How Laithwaites happened. Part six

So, in 1973 it could seem, that was that. All we had to do now was not drop the ball and watch the Company grow.

It’s true, after the launch of The Wine Club my memory does go hazier. But I don't think that was because not a lot was happening. On the contrary it was because it all became a bit of a blur. So much to do. So much we wanted to do.

We like to believe that the tumble drier of life will stop soon, we will be able to see where we are and look around a bit. But that never happens does it?

Well maybe at 65 it’s beginning to and I am finding time to try and remember what we did next, why we did it and if there are any old ideas we could use again.

Because it grew so fast, our business more or less was - after 1973 - 'The Sunday Times Wine Club'. Bordeaux Direct continued on in its own sweet little way under Windsor Arch, but was eclipsed.

The Club did revolutionary stuff. Produced wine lists full of information. We had clever codes and symbols for how and when to drink, we had witty descriptions from the pens of Hugh Johnson and some of the best Sunday Times writers. And we broke the rule of listing everything in regional categories beginning with Champagne, Bordeaux and Burgundy … with not much else to follow. We got wines from the strangest places and just put them in a list by price order.

We also launched a magazine; 'Wine Times', which in its time had some great editors: Cyril Ray, Jancis Robinson, Jim Ainsworth and contributors like Alan Coren; a hero of mine.

Our belief was we had to teach, we had to inform. No-one else was doing this. Supermarkets didn't actually sell wine back then. The 'off-licences' and pukka wine merchants of the day published lists that just said things like 'Margaux 1962', 'Nuits St Georges 1964' and left it at that. Meant little outside the Upper Classes.

We and the sainted Editor (to borrow a phrase) thought there was a large and baffled public out there who wanted wine ... and some wine knowledge. So we provided tons of it. As a result we were cartooned in 'Punch' and lampooned in the Eye's 'Pseud's Corner', but hey, that's fame!

As a boy who so loved maps he wallpapered his room with them, I thought Hugh Johnson's World Atlas of Wine was the most exciting book ever published. I drooled over those maps … the first time anyone had ever seen where wines actually came from. And it was now my job to take off, around the world, armed with that book, and go find the wine goodies of the world! How could this ever be considered as 'work'?

I've been apologising for my 'job' ever since.