THE JOBBING SYSTEM OF THE LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE: AN ORAL HISTORY

Interview No. 6: Anthony Jenkins

Interviewer: Bernard Attard

Institute of Historical Research: 16 January 1990

Tape 1, side 1

BA: Well, could you first tell me, Mr Jenkins, where and when you were born?

AJ: I was born in the borough of Lambeth on 20th October, 1930.

BA: Who were your parents?

AJ: My father, Mr - obviously a Mr - Sidney Jenkins, and my mother Mrs Ellen Jenkins.  Father came from a background of 9 brothers and 1 sister - very large firm.   My mother's background was just her brother.  No introductions, if we're talking about coming back into City connections.  One of my father's elder brothers worked on the Stock Exchange in a clerical capacity and introduced my father to the Stock Exchange to do mathematical work - as in those days everything was done manually - and this was his introduction into the Stock Exchange and he progressed from the office eventually into the [Stock Exchange]. That was probably in the 1920s, then he moved into the Stock Exchange [in] '38, '39, and then progressed from there.

BA:  Did he start doing clerical work with a jobbing firm?

AJ: Yes, in the rubber market because in those days markets were often - you would get the rubber boom or the mining boom and firms in those days were generally very tiny - they would probably have two partners or even one partner and one on the staff and suddenly to do fifty or a hundred bargains a day would put a tremendous strain on the system. So they would get in temporary staff to do the clerical work, bearing in mind that the bargains would have to be worked out manually, posted in the jobbers' ledgers.  You would then work out the journal separately, they would then cross tick them so it was a lot of actual office work compared with modern times. 

BA: Can you remember the names of the firms that he was with?

AJ: No, I can't go back to the early ones, but the one he started with I remember most is a firm called Ormiston Wilks which were very small jobbers, had a small rubber book and a small industrial book.  That was actually when he went into the market.  That was sort of his initiation onto the trading floor.  The beauty about the early days was that there was three stations as regards clerks: once you came onto the chain of going into the Stock Exchange there was an account day clerk, who wore a bass badge which was a triangle with a yellow outside and a green centre to it; and then you moved onto a red button, which had a red centre, round with a white circle; and this, in fact, is a blue button which was the most treasured badge to get which meant that you'd really got your first rung on the ladder.  And in the early days that was the only badge worn; no members [wore badges]; authorised clerks would not wear any badges at all, so you had to have a very good memory on what people were with what firms.  Because having traded with a broker as a jobber and you didn't know who he was you wouldn't ask him, 'Excuse me, sir, who do I book that bargain to?' You would have to send the blue button and follow him around the market until you found somebody at a distance who recognised him.  So that was the early days on badges.  That's the blue button's badge, the equivalent with the firm's name on it, and that was the white or silver badge which was the member's badge.  

BA: I see.  So this, the original blue button is about the size of a very large cuff link?

AJ: Yes, worn in the lapel all times.  There was a very strict discipline in the early days.  I mean I went onto the floor in 1946 and I think people were disciplined in those days in any case.  To go on the floor without your badge on was absolutely not thought of - it just didn't happen.  And you kept out of everybody's way as a blue button.  There's always stories about Percy Duke who had a habit of stepping back on blue buttons' feet and then accusing them of bumping into him.  He had a bit of a reputation in that field.  

BA: Do you have any particular memories of your father and his work from when you were a boy?

AJ: Not in my childhood, no.  We didn't actually, in my early days, we didn't talk a lot about the actual business.  When I was about 12 or 13 he used to bring home some of the books. You see he had made up his mind that I was going to work on the Stock Exchange and there wasn't any deviation from that in his mind.  That was the only world he thought I ought to be brought up in.  Looking back, some regrets but not many.  The business was very kind to us in the early days - very interesting business.  An opportunity to meet lots of people - two or three thousand people on the floor of the Exchange at any one time so it was quite an exciting time really.

BA: So your father was quite determined to keep the firm going and to keep it a family firm?

AJ: Well, when we go back to my history, I actually started with a little firm of brokers called James Watson. They were in Copthall House in Copthall Avenue - which is now the Architect's,  no not the Architect's, the Accountant's Hall.  There was a little tiny building there and I started there at the age of 14 as a stock runner where we - most people started at that sort of area and that way you learned the firms, their addresses and you became familiar in that area. And also you would have to take stock to company offices for certification or registration - that way you learned the different companies, the different names, you learnt about preferences, ordinary debenture. You didn't realise it but it was a very slow or quick learning process which was there all the time but you didn't know it was happening.  Then from James Watson, I went to another little tiny firm called H.W. Berks and I wasn't with them too long.  

BA: Was that a jobbing or...?

AJ: No, that was a brokers.  The two first firms I was with were brokers.  And then I joined my father in firm called John Owen, which was an old established firm. There were two partners with the firm.  My father, actually at the time, was what they call a half-book man.  The firm did all his settlements and he took half the profits and he had a very successful business.  Then he was invited into the partnership, which meant that the profits were split three ways.  And then the old senior partner died and that left two partners and they eventually fell out in 1955 when the firm shut down and I went back for a short time stockbroking with a firm called Williams De Broe which is Hill Chaplain Williams De Broe now.  They still exist in another form.  And then in 1960 - I went back to father in 1956 when he became established with a firm called E.S. Godden and they more or less financed my father's book and he was really trading in the same leisure compan[ies].  We have always specialised in leisure shares.  And father started the business back with E.S. Godden starting the book again and I joined father about a year later.  And as a result of that, in 1960, father took the business over, I became a member in 1960 and the firm became S. Jenkins & Son and that was the partnership.  We took the staff over from the old firm and I think we had three on the staff. And eventually we grew, as the years went on my brother was introduced into the business and two other partners.  There were five partners and we actually had five on the staff, so we were ten overall.  I remember meeting the senior partner with James Capel one Christmas when they used to have their soirees and I was saying, 'I don't think I could manage a firm of this size', and he said, 'Well, how many have you got on your staff?'  I said, 'Well, there's five of us' - no, I said, 'There's five'. He said, 'Oh, five hundred?' I said, 'No, no just five people', and I think he had about six hundred at the time.  I don't think he was too amused.  It was a family firm and everybody knew one another.  We knew when people had families and passed their driving tests and they were good days.  

BA: Can we just go back a little bit.  Where did he send you to school before you started working as a stock runner with James Watson?

AJ: I just went to the ordinary elementary schools.  I didn't have any special education.  My father had a thing about that.  He said, 'Give me a good barrow boy any day to run a book.'  In the early days, University and higher education, if you like, didn't really make very good jobbers, market people.  There were obviously going to be a few exceptions but most of the early traders, probably even going back to the thirties were elementary school boys who'd got this art of trading and I think this seemed to be... when I think the markets became more international I think it was more important to have a much deeper education because the whole thing had changed completely.  In the early days an announcement made in Manchester about Courtaulds was probably the most important thing of the day and nobody really cared whether Wall Street was up, down or sideways because they had probably never even heard of it.  So in the early days it was really just local trading, local knowledge, your contacts, general contacts.  And you must bear in mind that as I said, you grew up, you became a red button, a blue button, and by the time you've come through the chain a lot of your friends you've grown up with, you would meet them again on the trading floor. So your contacts were building up the whole time. So it didn't really matter what school you went to because the old boys' network didn't really work too well. 

BA: You said that your father was a half-book man.  Was that with John Owen?

AJ: John Owen, yes.

BA: Were there many half-book men?

AJ: Oh, yes quite a lot, yes. In fact Terrence Ahern will tell you, I think he said there was something like - or maybe I'm getting my figures wrong now - three hundred jobbers in the mining market, now he would probably verify those figures.  Now, we're going back to what I said before, a firm could consist of one partner and his office manager and that could be a firm and often this type of firm would not run a position over night.  They would undo their book on another jobbing firm which happened, quite frequently.  You'll probably find that there was only twenty or thirty main trading firms and there was a lot of smaller people on the outside getting a living out of it really.  I think [the way] a lot of it happened [was]: [there were] what we used to call spoon-fed jobbers - the small broker with the one partner, one clerk and the clerk would not necessarily be a House clerk, he would be just an office-bound as it were; if the partner suddenly got thirty or forty orders, there's no way he would be able to cope with those, so in the case of which market they were in he would go to his favourite jobber and say put some prices on that for me. And never would a jobber take advantage of the broker that is what we call opened; he would give him his list and he would run down put the prices on it, call back ten minutes later and his business is done at the correct price.  And that was one way that trading was done.  I suppose it disappeared in the fifties really, that type of trading but the client in some ways I think he did benefit from it.  

BA: How did these half-book men actually fit into the firms?  They weren't partners?  

AJ: No, they weren't partners. They literally took half the profit on the book and the firm [took half] and it also worked on the broking side.  The dealer, whether it be a member dealer, an authorised clerk, he would be registered as an agent and it was a question of what you negotiated with the firm.  I mean in latter years with the expenses being so high these percentages came right down, but half-book was normally fifty-fifty and the firm paid the expenses, bearing in mind expenses weren't very expensive, you know, they were quite low in the old days.

BA: Did they decide off their own bat that they wanted to start running a book?

AJ: That's a good question.  I think if they were entrepreneurial in those days and you would normally have a little bit of a sponsor.  Father's early days, [it] was a chap called Stanley Pryor, of A.J. Pryor - they were brokers. And he was the broker to Margate Estates, Ramsgate Olympia and Dumpton Thanet Greyhounds and Belle Vue, Manchester.  And father literally started the leisure book, just by trading in four of these stocks.  Stanley used to find him a bit of business now and again and he added GRA to it and in the finish, in the height of the boom in Greyhounds there were probably thirty Greyhounds companies, Albion Greyhounds right the way down to Wimbledon Stadium and then there was a rationalisation, tote tax and all sorts of nasties.  The list condensed right down and in fact I think it's just Wembley Stadium now owns most of Greyhound tracks now, there are a few private ones.  The other thing in those days was that the prices of shares weren't terribly expensive.  You know, the dearest one on the book might only be three shillings, so in fact S. Jenkins & Son started with a capital of £20,000 - that's all that was necessary in 1960.  Rent was only £1.50 a square foot.  We had one telephone, we had one exchange telegraph phone which is equivalent to the STX line now, which was a manual exchange in Bartholomew Lane.

And this is what I was coming back [to] about the communications.  If you actually wanted to speak to a person on the floor of the House, you either had to go to the door which was allocated to that person.  We'll put it another way, a firm was allocated a stand in the Stock Exchange and those numbers went from 1 to 15 although one or two of them were eliminated and that stand had a door allocated to it. So if I wanted to speak to Walker Cripps on stand 11 I would have to go to the main door and I would walk up the steps which had a little tiny... they had a rail up so that you didn't get in the way of the members going in and out of the building, and you had to ask the waiter, 'Can I speak to Mr Byford of Walker Cripps?' And he used to get his speaking tube out and blow down it and that used to sound a whistle at the other end like you'd get on the bridge of the old ships and 'Hello', and he'd put the thing to his ear and he'd get the message and then the waiter would call out three times 'Byford Walker Cripps' and if he didn't answer he would then put the light up which was a light number, 3 digit number allocated to that firm, and it was up to that individual when he was wandering round the market to keep an eye on his light to see if he was wanted and then he would put his hand up so that the waiter would see he had spotted the light and he would point to the door or if he was wanted on the telephone because the telephone rooms were located round the edge of the market and he would just tap his ear and point that he was wanted in M room or whatever it was. And there was no direct line from the offices onto the floor of the House to the firms.  If you wanted to speak to your firm you would have to leave your pitch, go to the edge of the market, go into the Bartholomew House exchange private room and say, 'I want 825', and he'd say, '825 on 6' and you'd got to find box 6 and you went in there and you stood up in the box and, I always remember, it had a false floor in it and as you stood in it the floor went down and it knocked out the ticket by the operator and he would know that that box was occupied.  And the 'phone was fixed to wall and you just took the earpiece off a bit like a western style.  So communications were very, very primitive in the old days.

BA: This was the set up around 1960?

AJ: No, no this was in the '40s.

BA: When did it start to change?

AJ: It started to change probably in the '60s.  We were allowed one telephone, I think per firm, on the pitch.  And it was not allowed to have a bell on it, it had a big red light on it which flashed.  No bells were allowed to ring on the floor of the market.  But there was a lot of resistance to this by the brokers because they thought jobbers would get a lot of privileged information.  Again the company announcements, that was a very poor system in the early days because a bell would ring and the company announcement would say, 'ICI on board'.  Well, ICI is a very large company, issuing quite a lengthy statement and this thing would just be pinned up on the board and forty people want to read it and that is the only copy. This got changed in later years through sensible discussions.  Market-makers were issued with a copy of this.  As it came out they got a copy straightaway and a lot of the big firms, realising this difficulty, made available company announcements and reports to their brokers that were held until the time of release and then they were released generally in the market which was much more satisfactory, but you were liable to get picked up, as we used to say in the trade, by somebody having the information before you.  Before we had the insider trading and things like that which must have been rife in the old days I should think, because jobbers and brokers, very few jobbers actually spoke to one another - there was not a very friendly atmosphere in the original markets whatsoever...

BA: Again are you talking about when you started?

AJ: In the forties, more so in the forties.  There was a strict procedure if you knew that your opposition were bidding for a stock that you were quite keen to sell at that price - it had become a choice price as we term it - and you think, 'Well I've got business on and I need to take this price out of the market,' and you would go over and you would say, 'I want to deal in London General Tram at 3s. 6d. in 25,000 shares,' and the jobber might just shake his head.  If he said, 'Yes', it was up to me to open not the person you've challenged, although very often people would do it round the other way.  But that would probably be the only conversation you would have with what one termed in those days - with your opposition.  It was a very closed society it seemed and then as the years went on one or two of us used to have coffee together and one of them would say, 'Oh, I had that dreadful fellow on last night,' and then you suddenly realised that you had the same villains, the same problems as every other jobber.  People that were opportunists shall we say and they used to try and bully you. You realised after a while that he would say 'Ah, but these are offered away in any case,' and you'd say 'Well alright, I'll put the bargain down,' and they were never offered, and you found out that they were not always telling the truth, these people.  

BA: These were the brokers?

AJ: These were the brokers, yes.

BA: You've referred to your relations with other jobbers, what were the relations with the brokers like?

AJ: Very good actually.  There was always an odd few brokers, and I suspect that we all experienced the same, that you wouldn't trade with but you could get over that by making a very wide price because there were no rules on how wide the price was whether they were buyers or sellers or even the size. So if there was a chap there you didn't like and there was a market in 50,000 shares and there was a tuppenny price then you would make him a sixpenny price and in 1,000 shares and he would gradually get the message that he was not welcome and that was it.  So in a way we controlled what firms we wanted to trade with.  Because the other small part about this, if you felt a firm was a little bit unsound financially, you could put your own safeguards in and not trade with that man.  In theory, today you can't do that.  You can't govern who you trade with.  As a market maker with a price on the screen - a mandatory price on the screen - then it doesn't matter who the person is he can come on and trade with you in the amount you're showing on there.  You can't say, 'No, I'm sorry I don't like your account', it's not possible.  So there was a little bit of security in a way, really.  If you didn't like a way a firm conducted its business, etc.

BA: Did you mix socially with jobbers and brokers outside the House?

AJ: Not jobbers, no.  Although Colin Knock [of White & Cheeseman], I've known Colin for fifty years and we both finished up with the same firm but we 've always stood within twenty feet of one another all through the original market, temporary market and then the rebuilt situation.  But I would say my broking friends socially were probably only about ten.  Whether that was the time when I was struggling bringing up a family and all these things or perhaps I din't have too much cash to go out and socialise I don't know.  I suspect that was probably the problem.  

BA: Where had you been living before you became a member and before Jenkins & Sons?

AJ: I lived at Ilford with my parents.  I then got married and moved to Chadwell Heath and then we moved from there to Woodford Green.  I think the normal progression as the finances improve you tend to move to slightly different areas and then finally I moved out to the country, out to Bishops Stortford.  It's a funny pattern though actually.  [...] I mean, I actually lived at Dagenham for I think either 1 year or 2 years when I was about 4 and there's a lot of Stock Exchange boys come from Dagenham or Dayjenum [sic].  Some of them don't like to be reminded of it but there is a steady progression out and up I suppose.  

BA: And about when was it that you became a blue button when you first went onto the floor of the House?

AJ: Very approximately, the 22 October 1946, that was two days after my sixteenth birthday because that was the earliest you could become a blue button and in those days the earliest you become authorised was twenty-one because that was the law of the land and it was a Friday, I remember it well. I had the audacity to wear a brown suit which was something totally forbidden.  It was the only one I had and my father was taking the day off or something and insisted I went in, but it was a bit frightening actually. Although people were kind, looking back at it they could have been a lot worse than they were. 

BA: And what did you start off doing as a blue button?

AJ: Just running messages to get yourself familiar with... in those days if you wanted to locate a firm you had to know which stand he was on.  That was the important thing and some of the larger firms of course had two stands so Fenn & Crosthwaite were on stand five and on stand two and so you really had to get to know [where they were].  The theory was that if a broker had left you a limit and you wanted to bid for this stock, or offer him the stock, then you'd got to get to that stand, you know, pretty quickly. Well I must confess though that if you got on well with the waiter - they used to bring in timing of slips after a while and you'd write on the outside, Fenn and Crosthwaite, Coddington and then you'd put the time on the slip; and the waiter was supposed to keep these all in line - but if the waiter knew you and you didn't put the time on it the chances were yours might be at the top.  They were characters in themselves, the waiters.

BA: Do you have any general impressions of what the Stock Exchange was like at that time?

AJ: Frightening, absolutely frightening, because there was a tremendous discipline in those days.  You weren't allowed to run in the market.  Speed was essential.  You had to have a sense of urgency, as I say, without running.  The other thing you had to get was the marks, which if the market was fairly quiet you'd be more than sensible to keep looking at the marks to keep off the pitch because there's nothing worse than three people hanging around on a pitch and apparently not too busy.  I can remember my early days in the checking room - and I wasn't the only one guilty of it - but if during some of the bad times you'd only got two bargains to check, you customarily went down to check at ten to ten and you shouldn't leave your seat until say quarter to eleven, I mean if you went down and just checked your two bargains and left, I don't say it would be all round the market but they'd say they're not having a good time at the moment.  So you put this big bluff up of sitting on your seat and calling out for people who you knew couldn't hear you because you see them right down at the other end of the checking room.  The checking room was the same size as the dealing floor basically, and the ironical thing - well it's not ironical - you didn't actually sit on the seats you sat on the tables and you put your feet on the seats and you had your jobbing book on your lap, because the brokers' [clerks] were walking round confirming all the business that their dealers had done the day before.  So you would make a bit of noise and make it look as though your firm has had a busy day and you would never let anybody look at your book.  You know, people would always sort of have a look over.  So that's a vivid memory of my early days, but I think in the early days I think the Stock Exchange did have a sort of secrecy about it, I think this is probably what's missing today when people do large bargains, it's immediately revealed.  In the old days, business was done, you didn't even know what the size was, what the volumes were and it certainly did have advantages - if a jobber's taking on a chap in half a million shares he doesn't really want to tell the world about it because if you've got enemies in the market, they'll ruin your book.  That wasn't unusual in the early days.  It could be quite dramatic.  

BA: Do you have any impressions of the actual floor of the House also?

AJ: It was enormous really, yes.  I suppose a lot of people don't realise outside the Stock Exchange the floor - the original floor - as I term it had a dome, the third largest in the world, the first one was St. Peter's in Rome and then St. Paul's and then the Stock Exchange, but of course this wasn't something you could see from the outside unless you were in one of the adjacent buildings.  It wasn't particularly decorative but often there would be sing-songs in there.  There were different characters in the market - and as I say there could be two or three thousand people in there - and if there was a lull and nothing much going on perhaps on a Friday or something like that, somebody would start a bit of a sing-song going and one [person I] always remembered, talking about the dome, was a chap called Le Touche, who was with a firm called Hersch Stokes & Wilson, a firm of brokers and they mainly specialized in the mining market and they would sing the Marsellaise to him because he was supposedly a Frenchman and he actually looked like a Frenchman, there wasn't any doubt about that.....

Tape 1, side 2

AJ: In the old market we had these high desks with the flaps on - the sort you would experience in a school classroom - and when it came to the cannons parts in the "la-la la la, la-la la la", all these desks would crash down all round the Stock Exchange and you'd probably have a good thousand people singing.  And the dome was absolutely marvellous for acoustics and it was just one of those things that would suddenly start up.  Standing next to me was a chap called Geoffrey Beck and his father was sort of third joint senior partner of a firm called Hadow & Turner and he, like myself, was introduced to the firm because that was what was expected of him. And a little chap called Thimbleby, maybe Dimbleday, with Gale Parsons, maybe Greenwell, - Greenwell I think he was -  he was the choirman and he used to roll up a Denny Brothers' offer list which was on A4 size plus, roll it up into a baton and, probably at about half past two on any given afternoon, he would start tuning up -"la la la la la la la" [arpeggio]. And then people would realise that we were going to have this old song and the song was "I'm following my father's footsteps, I'm following my dear old dad" and it would be sung right through the normal speed and then it would be sung through again at double speed and there was always the call at the end - "Where's my boy?" and it was evidently something he [ie. Geoffrey Beck's father] would probably look around the pitch to find out where his son was and that was one of the things he used to say. And the day he retired from a firm called Wilson & Watford, I managed to get part of the Stock Exchange choir round and we gave him a last rendering of that and he was in tears, he was nearly eighty I suppose really.  He said, 'I know who that was shaking his finger at me.'  I said, 'Well, Geoffrey we couldn't let you go without one more song'.  But they were some of the characters.  There was the Chicken, the Lighthouse; the Lighthouse actually, he stood in the mining market and he was always moving his head around and it reminded people of the light flashing on the top of a lighthouse.  What his name was, some of the others might remember.  We had the chap called the Tortoise and I think he was with a firm called T. Hammond and he looked like a tortoise.  He was a little bit round-shouldered, he always wore a bowler hat, brown suit, carried his umbrella and his nose would remind anybody that he was a tortoise and he used to walk very slowly through the market. And people automatically got these [nicknames]; Esmond Durlacher was known as the Emperor, father was occasionally called the King of the Dogs, because he specialised in that [market] but just after the war father was also known as the Gas Mask because he was an ARP Warden on Drapers Gardens when it was only three storeys high and not the skyscrapper it is now - 24.  That really disappeared I think when the war disappeared, I think Gas Mask disappeared.  Standing next to me was a fellow called Jerry Barber and he looked like a parrot and that was often a source of amusement.  Chap named Nicky Nicholls - Tom Nicholls with Hadow, would imitate a parrot and rather take the micky which he used to get terribly annoyed about.  When things were quiet this was the sort of thing that would happen really.  

BA: Do you have any recollections of what business was like in the Stock Exchange during the late '40s?

AJ: The late forties wasn't terribly... we had the boom in '40... I think the greyhound boom was '47, '48ish and then I think it tailed right off.  You must remember that jobbers tend to deal in markets and they actually stood in markets.  There was the mining market and there would be the East African, the West African, the Rhodesian, Australian, and then you had the rubber market.  And it was really almost, in the early days one firm stuck to one market.  It wouldn't be unusual for your section to perhaps go quiet for two or three weeks and you're not doing any trade at all.  And the gilt market might be busy and I suppose in some ways it was very beneficial for the brokers because they could switch their clients' money round a bit.  I think when we got to the later years when jobbing firms were in all markets, their capital - I don't say thinly spread - but their capital was being used in all markets and I think there could have been problems with this really.  Very often you get a movement in a share perhaps in the industrial market that was fairly quiet where the senior said 'Right, we'll clear out that book,' and for some unknown reason it appeared that a market, or a stock, or two or three stocks would start falling out of bed.  And it was really purely a market maker or a jobber as we termed them was thinning his book down which did happen.  It was one of those cycles that gradually got built in, I think, after a while.  It made it very difficult for brokers to assess markets because you very often get a stock going completely against the trend, excellent figures, but because the jobber, that section, were told to clear the book out it could have an affect on that stock or that section even.  Yes, and some of the thin days, they were thin really.  I suppose the worst year I ever experienced was '73 I think was probably the worst. Where we traded a year and never made a shilling, all the staff paid, all the expenses paid so really that was a bad year.

BA: Let's leap back a bit from '73 to was it 1951 when you became authorised?

AJ: No, I went straight in as a member in 1960.  I wasn't actually authorised.  No, I beg your pardon, I was authorised with a firm called Thompson Schwab that was after Williams De Broe.  I was there about a year.  That would have been in '56.  

BA: Then you were authorised to deal?

AJ: I was authorised to trade, yes, for the broker.  

BA: When did you actually start working as an authorised clerk with a jobbing firm?

AJ: Officially that was 1960.  As a blue button it was completely forbidden but I did trade a little bit.  I remember father had gone out for his... father always went for his drink at 11.30. He never went for coffee. He started trading at 9.30 and his first break would be half a beer in Slater's Bedeager Bar in Throgmorton Street.  There would probably be six of them meet up, half a beer and then he would come back in again.  And while he was out for his ten minute break Mr Goodison came on the pitch, which was the uncle of the past chairman, and the firm was called H.E. Goodison, and he stood on the pitch and he looked round and I was obviously the only one there wearing my blue button,  and he asked me a price in something, and I made him a price.  He said, 'I want to trade', I said well that's alright Sir, I'll give you a slip and that will confirm it', so he said 'Alright'.  He sold me 5,000 shares and I wrote out a slip, 'we buy from you', and he smiled and went on his way.  He said to me, 'One of us two ought to go upstairs,' and that was all he said and away he walked.  When father came back from his drink, I said, 'Oh,' I said, 'I've bought 5,000 shares from Mr Goodison, I gave him a slip,' I said, 'but he did say one of us two ought to go upstairs and I was a bit puzzled about this.'  He said, 'Well he is the deputy chairman and you are not authorised to trade'!  But nothing more was ever said about that.  I think you had to show a little bit of initiative as a blue button otherwise you'd never get your authorisation, really.  There was always this little bit of a fringe on it really.  People were keen to get their authorisation and you lost your blue button's badge then you see, you didn't wear any badge at all then.  It was quite an honour.  

BA: How did you find moving from jobbing firms to broking firms, then back again?  Were you able to adapt fairly easily?

AJ: No, not really, I always preferred the jobbing side. I always felt a little bit uneasy on the broking because things changed so quickly and some of these jobbers were very unreliable.  I remember posting... in the early days you would post, a blue button's job was to post prices from the boards.  Well, you found out that jobbers after a while were a bit reluctant to change their board prices, it may be that they've done a deal and don't want to broadcast to the world. And I remember posting this price in Hawker Sidley when I was with Thomson Schwab and it was about a shilling out in price and of course my governor got an order to sell 5,000 shares and of course when I couldn't do it near the board price he went potty.  And fortunately, when he came down in the afternoon, as he usually did, this price was still the same on the board but that didn't make any difference to him - I'd let the side down as it were. So there was always this uncertainty that you couldn't actually, unless of course you exchanged limits and the business was left firm with you, there was never any certainty that when you went back that you could in fact trade again.  Particularly if markets were moving.  If you haven't got a firm order - this is the point - if you haven't got a firm order and you've been limited to sell 500 shares, by the time you'd got a price and gone back - we're talking about the old days, you see, where you had to rely on [going] backwards and forwards on the telephone.  The price could be two or three shillings different by the time you got back again and I don't think that really suited my character, I'd rather be in charge of what I was doing rather than at someone else's mercy. Because when the telephones came in - two-way radios - I mean you were on the jobber's pitch and you would say, 'Look the best bid is œ1.50' and the chap said, 'Right, sell,' and you'd done it and you could walk away.  But [before it could take] two or three minutes or even longer, so communications were very poor in the early days.  

BA: Did the brokers have a particular attitude towards jobbers?

AJ: The majority, I think, respected them, realising that they've got to deal again tomorrow, you know.  I remember I was on the authorisation panel - blue-buttons to authorised clerks. And there used to be two members - one jobber, one broker, and a member from the membership staff - and we used to examine the candidates as per the green book as it was laid down, which was the standard practise of trading.  And one of the questions is: What would you do if you found a choice price? And the answer was - you would inform the jobber and trade.  But this lad came up in front of us and the question was put to him, 'Oh', he said, 'I would give the man three farthings more, or a halfpenny more'. And the broker at the other end looked very puzzled about this.  He said, 'Well, you don't have to'. So he said 'Well, no sir, but that's what I would do.' Anyway, in the early days, the candidate had to retire and then we had to discuss whether we were going to pass him or not.  And this broker said, 'I don't agree with that', and I said, 'Well, I can tell you it is his firm's policy never to deal on a choice price, and the reason is that if there is ever a mistake in any of their bargains, particularly with my firm we will always put it right.'  So if two days later he comes round and says, 'Oh, that bargain I did with you, my client hasn't got the stock that I sold you'.  And you would get the jobbing book up, you'd turn up the date and you'd say, 'I'll cancel it.'  But brokers [who], as we termed it, were always 'screwing' - always wanted to deal at the keenest price - one never felt you needed to put their bargains right for nothing.  That was the quality, I think of the relationship between a broker and a jobber as to how he got his bargains put right.  There's no doubt about it, certain brokers favoured certain jobbers so they saw most of their trade.  It might have been a common denominator between the two traders - they collected stamps, or both belonged to the same tennis club but there was this complete trust in their relationship and perhaps it wasn't always a good thing to do all your business with one person.  I have had a broker where I've been doing a lot of his business and he said, 'Well the opposition has been on, his book's in a mess and I really feel I should trade with him.'  So I said, 'Well, yes, feel free'.  I think an open attitude was always better rather than trying to do a broker's business one hundred per cent.  So it was all down to personalities at the end of the day really.  If someone came round accusing you of all sorts of things, well then I would never put a bargain right that one of my colleagues had done.  I would listen to what the broker said and I'd say, 'Right, well OK, when my man comes back from lunch, I'll discuss it with him and we'll see who's right and who's wrong' - well you wouldn't actually say 'see who's right and who's wrong', you would want to know the circumstances. ÿInvariably he would put it right, but the golden rule was that you didn't alter somebody else's bargain, because there might have been some conversation that had taken place - so that you'd got no right to alter it really. But, by and large, the relationships were quite good.  The ones that you didn't get on with you didn't trade with or tried to avoid trading with them.  It wasn't always the broker's fault sometimes, I mean it might have been their client's or might have been that you were dealing with an authorised clerk, that was dealing on behalf of a senior partner and this lad's got to earn a living and he sometimes has to do what his senior partner tells him, and sometimes it was incorrect for that clerk to do the business that way.  So there had to be a little bit of understanding about it.

BA: In 1960 you joined your father?

AJ: Yes.

BA: And you formed S. Jenkins & Son.  Had you moved from a broking firm?

AJ: No, I was with E.S. Godden then, that was the jobbing firm father actually went to.

BA: Had you been a dealer with them?

AJ: No, I was purely a blue button with them.  

BA: So you started dealing as a jobber.

AJ: Officially.

BA: Officially, in 1960.

AJ: That's it, yes.

BA: What was it like starting off?  Was it like starting a new firm [...]?

AJ: Not really no, beause we actually stayed on the same pitch.  In fact, father's pitch was the same pitch he was on in the thirties.  This was something that was treasured and protected at all times.  I mean, as a junior I remember sitting down on Hadow & Turner's pitch to put a page in a jobbing book, because I was a bit fingers and thumbs in the early days, and we had loose leaf books. And I wasn't sitting down there ten seconds and one of their partners was most abusive to me and told me to clear off his pitch.  And it was as silly as that really in the early days, but there was this over protection of your dealing pitch.  Your dealing pitch could be a small board on the wall, perhaps 24 inches by 12 inches and somewhere to stand probably 4 feet away from there and that was your pitch.  Then if you knew a firm was closing down and they were friendly towards you, they would, as we did, we moved pitches but we only moved about four feet to the right.  We knew the firm was shutting down and as they literally took their board off the wall, ours went on there.  There was no application for a pitch and no charges for pitches in the early days.  I mean it was all for free.  I remember saying to father one day, 'Do you realise we must have the cheapest shop in the City of London.' He said 'What do you mean?' I said (our combined fees in those days was £125) and I said, 'That's all we pay,' I said, 'for this pitch, £125.'  I said, 'We've got rates, the rent's paid, we've got electric lighting, heating and a captive audience.' Of course when the Stock Exchange was rebuilt they started making a charge for it.  But it was remarkable when you think back, I suppose this is why there were so many small firms.  The overheads were peanuts really.  It was different days.

BA: You were dealing purely in leisure and entertainment stocks?

AJ: Greyhounds, amusement parks, that really was what it was all about.  Then we did take up a few sweet shares, I remember Elizabeth Shaw, Jameson chocolates, there's another one as well we used to trade in.  And that didn't prove too....  There again, to deal in these shares, you just wrote them on a board, you didn't have to apply to anybody. Equally if you wanted to stop trading in them you just took them off the board.  There was a book called 'Squirt's Guide' which was kept by a firm called James Case.  Every stock that was traded in James Case used to keep this thing updated, or probably one of the boys did on their pitch, and if you weren't certain who traded in this stock you'd look it up and written alongside it was the initials of the firm, except, of course, if James Case dealt in it he would have JC against it and you would have to whistle around for the others.  But that was a very good guide for the juniors coming into the market before a chap named Connolly introduced this Squirt's Guide and made an annual publication of it. And that actually was probably the first time that a firm was registered as traders in that particular stock, because we did have some problems at one stage.  A jobber registered in a stock was entitled to issue a ten bob stamp.  That was if he found himself a bull of the stock at the end of the account, he was allowed this concession that whatever the amount of the stock was or the consideration, he only paid ten shillings nominal stamp at the stamp office.  But you had to be a registered trader.  There was one firm that was doing 'cash and new', or financing brokers' clients' holdings and this chap used to issue these 10 bob stamps in stocks that he wasn't registered in and I remember when the case came before the Stock Exchange Council, the Squirt's Guide was actually used as the bible as to whether he was a full registered person or not. And then of course it developed and then the Stock Exchange in fact took it over officially after that.  But now, to trade in a stock you must register I think 48 hours before hand and you can't trade in it unless it shows on the screen, so you know there is a lot more restrictions.  

BA: About how many other jobbers were there in your market during the early '60s?

AJ: I think there was about ten.  It was rather surprising actually.  I discovered one the other day was Flower Ridehalgh.  I never knew they actually dealt in greyhound shares because a friend of mine's father was a senior partner there and he found one of their old price lists and there was the greyhound shares on it, but they were all characters really.  

BA: Was it very competitive?

AJ: Oh, yes, very; very, very competitive.  In fact I think there was only two firms finished trading in them and one was Smith Brothers and the other one was ourselves, Jenkins, was probably the market in them.  But a lot of the other smaller firms disappeared.  

BA: How did you compare in size with the other jobbers in that market?

AJ: The smallest I think.  We never ever did claim to be on the large side.  I think father's attitude of trading was always: we never borrowed money and we never borrowed stock, which were two facilities that most other firms did [use]. And father's attitude was I like to sleep at night; and we earned a good living out of the business and the staff all did well and father's attitude was why should I over-trade.  That was something that he was always frightened of.  You've got to remember also father saw a lot of hammerings, a lot firms went broke in his time and I suppose he always had it in the back of his mind, 'Well, I won't overtrade, I'm going to survive.'  That was probably his upbringing.  I remember a pal with Pinchin saying to father, they were talking one day,  and they said, 'Well you are definitely undertrading' and father said, 'I like it that way'. And we kept independent really right the way through. 

BA: Was that do you think the main reason why you managed to survive while many other firms simply disappeared?

AJ: Well, yes I think people liked trading with us because we were a small family firm.  I think they liked us because all the other firms were getting larger and larger and a lot of people did prefer the personal attitude, you know, 'I want a bargain altered', 'Yes, OK. we'll just ring the office, they'll sort that out for you.'  The other firms had computer alterations and it would take two or three days.  It was like going into the corner shop as against going into Harrods.  You know it was that sort of attitude. I think we had all been in the business a long time, people had grown up with us and I suppose we had a good reputation, and it was quite a nice feeling actually.

BA: Had you ever thought of expanding the firm?

AJ: Well, we looked at it on one or two occasions but I think because we were getting a good living out of it; I think we were a bit complacent, really.  I mean we did take up other companies; we took up cleaning companies, we took up laundry shares and then, I'm not certain what the year was, it might have been in the '70s I suppose, when the holiday camp businesses were being absorbed, [we took up hotels].  Warners went to... we'll come back to Warners.  Pontins went into Corals; Butlins was the first to go really,  they went into Ranks. And then one or two of the bookmaking companies which we traded in, they started getting smaller and smaller, and we suddenly found ourselves with less stocks to trade in. And we then, in those days we had a jobbers' committee and I called a meeting, sought an audience, because actually I wasn't a member of this jobbers' committee, and said that we intended to take up the whole of the hotel section because we had lost quite a large percentage of our turnover.  Pontins and Butlins was quite a big trade in stocks. And we also had another rule that we wouldn't take up the other stock unless it was in our section.  There was no point in taking up Ranks, because we didn't do the whole of that section. And I think because we always took a moral stand on this, when we said we were going to take up the hotels, they said 'Good luck to you'.  And I think Michael Sargent was probably one of those.  In the later years we had a very good close relationship with all our opposition.  We were always included in any discussions that were going on about market changes and I think our views were always valued.  Because some of the discussions weren't always about the market-making side, they were settlement side and costs and all this sort of thing - it was becoming quite a big area for discussion really.  

BA: Were you limited in the size of the bargain you could do?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

AJ: No, only what common sense, you know, prevailed in.  Obviously by the '70s onwards, apart from the '73 bad time, our capital of course we were ploughing back in.  Because we weren't big spenders.  Father was always a prudent person and we always ploughed our  profits back into the firm and then when I took over for a short while, I insisted that the junior partners left a bit more in, so that by the time we got to the '80s we were much better equipped for trading. And also we had facilities for borrowing and we also had this stock lending and borrowing situation, which I don't know if you know but when you are bear you can take the stock in again; you must go to a registered broker, I think there were three in those days, Shepherds, Laurie and Heseltine Powell were the three main brokers. So if you had a bear position - it had to be a fairly reasonable position fifty thousand, a hundred thousand - you could go to them and borrow the stock against your position. They would deliver it to you, you would deliver on to your open positions and you would be paid a rate, so you got an interest rate on your short positions which could balance up on your bull side really.  In theory you should run a book, if you've got a fairly balanced book of size, you should be able to run that for nothing, and your expenses were purely staff and your office side, so that was another method which we used in the latter years.

BA: If we can go back a little bit to when you started as Jenkins & Son?

AJ: Yes.

BA: Can you describe what it was like actually trading on the floor of the House?  Perhaps you can describe a typical day from the trip into the office, going through each stage and then describe what actually went on in the process of dealing?

AJ: Yes.  We would arrive in the office, always early birds, probably quarter to nine.  We'd have a general discussion of what was going on.  In those days the market opened at 9.30 for the brokers and the jobbers.  We all had to rush in together which was really highly unsatisfactory.  It was something that was altered later on, when the jobbers went in a quarter of an hour earlier to clean the boards up, read any company announcements, so be better prepared really to start.  So it really was quite frightening in the early days to all go in at 9.30 and get all these things sorted out.  I mean, the first quarter of an hour could be quite a lot of pressure really.  I think the other thing as well, if a company announcement came out you are all fighting around it and you've only read one part of it and the other chap's read some [other] part of it and I've remembered a difference of 3 shillings.  We were offering Butlins at 19 shillings a share and I remember Durlacher were bidding 22 shillings and that was the sort of uncontrolled situation that you had.  It was a bit panicky really.  And this all gradually got ironed out really.  I think that was probably the worst moment.  It was like waiting for a bull fight when you knew that Butlins figures were coming out at eleven o' clock - or any of the major companies that you traded in - and you'd probably have fifty, sixty people round you and the other jobbers would have exactly the same, bearing in mind that there was no communication between anybody in those days.  It was quite frightening; and also the first day of a new issue. You've gone in there, you've got your books open - this was in the early days when the jobbers went in first - and there was three of you lining up there and two either side of the chap that's going to run the book to protect him, and then you've got all these brokers come hurling through the market like madmen.  There would be accidents and people's head cut open.  It was very, very unorderly and very unsatisfactory, really.

BA: When did this start to change?

AJ: It's difficult really, these things change without you probably knowing them really.  I'm just trying to think what caused it to change.  Because the last big issue that I can really remember like this was British Telecom when we dressed up with our blue helmets on - that was fairly, it was busy....

Tape 2 Side 1 

AJ: ... but it was more orderly, people were better behaved, I think, really.  It was a bit of a scramble there but it was one continual pressure and I think the other thing about this issue we didn't start trading until 3 o' clock in the afternoon, when the market around us was generally quiet and I think everybody was getting prepared to trade in this mammoth issue.  

BA: Was that a decision of the Stock Exchange Council?

AJ: Well it was, there was a lot of criticism at the time.  It was done to combine with the opening in New York on the Wall Street Exchange.  It was probably the first time it had ever been done, that the Stock Exchange actually combined with another market in another country as it were.  But looking back I think it was probably much better that it was done that way, because all the general business could be done in a much more orderly fashion.  I think to try and do everything at once would have caused a lot of chaos really.

BA: Well, could you continue describing the typical day in the early '60s?  You went into the House at 9.30...

AJ: We would get on with our general business and try and make business.  One of the other things we also used to do was, what was termed as the odds and sods - you'd get brokers who didn't know where to go with certain companies and I built up a little bit of a knowledge of stocks that were traded in Southampton and places like this, so somebody came round and said, 'Oh I can't find who trades in this one.' I said, 'Oh I know a bit about that, I'll get you a price.'  I mean it was the firm's business but because the world was smaller in those days, I could get a price from a country broker, who would get it from his client at Southampton, or another trader at Southampton, and I would then report back and say there's such and such a price, and I might well do a trade on this.  So it wasn't just sometimes waiting for business to come to you, you sort of had to try and make business.  It wasn't always easy in that sense of the word.  And then at 11.30 father would go for his usual 11.30 drink, I would go to lunch in the early days at 10 to 12 and be expected back by half past 12.

BA: Where would you go for lunch?

AJ: I would probably go into Moore's across the road, [for] either a sandwich, or Birch's was another quite a favourite one, and if you were feeling a bit rich you might go downstairs in Slaters.  But that wouldn't necessarily be a regular situation.  And the ironical thing is that Slaters disappeared, Moores, and Birchs have all gone.  They were quite big meeting places.  I'd be back by half past twelve.  Then father would probably decide to go to lunch, leaving his other partner there.  Then I would probably go down and get the marks.  The main thing was to keep yourself busy, then about one o' clockish you would start putting the bargains onto the checking sheets and gradually keep those topped up till you got upstairs.  Then when we got very, very busy this was impossible.  We had to start doing this when we got to the office at 3.30 because the market shut at 3.30 and we would retire to the office.  But you could have busy days and slack days.  You could never actually judge it and yet there was always something going on - I suppose you people-watch after a while or your friends come round and you discuss how your holidays went.  There was always something to do or say or talk about.  And also you'd see somebody pass and you might be trying to do some business and you'd say, 'You used to be interested in such and such a stock, I can offer you 50,000 at so and so', 'I'll try that' and one in ten you might score a bargain as a result of that.  It was a lot of passing trade in that way, making business.  

BA: Did you find yourself actively competing with other jobbers, were you conscious that you were in competition?

AJ: No, not really, no.  Because I think one always felt that if a broker came to you to try and do business and if he was an unmarketable size then you'd try jolly hard.  In fact we had, I think, a good reputation.  If we felt we'd got no chance to do this broker's business at all we wouldn't spoof him we'd say, 'Your best bet is to go and see so and so.' Because there is a time [when] you know which brokers have got the business or which jobber's got the business, and if a broker's left the business firm with another firm then you're not going to see the business, because any firm business left, that broker is not allowed to discuss that with nobody else in the market, so you've got no chance of doing that.  Mind you, I did have a situation once as a seller of a million shares and I knew the jobber that had the business and I knew who his broker was but I actually did my business with the other jobber.  I asked to see him off the market floor and said, 'I've got a million shares to sell at so and so'.  Anyway as a result of that I traded with him. So it was knowing your market really.  It was, as I say, there was always something going on.  Occasionally as I sort of progressed a bit I would be invited to lunches, and if they'd got clients or company directors going in who didn't fully understand the workings of the market, they'd introduce the jobber to explain how it works or how it doesn't work.  

BA: Who ran these lunches?

AJ: The brokers, yes.  But in the early days, it just wouldn't happen it was most peculiar.  And yet in the latter years I've been to a jobber's office for lunch, which when you turn the clock back to the forties, I mean it just never happened.  It just gradually changed through.  And in the latter years I think we had very good relationships with our opposition.  I think we felt there was something mutually beneficial with it, not necessarily always financial really.

BA: Why do you think that did happen?

AJ: Because, I think, the world got larger, I think the Stock Market world - the international thing got larger and larger and I think we were all experiencing similar difficulties and I think we were trying to find the best way round them really.

BA: Can you describe some of those difficulties?

AJ: Well, I think when you are making close prices in large amounts of shares and then stocks became unmarketable and the markets would dry up and it wouldn't be satisfactory at all to the brokers, so I think we used to try and improve the market by having discussions and how can we do this.  Because once you start taking away the marketability of stocks then your turnover drys up and your source of income can go.  Also when there was a new issue - I think this is probably what started it - all the jobbers would read about it.  You would then approach the [other] jobber[s] and say that, 'I'm going to be very interested in it, I want to trade in this new company you're dealing in, its a new hotel company and it would fit in nice with us.'  And then you'd have a meeting with the broker on the morning.  There may be [a meeting] a week before, you would meet the directors of the company and they would try to explain what they were doing and how they're doing it and introduce themselves and the business and then on the morning of the issue, you'd get called to the broker's box and they would say 'Right, what's your idea of prices?' And you would openly discuss, 'Well we think they'll open round about a pound.'  'Have you agreed what the width of the price is?'  You see this is another thing that I think was fairly beneficial.  You'd say, 'Well we think a 3p price to start with', and the broker might say, 'Well I think that's a bit wide', and so it might be adjusted into a two point price and then he would give an indication of what his limits were. And I think really it called for an orderly market so that in the old days when everybody rushed in you really didn't know where you were in a sense but I think the main emphasis was that orderly markets were most essential for everybody's point of view because [if] a broker's picked a wrong jobber and he's dealt a shilling wrong on the price, his client's not going to be too pleased about that, so I think it did have a lot of benefits.  That's probably where jobbers first started really getting close together, I think, when they introduced this system of the early morning, you know, prayer meeting, if you like.  But it did work. 

BA: Were you ever involved in underwriting?  

AJ: Yes, we used to take underwriting.  Never huge amounts of it but we were always offered.  I think they knew the size of our firm, they probably knew our capabilities and obviously our underwriting was going to be totally different to somebody else's.  Which is something we always accepted, we never moaned about it and I think that was probably our attitude.  We were never greedy, you know in that sense of the word.  In fact I was absolutely amazed because on the British Telecom issue it was the firms - what we intended to do was to deal in the all the new privatisations that were coming onto the market, BT was the first one and I remember approaching Hoare & Co and saying, 'It is our intention to take all these up,' so they duly noted it and then we were called to some of the early discussions and then he came round one morning in the market when everybody was talking about these premiums of thirty pence and forty pence, He said, 'There's underwriting and you're getting a placing, but you automatically get some of the underwriting.' It was a most complicated issue and we actually finished up with something like 950,000 shares and when you think that Akroyd and Wedd all the large people I think got 1.4 million; for a little tiny firm of our size to get 950,000 was absolutely amazing because we got all these profits, but at the same time I wasn't entirely happy with this because whatever bargain you've got you are still at risk.  My thoughts would have been, 'Well, if anything happens to Maggie Thatcher or if another war breaks out then its pay and be paid with this sort of stock' - it's all new issue, bearer stock which you need to pay the next day as it were, once it's been checked.  But anyway we accepted this underwriting and we did extremely well that year, but that's the biggest bargain I can actually remember, or biggest profit on one bargain.  But that I think was our relationship with the market.  They knew what they felt we could afford in underwriting and that sort of area.  I think in the early days the underwriting was money for jam really, but it did have some bad ones.  Fortunately I don't think we ever turned any down and I don't think we actually ever made any huge losses as a result of that but it wasn't a big part of our... Same as options, we used to take a bit of money on options in the early days but it was never profitable.  We never kept an eye on them enough and its a very specialised market so we cut that one out.  

BA: How were takeovers worked in the old Stock Exchange?

AJ: Well, you would be approached by your favourite broker, and he would take you into his confidence and say, 'Look, we want to build up a stake in these, how do you think we ought to go about it?' And we'd say, 'Well there is a bit of stock around at the moment but we suggest that you leave it to us and be flexible on a price.  Don't just because you've bought them at a pound say you're not going to give more than a pound again, and depending on the size we will recommend how you pick the stock up.'  And you might lay very quietly for perhaps three or four months and you'd pick up a lot of stock for them and then when they were prepared to move then they would do so.  But this is the advantage of a small firm like ourselves, you see.  We were involved in I think quite a few, I can't recollect any but I can remember this was quite a common practice for us to be doing quite large business and I think because that's how it worked, and also we used to check outside the system as well.  If we had done some very big business, it would never be done through the normal practise on the basis that if something went wrong with it then the bargain would get revealed.  If somebody said there's a checking query on that million shares you bought yesterday, and then all of a sudden all the dealing box knows about this and then they suddenly realise that you've got some sort of operation, so the bargains would be checked by private letter between the partners and that way it was all kept very, very low key.  

BA: Did you ever have cases where the news would get out that something was on and all the other dealers would start adjusting their prices accordingly?

AJ: Can't remember any leakages.  You see it wasn't compulsory to mark your bargains.  You didn't have to mark a bargain.  Bargain marking was purely a voluntary basis, so if it was kept very tight, and everybody in our firm knew that if they ever disclosed any trade that went on within the firm, they would be instantly dismissed, which should be standard practise really.  No, I think because we were a small unit, our security was 2,000 per cent really, we never had any problems then.  And also because you were discrete this is why you got the business.  I think this is always an important factor.  No I think it was quite exciting really, especially when your friend's coming round saying, 'Mind your eye, mind your eye, there's a big buyer in the market'. 'Oh, we'd never see anything like that, we're too small.'  You could hide under your own cloak as it were.  Sometimes people who normally have long memories, you know about three months afterwards, when it all comes out, they  say, 'You knew didn't you?' Well, as we used to say, we were not going to disclose our broker's business, he's not going to thank us for it. But no, it was quite exciting.  The satisfaction as well because you've done the broker's business and he's helped the client and he's going to come back again really.

BA: Would brokers normally have a favourite jobber that they would normally take their business to or did they shop around?

AJ: There obviously were brokers had their favourite jobbers but at the same time the large firms would say, 'Right, we will leave this business firm with Smith Brothers for three months.'  If they got a really big operation on and then at the end of three months they would take that business off and then go and give it to another jobber.  Which I think is correct because you can't do all your business with one man, because there's going to come a time when you want to go and deal in a company that your favourite jobber doesn't trade in and they'll say, 'Well, sorry we're not going to help you.' So you should really spread your business round a little bit I think.  I don't think it matters today, I think the way the screen trading goes, I think you can do your business anywhere.  There's no loyalty, I think, left or if it is its very very tiny [compared] to what it used to be in the old days.  No, there was... changing times I suppose really.

BA: Let's go back now again to this typical day that you were describing some time ago.  You said the House would close at half past three and you would go back to the office.  What would go on then? 

AJ: You'd finish putting all your bargains on the checking sheets then the most important thing was to agree your positions so you take your bull and bear book which is your overnight position and then you would take the difference on the day's trade and work that out from the overnight position and it had to agree with the position in the jobbing book.  Most bargains that we did you would finish up with a position at the end and that was altered on every bargain and you never went home at night until you had agreed your position.  I mean it might appear to be one thousand shares out, it could be a million shares out on a large basis.  Some firms, I know father used to say there was one firm - Frisby Brothers used to agree their positions every three months but it horrified me. We not only used to take the positions out, we used to take our profit and loss out every night as well, so by five o' clock we knew exactly our positions in the book were true and correct and we also knew that we had made a profit or a loss that day by five o'clock and tomorrow was another day.

BA: Then you'd go home?

AJ: Yes, depending on what sort of day, I've been in the office until... In fact I can remember one day, we had had a very quiet day and then suddenly at five o' clock we started doing a lot of business in GRA and we were still there at seven o' clock that night trading.

BA: That was over the 'phone?

AJ: Over the phone yes, no screens or anything like that this was the early, early days.  If the business was there you'd stay. I mean it was - if there was nothing about then five o'clock you would go home, if it was a normal day, but you know you always had to be flexible. 

BA: Would you have people coming into the office?  Would you have brokers calling in or journalists?

AJ: Very few [brokers]; journalists yes, we had the odd journalist but in the early days we didn't have a lot of connections with the journalists, they weren't always welcome I don't think in the early days.

BA: Why was that?

AJ: Well, they would come round and pump you for information which might be delicate and in any case you're not prepared to tell them and invaribly some of them would print... whatever you told them they'd print whatever they wanted to print.  It might not be the right slant on it. And if you were quoted you were now being indiscrete towards your brokers and perhaps towards the directors of the company you were being friendly with.  I think it was sometimes quite counter productive.  

BA: Did that change? You said in the early days there ...

AJ: There was a time, yes.  There were the good days when we would ring them up, perhaps meet them, have a bit of lunch or say the story that was printed in whatever the paper was was incorrect, this is the correct one, they would more than likely print it.  

BA: Did they regard you - you being jobbers generally - as a good source of information?

AJ: Yes, oh, yes.  I mean, the ones that really respected us we would say, 'Well look, I'm sorry we can't comment on it, it's difficult at the moment,' and they would just leave you alone.  But the classic one was a chap called Westdrop who was with the, I think it was the Sunday Express, and they started buying Butlins and Pontins on the Wednesday and it continued on the Thursday and Friday and I remember father writing up on the dealing board 'buy Butlins and Pontins, see Sunday Express' and lo and behold Sunday Express came out and tipped Butlins and Pontins and Westdrop phoned up on the Monday - how dare we do this - and father said, 'Well it was true, what was wrong with it?' Father said, 'You've got a leakage in your office.'  He said the buyers came in from Wednesday onwards and he said, 'It's not on,'  'I haven't put anything on the board that wasn't true.' 'Well it's been very embarrassing and there's no leakages from this office,' so he said we ought to meet and discuss what we can do about it.  So I remember going round with father - we met in Birch's in Angel Court - and we had this discussion on how we were going to sort this problem out and father said, 'Well your best bet is to put a fictitious stock, you write the article as you would normally write it, leave it on your desk or whatever you do, and we'll see what the reaction is.' So he said to father, 'Well what stock would you recommend.' 'Well what about Bell Vue Manchester,' which happened to be a stock where we had quite a few shares on the book.  So he promptly wrote the article and Wednesday, they came in to buy the stock and on the Thursday and on the Friday and on the Sunday no article.  They were looking very puzzled on Monday morning.  I don't know that it entirely stopped it but we certainly got some of our money back on that one.  But that was the only time I have ever known what I call full cooperation to try and stop the leakages but they were quite rife in the '40s. But I think they were more sophisticated because if they were going to write a stock up they would normally probably pick the penny stocks but they would buy them three or four weeks before and they would be genuine, it's not as if they were puffing what I would call rubbish, they were perhaps a stock that had been overlooked and needed to be brought to people's attention but rather than buy them on the Wednesday and sell them on Monday morning they would buy the stock and put it away for several weeks perhaps.  

BA: When you say 'they', who do you mean?

AJ: Well that would be a broker who worked fairly closely with perhaps the newspaper editors.  I'm going back again to the forties you see, the forties and the fifties.  To know what Mr Bearbull was going to write up in the Investor's Chronicle, I think it was, which came out on Fridays; if you knew what Mr Bearbull was going to write up you could always make a few pounds out of that.  The strange thing was that some brokers used to come in to buy a modest 5,000 shares and it was always the same sort of timing and you knew jolly well that there was going to be a mention.  You could pick the paper out on the Sunday, but because he bought this 5,000 shares and didn't make a big fuss of it, as far as the market maker's concerned he's had his card marked and that was acceptable because now, without being too loud about it, you could try and get your book a bit right and not do anything too silly.  So it did have its benefits but they were really a bit over the top I think looking back at the old days.  

BA: Did you feel there were any other things that were slightly disreputable going on in what you call the old days?

AJ: No, I think the biggest culprits were the Sunday paper tips.  They had such an influence on a market and they just wouldn't move three halfpennies or threepence, they would probably move shillings a share which was you know, when you are going back to the days when there wasn't any capital gains tax, so it was quite a profitable thing to do.  I can't ever really recall anything else.  No, I think that was probably the ... In a way it seemed to be acceptable, because nobody ever seemed to do anything about it. You couldn't actually prove anything and there was always one rule which I always reminded father about that no bargain could be cancelled unless it is mutually agreed by all parties.  So even when there was an inquiry and we knew the chap's been a rogue, the bargain won't get cancelled.  The only time we had bargains, they were never cancelled they were frozen and it was the first time I think in the history of the Stock Exchange, [was] when Adrian Jacobs, who was Mr X was - yes this probably is the other instance - Adrian Jacobs was allegedly dealing across the market and he would get broker A to come to the jobber and say that broker B will have some business in this stock and he will be a buyer, so I can offer you 100,000 at 10p.  And the other broker would come in and say 'I understand that you've got a seller in these I can give you 11p.'  So the bargain will be done across the market, two different brokers and gradually, this stock would be put through the jobber over a period of time and eventually the same stock would be traded at perhaps at four or five shillings a share and there was several of these stocks - there were about five in all.  Lincome [was] our stock, and Graham's Town Gas was another one and they were always in a market where there wasn't a market.  Always in a company with a very limited market.  So these two brokers would gradually keep putting this stock through until they got the price up to a certain height and then the broker would deliver the stock on to the whatsaname and then not pay for them and so... rather the chap that bought the stock would refuse to pay for them, in fact it finished the firm.  The seller got paid because the liability in those days came back onto the jobber.  If the broker can't pay then it comes back onto the market maker.  So this chap got paid out in full all the stocks that he had gradually worked up and the jobbers got left high and dry with valueless stocks at the end of the day.

BA: Did they get hammered?

AJ: No, none of the jobbers got hammered.  Hansford I think was the name of the firm, they ceased trading, and R.H. Bristow, they got hammered and we had to pay for the stock. But the bargains were frozen while the Stock Exchange looked into what was happening and as in Lloyd's, you know they always pay up on it doesn't matter whatever, the Stock Exchange attitude was pay and be paid and so we had to pay up and take the stock which was a complete write off really.  

BA: Were you eventually able to get rid of the stock?

AJ: I don't think we did.  I think the stock finally ceased to trade, I think the companies wound up.  It was a very clever operation really, but in fact the major jobbers then insisted that any put throughs done in the market, they wanted to know who the clients were.  I mean there was an old saying, 'Oh a put through is money for jam'.  But on a put through the market maker or the jobber has got the full liability both ways, so what appears to be a farthing a share on a quarter of a million which looks absolutely marvellous, but if you have to pay for the stock that's valueless, it doesn't really cover it at all.

BA: Can you remember roughly when this happened?

AJ:  I guess it's in the '60s.  I mean it's got to be on record in the Stock Exchange. 

BA: Yes, but it was roughly then?

AJ: Yes, I think it was in the sixties.  I'm certain that the Stock Exchange have got on record when they ceased trading.  

BA:  How did your firm develop?  Now you started trading as S. Jenkins & Son in 1960 and continued right up until 1986 and then you were registered as a market maker.  Did the firm develop in any particular way in that 26 years or did you stay more or less the same size, deal in more or less the same size bargains?

AJ: We remained the same.  Well, I think we got larger, I think the bargains got larger because the market got larger.  I don't think there was any doubt about that.  In fact we were the market in quite a few of the companies.  We competed on very even terms with our larger competitors.  In fact when the firm shut down the opposition knew which dealers they wanted because they knew where the business was being done.  No, I think we had quite a good reputation on size.  In fact I think we were larger in size than some of our big opposition. They just didn't want to know.  I think when the firm shut down, I think personally, and this is not sour grapes, I think this really did affect the third market. 

Tape 2, side 2

AJ: Yes, I think it affected the marketability in the third market because if we believed in a company we traded in it and we felt we were there to give a service as a market maker and I don't necessarily think every firm takes that attitude.  I think they look at the profitability of its trading which is probably a very important factor but we didn't always regard it that way.  

BA: Were you moving premises during the '60s and '70s or were you always in the same place?  

AJ: We were always in Warnford Court.  We were on the third floor in Warnford Court.  I think we did change offices across the corridor but that was nothing dramatic in that other than getting the communications up and running but we'd always been in Warnford Court, which of course was very convenient to walk across Throgmorton Street straight onto the floor.  

BA: Did you start introducing new equipment, for example like computers into the office at some point?

AJ: Brother John eventually got the computers when it was moving fast this way.  I think the only the machinery we had in the office in the early days was the comptometer, even that was a dramatic thing to have installed, and the telephone system got updated.  I think in the early days, whatever you put in was out of date by the time it was fully connected.  But I think again my father's influence here - he hated computers, he liked to be able to turn a jobber's ledger up and look and see what trade he had down with that particular firm and everything was there.  I think he always had this fear with computers that something could get wiped out and there was no trace at all of a whole fortnight's trading which was something which was totally unacceptable to him.  And then of course, there was backups and all sorts of things that were introduced and I think it would have been impossible on let's say the BT issue - you could never have coped with it really.  Although on that particular issue, all the partners - all the dealing staff - turned to and  became the office boys and we helped to prepare all the allotment letters for settlement and we were just doing the very menial jobs but everything was up to date and we never had any problems with that at all. And the beneficial thing was that we could see that the profit wasn't justified against the volume of trading, because you would sell 100,000 shares and [for] the small pieces that you were buying them in - the paper work involved was absolutely horrific.  And as a result of that, the next large issue of its type we decided not to do it, because a small firm, as we were, there was no way that we could cope with it efficiently.  So we were one of the first market makers to start widening our prices out and I firmly believe to this day we were one of the few jobbers that actually kept the profit we made on day one.  Most of the other jobbers went on trading and getting closer and closer in their prices and I think they lost a lot of money in that particular stock at that time.  So our lesson was that the settlement side was quite horrendous.  They did alter the settlement system on this particular issue because you were allowed to deliver your alotment letters the night before which enabled the market maker to process them to get them ready to deliver the next day onto so in fact we didn't have to pay for the stock and then arrange for it to be redelivered.  We actually took delivery without paying for it and then this was a tremendous help to the system.  I don't think anybody probably would have coped if it hadn't been done that way.  I remember I went out to arrange some overdrafts because I could see that this was going to be a little bit of a problem, and two days later when we started thinking about it - because I think we were trading for eight days before any thing settled - you could see the way the business was building up, that it was going to be quite a huge settlement.  So we went round to the bank and doubled our facilities for borrowing and in fact we never used a shilling of it because of this delivering it the night before and processing it was a tremendous help.  Anyway that was quite an experience.

BA:  Generally, did you have a good relationship with the bank?  

AJ: Excellent, yes.  It was rather funny because when we first formed, father and I went round to NatWest Bank Lothbury who shall be nameless, and where E.S. Godden originally banked.  We introduced ourselves as the new partners in the firm and they said, 'We're very pleased to meet you and we'll be reviewing your account in six months' time.' And the next time father and I actually went round [to] the bank was about twelve years later and it was when the bank were trying to get to know their customers.  Father and I both went round and we spoke to the manager and we said 'Well, we're a bit disappointed in you, you did say you wanted to see us after six months.'  And they just couldn't believe it, we hadn't been round there, so obviously the account had been monitored and was satisfactory and the profits had obviously increased over the years, so we had a very good relationship only because they never spoke to us really.  But in the latter years we did [speak to] their securities department [...].  There was one observation: NatWest Bank's stock office - NatWest Bank was the only one of the big five that had their stock office in their headquarters - all the other banks - your Lloyds, Midland, Barclays - all had their own stock offices in their own individual way, and I often felt that NatWest missed out on this.  I don't think they had such a close relationship with their customers as perhaps some of the other banks but anyway that's [an observation].  But anyway, we never had any problems with them - they were always very helpful, mainly I think because we used to go round and discuss a problem before it happened.  In fact when we went round to discuss this first overdraft for BT the manager there said, 'Well, you're the first jobber to come in and ask for these facilities,' which must have been good for him because it must have alerted him that there was going to be some others knocking on his door.  But as it happened that particular incident wasn't necessary.  

BA: Did you ever find capital a problem?

AJ: Not really, no.  Because when the turnover started increasing and the profits went with it we then did go to NatWest Bank to discuss our overdraft situation and we went to Sheppards too for our stock borrowing and the usual situation - they had obviously examined our balance sheets and they were quite satisfied that whatever facilities we wanted they were there.  It was never a problem.

BA: How would you describe the markets in which you were trading as a firm - leisure, entertainments.  Were they generally good markets, or did they go up and down?

AJ:  They were fairly stable I would say most of the time.  They were good trading stocks actually because everybody needs leisure.  It's always a commodity that's always required.  It's a bit like dentists and hairdressers.  And it always enjoyed, from a trading point of view - the companies always enjoyed a very good period which again I think [was] reflected in the market.  And it wasn't unusual that somebody would go on holiday with perhaps Horizon and say 'Oh, I like the way this company's run I might buy a few shares,' and I think they manufactured their own shareholders in a roundabout way.  No, it was quite a stable market to trade in and they were all household names as well.  It was rather strange because at Christmas time Butlins and Pontins would be advertising their summer holidays and it wouldn't be unusual in January for the leisure section in the holiday camp section, for the shares to start moving a bit better - only because they had been seen on television.  People would often say, 'Oh that must be a good company to invest in' and that's the way it went.

BA: I've been told that in the earlier period, leisure market was one in which there were many shopbrokers operating.  Was that true of the later period, or true for example of the 1960s?

AJ:  Do you mean to say they were represented by... Trust House Forte had I think three brokers - there was Greenwell, James Capel and one other, which escapes me at the moment.  But in the days when we say that we didn't have insider trading, if a company wanted to put it's own shares better for a takeover situation, there was nothing to stop directors of the company coming to buy their shares to make them better.  It wasn't terribly sophisticated in those days where one could, and especially if it was with the jobbers co-operation. And if he [ie. the Director] said, 'We've got a deal on at the moment, we'd like these shares better,' there was no rule to say you shouldn't do it.  I think there were rules brought in eventually that [stopped] - we won't use the word rigging the markets - but there was another word for it.  But that's really what.... Oh, yes I think that happened quite often in the '50s and the '60s, because companies themselves were young and they wanted to expand.  When you think Pontins must have taken over at least four other major companies in that field and so they were building up their own empires really.  I can remember when I worked for Thompson Schwab when Sears were trying to buy Scottish Motor Traction and this comes back to illustrating how bad the communications were.  The notice went up on the board that the directors of Scottish Motor Traction were divesting themselves of their assets.  I looked at the top and the piece of paper was issued by Streets, Number 1 Royal Exchange, and I was told to write this down verbatim and there was two pages of it A4 size.  I thought this is impossible.  So I nipped over to Streets and I said, 'Look I've got this problem,' and the short story was they let me actually have a copy of it, which was very rare.  And I dashed that down to my governor in Throgmorton Avenue and that was put with a messenger in a taxi and he went straight up to Charlie Clore's office wherever, and he was on a plane going north within sort of another hour or so, and they got an injunction against the directors to stop them disposing of the assets while this bid was on.  So there was a little bit of in-fighting you know in the early, early days.  But as I say there was nothing to stop people putting their shares better, or manipulating the markets to their advantage.  But it was permissible I suppose, if that's the right phraseology. And I don't think it ever actually came out - nobody ever stopped to think about whether it was happening or not happening.  Perhaps we were all a bit naive in those days - I suspect we were really.  The other way to disguise bargains of course was for London persons to put their buying orders or selling orders through a country broker.  They instruct their Manchester broker to do something who would in turn deal back through London and the bargains got lost somewhere along the line.  I suppose eventually this got moved to Swiss Banks and Jersey banks and it was followed in a more sophisticated way.  Yes, that's some of my earlier recollections in that direction.  

BA: Were you very conscious of the jobbing system changing during the '60s and '70s - did you ever think in those terms?

AJ: No, it wasn't obvious that it was changing. I think I tried to introduce one or two things in the firm because brokers were requiring more and more information.  They weren't just interested in what the price was they wanted to know what the dividend was, what the yields were, what the cover was and I introduced in a small way into the firm [changes] so that we had better backing on knowledge of the companies, which I think the larger firms had been doing for quite some time.  You could turn a jobbing book up and there was the yield spread, the price spread and dividend cover and it was all there.  A broker relied on the jobbers in the early days, he's got a client on the phone, and he says, 'What are so and so, what do you think to them, what's the dividend, when's it due,' and if you could rattle all this off to them you were doing half his job for him and if he did get any enquiry the chances are you would probably do his business for him.  So I did introduce one or two things in this area.  And also sort of early warning system on new issues when the calls were due and last day for splitting, because this all influenced your trading on the floor.  We tried to get a little bit more sophisticated in this area; and then of course we took the exchange telegraph cards which were very useful in those days.  But the actual jobbing thing itself I don't think really changed.  It was always the same.  I don't think jobbing really changed, even with decimalisation.  I remember going to the meeting on that - Jock Hunter took the chair, Esmond Durlacher called the meeting, and all the senior partners - or representatives of all the market makers attended this meeting, I've got a feeling it was in Messel's office in Winchester House in those days.  I think that's where it was.  Anyway we all went round there, prior to decimalisation, and there was a discussion [to the effect] that they wanted to make a firm commitment how we were going to trade in the new market.  You know, with the currency changing as such and one chap wanted to deal in tenths of a penny on the basis that it would suit the new computerised world which was eventually going to surround us, and it was going on and on and I thought, 'Well we're not getting anywhere here,' so I stood up and I was very junior, I mean there was a lot of very senior people there and I was just really the boy, a tradesman, and said that 'Mr Chairman, I propose that we carry on dealing in quarters and halves as we've always done.'  I said, 'I think it will be less confusing for the more senior members,' and I must confess I didn't realise the difference in the profits.  Because a farthing old money was a pound and 10 pence, a farthing new money was £2.50 so the jobbing turn was going to go up quite horrific.  And I sat down and a chap was sitting next to me who was with Pinchin - his names escapes me for the moment - he got a dig in the ribs from his governor and [who] said, 'You'll second Mr Jenkins' proposal.' Up he popped, 'I'd liked to second it',  I don't think he knew what he was doing either and the Chairman waffled on a bit, he said, 'Well, OK, gentlemen if you would like to go away now and discuss this with your partners.' And up popped Mr Powell, he said, 'Well, Mr Chairman, you've had a proposer and a seconder,' he said, 'I suggest if you don't have any amendments you put it to the meeting.' 'Well, all those in favour?' and that was it - it all finished and that's how it all happened, and my claim to fame I suppose really.  But I didn't realise how much it was, I hadn't actually sat down and worked it out mathematically how much better off we were going to be.  But so many things were accepted in those days. 

BA: Did the jobbers continue to meet whenever the occasion demanded?  

AJ: Yes, you could have a meeting for whatever reason,  mainly on new issues or if somebody wanted to take up a stock.  I think one of the things that's partly ruined the jobbing system - the marketability of stocks - is too many jobbers in a stock.  I mean we reckon three to four jobbers maximum on a small type company, obviously on your ICIs you could have ten jobbers as many as you liked really though probably still out of that ten there would only be four that would be really in the market. And I always maintain that too many jobbers in a market could ruin the marketability - it just won't move around, it's just an actual fact.  There's too many elements pulling against one another I think and you'll finish up none of them would want to make a market and you'd finish up with six jobbers, none market making. And I think this is probably one of the problems that's happened with all this exposure on the screens.  People did spoil one another, the opposition, now and again, but it wasn't something that went on all the time and I think this has been one of the problems.  Why people ever thought that if they had twenty market makers in a stock that they were going to carry on, or increasing the overall profit on the market making side, was just not on.  The cake was only one size and it just wasn't going to get any larger.  In fact I think it's proved detrimental not only to the market makers, the jobbers, but I think to the general public as a whole as well.  I don't think it's been any benefit whatsoever.  

BA: Well you said that before '86, the actual technique of jobbing didn't change, were you conscious of the number of jobbing firms becoming fewer.  Did that seem to affect the system?

AJ: Well, not really, I mean I knew it in terms of numbers because when S. Jenkins formed in 1960, there were 62 jobbing firms.  I always remember that as, if you like, [a] milestone. In 1946, when I first went into the market, I think over all there was probably about 300.  So I noticed the change, the market-makers shrinking. I wouldn't necessarily think that we did any more trade as a result of that because Wedd were probably made up of ten firms all in various markets, in fact some of the amalgamations we were lucky - the small jobbers were lucky - that the large market-makers were there because one or two of the small jobbers got into some serious financial problems and the large jobbers, to keep an orderly market, just moved in, took them over and took their positions over - there could have been some really disastrous situations of firms overtrading in a sense.  I think one or two jobbers in the gilt market overtraded and they were bailed out and probably bailed out by Mullens the government broker, but I think when they did it the third time I think they said, 'Well enough's enough.' And it was one of those unusual situations when a firm ceased trading without being hammered, they just didn't come down.  It was quite an eerie thing really because most jobbers were on their pitches at say quarter past nine, waiting for their trade. And there was one particular firm in the gilt market, at twenty past nine they weren't there and twenty-five past they weren't there, no blue buttons, nobody cleaning the board, and at half past there wasn't anybody and at 9.25 and it was 9.45 when the Stock Exchange put out an official statement that they had... I think the official phrase was they had ceased trading and that was it.  I mean from a point of view, it's much better that member firms are now monitored on their trading and it is much better that they be shut down as a going concern rather than hammered which I always used to think was a more expensive way of doing it.  I always thought there was a different way of doing it but that was the system.  It was final really.  Quite an eerie thing when the waiters used to bang the gavell on stand ten and stand eleven, they used to do it simultaneously, 'Gentlemen, we regret to announce that Mr so and so, Mr so and so, and Mr so and so trading as .... have failed to comply with their bargains,' and that was it - finish.  Then there was always this in the early days with no means of communication, a great scurry away onto the telephones to inform your office, who then had to prepare all the positions that were open [with that firm] on a sheet and they were submitted to the official assignee and for makeup prices and that was the start of the finish as it were of a firm.  

BA: What were makeup prices?

AJ: When a firm were hammered, they'd got a lot of bargains still open, they'd bought a thousand shares at a pound from a jobber and it's not fully certain whether the client would settle that bargain, so on the actual hour of the hammering or the actual time of the hammering, the official assignee will come round, once he's got the list in from the market makers he would come round and say what's the hammer price for Butlins and if they might be 19 shillings. Now there's a difference of a shilling a share on the makeup price and the bargain price so that's actually closed that price down in that account, so there's a difference on the jobber's ledger account now of a shilling a share - that's settling the inter-Stock Exchange deal.  Now you've submitted your list to the official assignee who's now moved into the broker's office and he identifies that bargain with a client and he will give you the name and address of that client and one of the few occasions when a jobber or a market maker would write to a member of the general public because until that situation you were not allowed to communicate with them and then you write to Mr Brown and say, 'This 1,000 shares in Butlins you've bought - do you wish to pay for them or do you wish the bargain to be closed?'  And you give him the option of what he wants to do, and then you settle direct with him.  It may be that another broker will take over certain clients' bargains and you would settle through the other broker but that's the way a hammering would be settled and the hammer prices would be up on the official assignee's board for anybody that's got any queries.

BA: Do you remember times when there were many hammerings?  Or were they only occasional?

AJ: Not in my time.  But I think Mr Ahern will probably tell you of a time when the rattle went at 3.30 - it must have been in those days when nobody was hammered after 3.30 - and somebody said, 'Thank goodness the rattle's gone they can't hammer any more today.'  And this evidently was in the mining market where you've got this trace going on, the trace always stops at the jobber or the next firm he's traded at.  Well there was a whole string of bargains in the mining market and several mining market jobbers were all hammered on the same day.  I don't know what the numbers were but I know that my father said they said 'Thank goodness when the rattle went at 3.30, they can't hammer any more today.'  And there [was] probably not a lot of money involved,  I think Tingey Baskett when they were hammered I think the total amount of money was sort of £25,000 and yet you'll have other firms where it's a million and half - it really is big money, some of it's recoverable but not necessarily all of it.  But of course on a hammering, once you've signed the authorisation to the official assignee, which is in fact what we term a City undertaker or a liquidator then he moves in and takes all your assets - he'll take anything, he'll take the house, the car, and it is quite a final thing, quite traumatic.

BA: Who normal acted as the assignee?

AJ: He's appointed by the Council. He's a full-time person in the Stock Exchange. He was known as the Rat and his name was R A Thompson, but his initials were RAT.  He was the last one I know, I think there was one after him but then it was done more as an office rather than as an individual; but I mean, I did visit somebody that was hammered the day after to give him some advice.  He was in a very, very distressed state.

BA: Was this a jobber?

AJ: Broker, broker friend of mine. And although, you see, it's always considered hammering is a collective thing.  It doesn't matter whether you are the guilty party or not.  I mean if you've got a partner who's been fiddling and has caused the firm to shut down you are just as guilty as him because you are in partnership with him, so you go under with him.  And this particular fellow, I remember visiting him and his family, I think he had three children, he had the dog and the goldfish - all the normal commitments of a young married man and it was quite distressing.  People think its very dramatic the hammer banging, but if you see the distress behind it all, its not really very funny at all, its a very sad time.  And particularly because you would have known most of them - you'd probably have grown up with them as well.  But I don't think it works like that now, I think they've got a different system and I think it's probably a good thing.  If there is a problem arriving in a firm, well then they just shut them down.  It's less dramatic and I think it's probably a better way of doing it.  I remember we were on holiday once - we were on the Norfolk broads -  I go on a batchelor holiday with my friends.  Well, a funny thing, having said I don't associate with them, I'd forgotten about this, I've been going up there thirty odd years.  There's six of us and five are Stock Exchange, there's one odd one out, and we were sailing down this river going towards Barton Broad and we were listening to the news - the ten o'clock news I think it was - and it said five London Stockbrokers are hammered.  Well you're thinking in terms of firms rather than individuals and five firms and there were no walkie-talkie phones or anything like that, and we eventually got to Stalham and we managed to phone in there and it turned out the firm was E J Marks and there were five partners and they were the five brokers hammered, but one envisaged that there was one firm had failed and it had rippled on.  In fact one of those partners paid up and got his membership back, because you lose your membership immediately.  In fact the other case I'm talking about, the chap I went to visit, he paid off his debts and applied for his membership and got it back again.  So there are occasions when they do come back, it's the exception to the rule though.

BA: Changing the subject, slightly, thinking now about jobbing during the late '70s, early '80s did you feel there was any pressure on single capacity, there was any pressure on it to change - to adopt a different system of trading?

AJ: Not really, no.  As a small firm we never felt threatened or vulnerable.  It was only getting towards the mid '80s when I personally felt that .... I think the thing that spurred me on to sell out [was] it was the first time ever in the history of the London Stock Exchange we actually had something to sell.  In the early years all you had was whatever money you'd got in your current account and that was the finish of it.  When you retired you took your money out of the current account and off you went, or your capital account.  You didn't sell the business to your fellow partners or anything, you just left with what you'd got and this was the first time that we'd actually been able to sell our business.  And I thought having been up there nearly 40 years this is a good time to take this very, very seriously.  And I suppose my age was more of an influence on it whereas my brother is 17 years younger than me [and] it probably didn't appeal to him so much, but I thought it was a good opportunity to actually cash in, particularly as I was thinking that I would like to retire.

Tape 3, side 1

AJ: The question of retiring I suppose, all through my life in the Stock Exchange it never entered my mind, it wasn't on the agenda at all.  I mean I used to love coming to work, Saturdays and Sundays always seemed to be a nuisance because they interfered with my City life but it was quite stimulating to get in on a Monday morning perhaps with not a lot to look forward to and you got on with making money I suppose and enjoying the company. And the thought of retiring I don't think ever entered my head until the times were changing and they were still beneficial from the partners' [point of view]- our profits had been climbing very very steadily right from the mid '70s right the way through to the mid '80s and it wasn't as if we were selling out because it wasn't profitable.  

BA: When had your father retired?

AJ: Father actually died, he came off the partnership list I think in sort of about 1980 and he died about 2 years later - never been ill in his life and suddenly taken ill and he died three days later after a serious heart attack.  He was a sad loss really because he was a great character in the Stock Exchange - very well respected.  In fact I often say I still consult with him when I go up the cemetery and tell him how things were going and the senior partner of Schweder got horrified about this; he thought I really was talking to the dead!

BA: So when your father came off the partnership list, you became senior partner?

AJ: I was the senior partner for a short while.  And then it looked right for me to retire from the partnership list because we were having cessations in our partnership which did have certain tax benefits and then it was discovered that I could cease to be senior partner but still be a partner with the firm on paper. And it seemed in those days that you could be a partner on paper for Stock Exchange purposes but you didn't receive a proportion of the profits so from the taxman's point of view you were a non-partner.  It was a most peculiar situation but, of course, in the Stock Exchange eyes you were still liable for the all the liabilities. So I ceased to be a senior partner because it looked as though I was going to do an early retirement which suited us all tax wise and in fact I did a U-turn.  Some people have said I've retired more times than Frank Sinatra, which is a bit unkind, but anyway I suppose it sowed the seed of actual retirement really.  But then brother John took over which I think was actually a good idea because he got some young ideas and then with the computer world situation coming in he was probably the fellow to do it.  He'd studied it and accepted it and trusted it so he was probably a better man than I was.

BA: What happened to the firm?

AJ: We carried on trading, our profits didn't get any better or worse other than the trend that we were experiencing.  It's rather strange when I look back, all the changes; I don't think I noticed any of the changes and I don't think anybody dealing with us did.  We were just S. Jenkins & Son.  They were trading with the firm and I don't think they ever thought well father's retired, there's a weakness, or Tony's no longer the senior partner, you know we ought to be a bit wary.  I think things just rolled on, we were a bit complacent really.  

BA: What happened at the time of Big Bang then?

AJ: That was quite horrific that was.  We were, like most firms, running quite large books and I think in the first month we lost about £7 million, which was a very accurate and true figure.  We got most of it back again but it was very, very harrowing time really.  Because it doesn't matter how poker faced you are, even though you're not trading face to face, it still affects you in everything you do.  I think we did recover our attitude six months or so afterwards and we got back into the trading game but I think by then the stuffing had really been knocked out of the market.  I don't know that it caused other people's attitude to change, but it certainly didn't make the trading any better.  I think people got more cautious after that, particularly you know if you've got third line stocks and they're unmarketable they just became more unmarketable.  Suddenly just people realise that the icing on the cake was a dangerous thing really, and I think the confidence really went sideways then.  And it was a pity really because at that sort of time people were just building up on the third market, all the new companies were coming to the market and it was all very exciting times, and typical of the Stock Exchange, there's no sure thing as a profit.  There's always, I used to say, the unknown factor that could come along and wallop. 

BA: And so did the firm stay independent or were they eventually acquired?

AJ: No, we stayed independent right up to October '86.  I think it took us a short year I think for all the negotiations to happen and that's when it actually happened.  In fact I don't think we lasted quite the 3 years I think in fact it was almost to the day that we ceased trading actually to the time we were taken over.

BA: And who took you over?

AJ: Guinness Peat took us over.  We were then transferred to Guinness Mahon after all the internal changes there.  When Alastair Morton went - who is now in charge of the Channel Tunnel - he was our governor in a sense in those days.  Although I must confess nobody ever interferred with us at the bank, I think because they probably didn't understand what we were doing - and market-making is very much a people's business and there's not always an explanation why you did a certain bargain or you didn't do it, I think it is just a feel that you have - but we obviously didn't get it right, we didn't suit the new people that had come in and I think they just decided, like other owners of market makers, that they had had enough and it wasn't what they thought it was.  In the first year we were there we made some tremendous profits for them.  I mean we were the largest profit making section in the bank, it's just that we unfortunately gave it away again.

BA: Well, let's go back in time again to before 1986.  You described the Stock Exchange when you started on the Floor as a blue button as a place where there was occasional group singing, pranks and so on.  Did that change?

AJ: Oh, yes dramatically.

BA: Can you describe that?

AJ: I think what changed it [was], when the Stock Exchange was being pulled down we had a temporary market and we were rehoused in another part of the building, on the same site, and I think this totally changed the character because we were all split up, we weren't on the same floor.  In the old market you could almost stand in any part of the floor and you could survey the whole scene.  But when the market got split up I think people seemed to disappear and you didn't sort of recognise it and I think one of the important things at that particular time - Wedd Durlachers, they elected to have their pitch on one long wall and in fact they were probably the first time that the market wasn't in a zone -  it wasn't a market as we knew it. And they couldn't see what the other market makers were doing, because in the early days you'd get the type of jobber that would come in and decide I'm going to call the market easier and he'd mark everything down in red and perhaps Smith Brothers or Pinchin would look at this and think 'Oh he thinks things are easier, I'll mark them down', so you did have characters that were influencing the market at 9.30 and they hadn't even seen a broker yet, they haven't even seen a trader and just because he feels a bit liverish he may want to mark the market down, there was this gut feeling of market making. But when we went in this temporary market, Wedd had their back to the whole of the market and I think this was at a time when we had the most stable markets that I think the Stock Exchange ever had.  Because people couldn't see what they were making and they couldn't see what other people were making and they got fed up with [brokers] saying there's a backwardation or there's choice prices, they used to get quite rude and say, 'That's what we're making. Do you want to trade or do you want to not trade.' And I think because they weren't overlooked and they weren't overlooking the market, I think looking back that was the most stable time we ever had in the... the truest markets we had, prices didn't change unless you traded, which is I think a lot different to what happens now.

BA: What was a backwardation?

AJ: A backwardation is where one jobber is bidding more than another jobber is offering them at: so if they were œ1 offered in one place and 21s. -  I'm going in old money now, aren't I - 21s. bid, there's a shilling back and you were not allowed to deal on a backwardation.  A choice price was buying and selling at the same price.  Again we're back to the authorised clerks examination, or unauthorised clerk's examination - you would then ask 'if you found a backwardation, what would you do?'  You'd say, 'Well I would tell the jobber.' 'And what would you expect him to do?'  You'd say, 'To change the price to a choice price and deal in a marketable amount.'  But in fact there's nothing to stop the jobber dealing on a backwardation, if he says, 'Well that's what I'm offering them at, trade,' then you trade.  Which, turning the clock right back to the forties where there was a very strict procedure on dealing, there's one thing you never did - it's what you call open another person whether you be a jobber or a broker - and the one thing you would never say and this has happened: you'd ask the chap the price, he'd make you twenty to 25 pence, 'What is the size?' and the chap would say in 10,000.  The one thing this man should never say, 'I'll make that to you in your lot,' because if that man's got an order to deal in a million or five million shares, he will say, 'Right I will sell you,' and then the chap said, 'I didn't mean that.'  I'd say, 'Well, I'm sorry, you've traded.'  And there were instances in the old days when people actually had to put bargains down, really sizeable bargains that they didn't really want to. So you never opened.  Same if a chap passed you and said, 'Hello, it's getting late, have you been to lunch yet?' 'Thank you very much' - He's offered you lunch, and this was the 'Are you thirsty' and it would cost you a drink or cost you a lunch, and this was the way the business was based on.  It was based on trust and not trying to open the other man on his size, and if you did then you'd got to be prepared to trade and these were things that you had to be very cautious of and this was quite a strict discipline in the old market. 

BA: Did this discipline change?

AJ: I think it did a bit when the screen trading came in. I think because it seemed to go out of the window somewhere along the line and of course it was only the old guard that probably knew this conversation, this type of procedure.

BA: Well you mentioned the old guard, which probably leads me on to the question about the particular people you have memories of or particular personalities...

AJ: I mean most people talk about members being the old characters, but I just recollect on stand 6 there was a waiter on there called Churchill and he actually looked like Churchill - I can visualise him now, because from my pitch I could see most of the other ones.  And he actually looked like Churchill and he was called Churchill. And so apart from members having nicknames, etc, etc, I think the famous one was Frisby Brothers, because there was one there called the Coward.  They'd say, 'Is the Coward in today?'  And the reason was there were two brothers, one had won the VC and one had won the MC and the MC was the Coward because he didn't get the same as his brother, which was an actual fact.  There was another one there - a chap called Lightfoot and he had a habit when he was called to wave his hankerchief - a clean one - out his top pocket that was, and the waiter used to call out 'Pim, Vaughan, Lightfoot' and then he would repeat the Lightfoot rather in a melody way as it were and then all of a sudden four or five hundred people would take their hankerchieves out and they would all be waving them - and that was Pim, Vaughan, Lightfoot, stand 11, which was my stand actually.  So they were more characters really.  And the other one was Punch Davies who was with Vickers Da Costa.  He looked like Mr Punch, his face looked like Punch. And you've also got to remember in the old market, everybody was very pro the Royal Family and very pro British and it was almost you felt like a colonial sort of situation here and Punch Davis was in the Gurkha and when one of the Gurkhas - the last Gurkha to win a VC - was brought into the market, he got permission, because in those days you had to get very special permission to actually walk onto the old market floor and Punch Davis got permission to bring this Gurkha in and he walked right the way round the floor, he walked the longest way around and out again.  He didn't come in in uniform - I always rememeber he wore a very smart blue suit and he was clapped the whole way round.  It was quite moving really that this sort of situation - normally reserved for Royalty, you know the Queen Mother on her birthday of if she was a guest of the Stock Exchange Council coming for lunch then she would do the walk around bit which is quite common now with politicians, etc.  But it was quite exciting.  I remember when the King died there was a junior there, who wasn't wearing a black tie and he got really told off over this.  'How dare you come into the market, don't you realise?'  The Queen's birthday, the King's birthday, the Stock Exchange Choir always formed up in the gilt market and always sang the National Anthem and the whole market joined in, which was later substituted by a tape from the Consol Bar which didn't have the same effect at all.  I don't know whether this was probably why the Stock Exchange was so melodious.  I think there were other instances where people used to sing.  It was really quite different.  

BA:  Did that happen in the new house also?

AJ: No not really, disappeared, completely disappeared.  The last thing that happened one would probably describe as a prank. There was a chap called Dodger with Phillips & Drew.  He jumped in front of a train at Manningtree.  It was a Royal Mail train - it wasn't going very fast but he slowed it down to a stop because he was fed up with - Francis Dodgeson is the chap's name - he got fed up with no trains at Manningtree and he wasn't arriving in the City and he thought he would express his disapproval.  Anyway, they threw the book at him,  the railway book as it were, and he finished up in court, stopping the Royal Mail train, interfering and all the rest of it, and I think the total fine and all his expenses was about £1000. And I think this was probably, time goes so quickly, 12, 14 years ago.  Anyway on the 5th March all this happened.  A chap called Paul Downes and myself, once the case had been heard and that was the finish of it, in the new market with the Podiums I had a couple of flags made up - one green one and one red one - and we got a couple of whistles and on 5 March we used to lean out of our podium entrances, and wave the flag and blow the whistle, you see, but we used to get Francis into the market on some pretext that he was wanted somewhere and we'd get him in between us you see and then he would realise that it was the anniversary. And then as things progressed I managed to acquire a couple of railway hats and that probably was the last time that, if you could compare it, where we had pranks in the market and we used to do this at twenty-five past eleven and then we would go over to the Greenhouse and have a couple of bottles of champagne to celebrate it. But they probably when you look back...  in fact we did this at a dinner on 12th of October I think we did it.  Francis was the guest of the President of the club.  There was about five hundred of us - all Stock Exchange people - Stock Exchange Veterans Club - and Francis was a guest of the president and I managed to get Paul Downes who's now retired from Wedd, he came up from the country and I took the hats and the whistles and the flags up and we did the flag waving act and the whole floor went mad.  It was a little bit of history there which not all of them fully experienced. But it went.  It seemed to go overnight really, the characters really disappeared.

BA: Well, let me conclude by asking you what you thought it took to be a successful jobber?

AJ: Well, I think you had to have a natural trading ability really and I think an important thing was a personality.  I think that's probably the second thing. And I think also you had to be a very even character all the way through.  People that flared up and bawled and shouted and got upset when bargains had gone wrong, I don't think these people didn't do quite so well. And I think the other thing that was most important is about 90% luck.  Everybody says it's skill and all the rest of it but there was a lot of luck attached to it.  The night you went early and you missed the seller and the profits came out the following morning 50% down and you could have quite easily have bought that stock before you went home that night, so that I think it was [luck]. But as someone said to me the other day, you make your own luck, so probably that was what it was all about.  And I think that was all the way through. I think all the aggressive characters all disappeared.  Without naming them, I can think of about six people that had a very aggressive attitude towards their brokers and when firms shut down and they looked around nobody was interested in them.  And, as I used to say to my boys, 'Look we're the shop on the corner, we're shopkeepers.  If people come into your shop and you're rude to them they won't come back again, so we're here to give a service, so give a service as good as possible, and be yourself as well, 'I think that's another important thing.  You build up your own friends in that sort of area.  Something I can recollect going right back to when I first went in the market was always struck me as rather amusing actually, there was a notice pinned on the board, 'Rule 17B the throwing of paper balls and other missiles strictly prohibited,' which of course was completely ignored because any newspaper after one o'clock was fair game for a paper ball through the middle of it or even to set it alight. So those were the things I think we missed eventually.

BA: I think we'll finish there, thank you very much.