on his own after that.

We convinced him to dump the boots.

I then started delivering in another area of London and that went pretty well. After five weeks Dave told me DHL was going to open an office in Tehran, Iran. I explained that I had been there the year before. The demand from the US was huge to send freight to Iran because of the oil boom. Dave planned to take off for Tehran in two weeks. Grant Anderson, Larry Hillblom’s half-brother, was going to go with Dave and set up the operation. An American guy, Paul Schmudde, was going to go with them and be the manager once it was up and operating.

I asked Dave what was going to happen in London while he was away. Dave said, “You’re it.” He meant I was going to have to run things in London until he got back. He organised a credit card for me. I had never seen one before. We filled out all the forms for an American Express card and about three days later a card turned up.

Dave told me if I needed anything, to put it on the card. He was carrying on like it was free money. I also became a signatory on the company bank account. I asked Dave how the others would feel, given that I had only been with the company five minutes. Peter, the Aussie guy, got a bit cheesed off, but within 24 hours he got over it. He didn’t really want the responsibility of running the place, but wanted to make the point that it really should have been him.

35

Fly By Night

So Dave buggered off to Tehran, leaving me in charge in just my seventh week working for DHL. Communicating from Tehran to London was hopeless. It took about three days to book the call and have some success getting a connection. I spoke to Dave about six days after he left London and he explained to me that from next Monday they were going to send freight from the US to London that we would then send to Tehran. I had to see Iran Air at Heathrow.

They didn’t know us at all, but I filled in a lot of forms. They asked if it was air freight and I explained that it was courier mail and they didn’t know what I was talking about. Anyway, we started getting all this material from the US for big American companies operating in Iran. In a typical day before we took on the Iran stuff we might have been getting about five or six sacks of material. Suddenly 10 started turning up. Quite soon after that, the word got around the UK that we were sending material to Iran. Quite a few UK companies were keen to use us from London to Tehran. They started phoning and I’d go see them, get them to fill out a form and all of a sudden I became a salesman. It just went boom. The volume of business we were doing doubled in about four weeks. It was incredibly full-on.

Peter went to pick up stuff from a customer one day and couldn’t fit it all in his car. The rest came by taxi. It was massive. On the admin side we had bills and wages to pay. Before Dave left he showed me a cruddy little exercise book and how to pay wages. He used to manually write down what everyone was paid. He would take off the tax off, but had only a vague idea of what the tax was.

I just followed that system each week. We never paid the tax to the taxman because we didn’t know how to do it and that became a bit of a problem a little further down the track. There I was doing the wages, eight weeks after being in Nepal. Susie was writing out cheques and I was signing them. I was doing less stuff on the road and spending more time introducing new clients.

The reason DHL grew as it did was because of the far superior 36

DHL — Business Is Booming

service offeredthis compared thewant conventional post offices.

We If youwe enjoyed extractto and to read more, get it on were able to pick something up instantly: from London one day and deliver Kindle it in Tehran or New York the next. Time was money and getting information faster was a huge boost to commerce. Companies http://www.amazon.com/Fly-Night-Austin-Boeings-untoldwould pay whatever ebook/dp/B014J362AA/ it took to have our service, which was many days faster than the postal alternative. It would not be long before post offices in some countries tried to fight back. I remember on 1 July — three months after I started — we got a shipment from the United States from Milchem, a big American oil-drilling company.

Peter had come back from the London office of Milchem and I said to him, “I wonder if they want anything sent the other way.” So the next day I went in to see them. They did need to send documents back to USA, so I signed them as a client. This was quite a big deal for me — other companies had rung wanting to use our service, but this was the first one I had gone out to pursue. It wasn’t very hard work, but I made a note in my diary about getting my first real sale.

Soon flights were coming into London not just from New York, but from Los Angeles and Houston as well. They’d come in at different times and we had to race out and collect it, then deliver it. It was out of control but fun. I’d speak to Dave in Tehran about once every 10 days or so. They were delivering all the volume we were sending from USA and London. Dave was very excited. In the UK things were exploding. We needed more courier drivers.

Somehow Susie knew a Kiwi guy, Rob Young, who had just arrived in London. He was planning to trip around the UK and then get a job. I got Suzie to suggest he do things the other way round. He came to the office and had the shortest job interview ever. He was our age which was good. He started the next day. Colin rang the office next morning and said he was crook. I asked what he meant. There wasn’t time to be crook at DHL. Bugger me, then Susie called in 20 minutes later saying she was not well either — it was a Friday, our busiest day. That left Pete, Neil, Rob and me to 37