Banker bet
BARCLAYS always did things differently. Thirty years ago it was opening up in Cali- fornia, swallowing Martins, bidding for Lloyds, bringing in Barclaycard — the other banks thought this was crazy and left Barclays to it — and wondering whether to raid the reserves and back the chairman's horse at Cheltenham. Sir John Thomson (who died at the weekend) might be called a Wykehamist disguised as an Etonian: a type still to be found at the top of Barclays, as is the reverse. He had bred Fort Leney from his mare Leney Princess. When in 1968 Fort Leney came storming up the hill to victory, I asked Sir John if he was the only chairman of a High Street bank to breed and own the winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup. He said mildly that he was the only one who would be fool enough to try.
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