Stephen Conrad Palmer – 1942 ….

I was born on 17 January 1942 in Brightlingsea on the Essex coast, at the most desperate time for Britain during the Second World War. Invasion from Germany was threatened and the whole surrounding coastal area had restricted access. My father, Gerald, was Headmaster of the local Secondary School, where my Mother, Muriel, also taught. I had one elder brother, Andrew.

Two years later, my father was appointed Head of the Mid-Essex Technical High School at Chelmsford, and we moved to a nice house rented in Shenfield, Essex. So some of my first memories are of war-time…. barrage balloons, a Highland pipe-band marching to Warley Barracks and cups being broken on the station at Witham in celebration of V.E.Day in 1945. My grandfather was a Saddler and Harness-maker in Witham, and I regularly visited there, especially after ny grandparents had retired.

My first school was St Mary’s in Shenfield and when 7 years old I started at the Brentwood Prep School. By this time our family had moved to 50, Mount Crescent in Brentwood, a house with wild woodland at the back, but where my parents were never so happy. In 1953, after the 11+, I moved to the main Brentwood School where I was in East House, eventually becoming Head of House. Also in 1953, my father was appointed Headmaster of a Comprehensive School in Harlow New Town, a position he occupied with some distinction until he retired in 1975. (He was awarded a C.B.E. in 1967). Perhaps the outstanding day was in 1958 when the Queen and Prince Phillip visited both my father’s school in Harlow, Mark Hall, and Brentwood School, celebrating its 400th Anniversary that year. (50yeaars later I went to the 450th Anniversary Dinner at The Mansion House in the expectation that I wouldn’t be around for the 500th!).

My school-days were pretty middling; I was keen on sport, but only represented the school at squash, and won a very modest number of academic prizes. At the age of 12, I did go on a mountain-walking holiday in North Wales, organised by the “Eagle” comic, and that love of mountains has stayed with me. I soon began rock-climbing in Snowdonia, Glencoe and Skye (the most mountainous mountains in Britain) but unfortunately on my second visit to Skye, in August 1958, I had a serious climbing-accident, falling over 100 feet; this resulted in a dramatic 13 hour rescue, followed by 5 lonely-weeks in Raigmore Hospital, Inverness.

Slowly I recovered through the autumn and winter, and it was geography classes which gave me the idea of going to Norway, joining a glacier-climbing course in August 1959 at Finse overlooked by the Hardangerjokulll. On arrival I sat at a table with an empty seat, and there was a girl being taken rather reluctantly on a walking holiday by her father. She was planning a week in London the following year, and wanted to go to “My Fair Lady”. We met again……. and eventually Eldrid and I married on 19 June 1965.

At school I was always interested in business and somehow didn’t want to go to University. So I applied to Unilever as a Management Trainee, being interviewed on 1 January 1960; I was accepted by Unilever and joined Van den Bergs, margarine manufacturer in April. I lived in London where I enjoyed various societies, courses, opera and concert-going. For the Proms I had a season-ticket going to 39 concerts in 1961. And I did my ‘courting’ with Eldrid in 1962, and under her guidance I became a Roman Catholic. But I decided I had made a mistake in not going to University, and after several unsuccessful, interviews was accepted by Pembroke College, Cambridge.

So I left Unilever and between April and August worked as Night Porter at the Fretheim Hotel in Flam, Stavangerfjord, Norway. Eldrid was four hours away across the fjord by boat (how convenient!) and we got engaged that summer. Eldrid then went to work for Scandinavian Airlines in Stockholm, and in 1964 she arranged a summer job for me there. The following year she came to work in London, we were married, had a honeymoon in Cornwall and then lived in a flat just behind Libertys, Regent St for the summer.

Eldrid and I enjoyed together my third year (1965/66) at Cambridge, reading Economics, and  a round of job-applications and interviews. I didn’t want to be a trainee anymore, and accepted an economic planning job in an international firm of Engineering and Planning Consultants, W.S.Atkins & Partners in Epsom, Surrey. For the first couple of years Eldrid and I rented a flat within walking distance of the attractive offices and it was here in Epsom our son, David, was born on 23 April 1967. I had a number of interesting travel assignments, including a study of future demand for steel products in West Africa, a similar forecast for Argentina and numerous trips up to Yorkshire on the future  of the wool textile industry.

By 1970 I felt it was time to move on, so I took a position in financial planning for Bowater U.K., working in Knightsbridge. Luckily after 8 months I was offered a secondment position of Planning Analyst for the Bowater’s newly-established North American headquarters in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S. commencing in January1971. Our stay in America provided many happy days for both Eldrid and me, with our daughter, Helene-Louise, born on 16 September 1971 in Greenwich.  I did many work-trips to our paper-mills in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Tennessee and South Carolina. At the weekends we took many journeys around New England and we enjoyed three memorable holidays as far as Vermont in the north, Chicago to the west and to Washington and Virginia in the south. And the private town-beach was only 5 minutes away from our home in Old Greenwich!

Reluctantly, we returned by boat to the U.K. in August 1973, and the next year or so was difficult because Bowater had effectively been taken over and there really wasn’t a satisfactory position for me. Unfortunately this was the time of the Arab Oil Crisis and three-day weeks, so not the best time to be looking for a new job. I took a position with British Gas, but then was offered a post with the newly-established Energy Division of P&O at the time when North Sea Oil and Gas was just taking-off, so this industry kept me usefully and happily employed for the next 25 years. After living in Debden, we had bought a house, and moved to 40 Woodway, Shenfield  In the same week I joined P&O. We lived in Shenfield for over 20 years, and both David and Helene-Louise went to schools in the area.

In some ways, the P&O job was the most fun of my whole working life. Our office was in Sloane St, centre of ‘Swinging London’ at that time. We were a young and mixed group with an ebullient MD who would often walk round the office at about 4.30pm saying ‘Who’s for the Arkle Bar?’ I was principally working on an ambitious Gas Gathering project which involved regular trips to Houston and Dallas. But in retrospect the P&O Energy concept was flawed, and when the downturn came there was blood on the carpet, and I was keen to find another job.

At that time, in late 1976, the British National Oil Corporation (BNOC) had just been established, and I applied, having seen a press-report about a North Sea gas-gathering project.  I was interviewed a couple of times, and offered a job starting in January 1977 working for the M.D. Alastair Morton. The BNOC project was certainly exciting, establishing a major state-company in the midst of well-established oil majors. I worked on the gas-gathering project and was manager of a substantial oil and storage pipeline system for England; this was a rewarding job, and I was sorry to be transferred to a more nebulous head office role under the rumbustuous Alastair. In May 1979, the Conservative Party won the General Election and this effectively sealed the fate of BNOC. Alastair left and I had a fairly uncomfortable time, partly because I refused to move to Glasgow: I went to see one of our North Sea partners, Conoco and was offered a job on the spot… thankyou John Ogren!

I worked for Conoco for eight years, really the most stable time in my whole career. First in Economic Planning, then in Gas Contracts, where I became Manager, with a staff of 15 and   large and complicated North sea gas sales and transportation agreements to negotiate. I personally was under quite a lot of pressure from ‘senior management’, but not I think unfairly, and to this day I look back at my “Conoco days” with pleasure and a sense of achievement.

Meanwhile at home in Brentwood the children were growing up. David at King Edward’s Grammar School in Chelmsford, then to study Economics at Southampton University and finally to train as an Accountant. At Southampton, he met Liz and they’ve been together ever since, getting married in 1996. Helene-Louise was at the City of London School for girls, then at Chelmsford High School and finally on to Bournemouth University in 1991. Eldrid had started working on a part-time basis for the Red Cross and this gave her a lot of satisfaction. In 1991, for example, we visited the Red Cross in both Moscow and Beijing while we were on a memorable holiday, starting at Leningrad in the snow, via Moscow to China and The Great Wall .Our best family-holiday was to Egypt over Christmas 1988. 

One day in 1989, there was a head-hunter call, and after three interviews I became  Commercial and Legal Manager for Lasmo North Sea. But the company was non-operating and much less clearly organised than Conoco… too dependent on the views of the Chief Executive, and before long I unwittingly incurred his disfavour. So, only nine months later, it was curtains for me, and I had some pretty uncertain months without a job.

My initial months as an Independent Consultant in 1990/91 were pretty thin. But during 1991, I got much more settled, with some months work for Scottish Electricity, followed by an enquiry from a small oil company, Purbeck Petroleum, which turned out to be a comfortable little earner for 5 years, with an office overlooking Trafalgar Square. Then a second lead, working for Santa Fee who had established contact with Polish Oil and Gas. (POGC). This company –post the fall of the Berlin Wall- were trying to import gas from the North Sea, via a new pipeline through Denmark. After an initial study, the group broadened its membership, and I became Project manager for ‘Polpipe’. This was most interesting work, and lasted for nearly 9 years. So Purbeck and Polpipe together kept me fully-employed , satisfying as a job and well rewarded, so I could build up my pension.

Much more important, in the summer of 1991 Eldrid had an operation for breast-cancer. In 1993, a mastectomy was needed and in June that year we were told that the problem had spread, and she would eventually die. I went over to the U.S. to tell Helene-Louise, who immediately returned to the U.K. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy were prescribed, and we managed as well as we could over the next 15 months, but it was traumatic and difficult. Eldrid throughout was tremendously brave and uncomplaining, but she died on 7 August 1994... four days after her 55th Birthday, and after 29 happy years together.

The three of us remaining all had to readjust, as well as Harry the dog. Helene-Louise had a job by this time, but after a year she decided to go to America, in the Boston area where she has permanently settled. David got married to Liz in 1996, and they now have two teenage boys – James and Guy.

I didn’t want to live alone, and after 15 months I found someone else, Eileen Carroll who lived in High Wycombe. Thank goodness for the M25! We found ourselves quickly compatible, and we’ve been together ever since – buying together a lovely house – Hollymount in Winchmore Hill, a Buckinghamshire village which we much enjoyed for 20 years. Work for me was running down – Purbeck had been sold. and as a Consultant  I began to feel I was getting out-of-date. When POGC had a change of CEO in 2000, they stopped employing outside consultants, and my work abruptly finished. I decided it was time to retire. I’d built up sufficient pension and have  enjoyed my time without the stresses of work ever since.

Eileen and I have lead reasonably busy lives over the last 20 years... the garden, an allotment and the village locally. I’ve been Secretary of the Residents Committee and the Hall, and for 5 years we edited and produced ‘Winchmore Hill Village News’. We’ve spend a lot of time learning Italian- Eileen with more success than I and we’ve travelled a great deal. After being Chairman of the Beaconsfield W.E.A. for 5 years, Eileen and I have been closely involved with the u3a groups for both Beaconsfield and Amersham. I began giving art-talks, and I’ve enjoyed the challenge of studying and presenting over 20 topics. Eileen and I have been on numerous holidays together, and these developed into long Round-the-World trips. So far we’ve done seven, all planned and organised ourselves. We’ve always kept in touch with all the children- David, Helene-Louise, and Eileen’s daughters Marianne and Diana- so that has been an important part of our lives. The retirement years have been satisfying for us both.

In 2017 the opportunity arose to buy a flat in Beaconsfield. The process of buying and selling was not straight-forward, but we did manage to sell Hollymount and move into a much more convenient and compact home in December2018 – 7, Halstead Court. Our numerous holidays continue, and we have a range of local activities and friends.

Stephen C. Palmer                                                                                        12 November  2019