Spectator July 12, 1975
"national". I suppose I should have resigned when the bank became the National Westminster, but by that time I had climbed a few rungs of the social ladder and Westminster no longer seemed so remote, inaccessible and aristocratic.
1 know of socialists who have confused Marks and Spencer with Marx and Engels and have invested with the former in the belief that they were furthering the cause of international socialism, and a friend of mine invested in Wimpey G under the impression that he was sharing in the boom in snack-bars. Stranger still was the man who spotted MF1 W'house in the list of Stock Exchange prices, thought that the W and the apostrophe were delicate camouflage, and plunged heavily in what he imagined to be a chain of brothels. And could there be anything more stupid — unless it is my confusion over Redland — than my friend Ken's assumption that Corn Union is somehow connected with the Church Commissioners?
One of my most successful ventures sprang from mistaken identity. Five years ago I detected (or thought I did) a deterioration in the efficiency of the National Health Service, Doctors and nurses were disgruntled and the most recent of the magazines in my GP's waiting-room were eight years old. I reasoned that the result would be a big increase in self-medication and accordingly I looked about me for a suitable investment in pharmaceuticals.
The name Wellcome rang a bell and it was the work of a moment to phone my bank manager and invest £500 in the company. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when a few months later I received a dividend warrant from Welkom, the goldmining company. For a time I failed to realise what had happened and accepted the dividends — a shade guiltily — as the fruits of a clerical error in my favour.
A year or so later the penny dropped, and I leapt to the phone to tear a strip off my bank manager. But before I had finished dialling another thought struck me. I grabbed the newspaper and made a rapid study of the Welkom figures. The price of the shares had more than doubled since my purchase. Gold was booming and I was all set for a handsome capital gain. I have never regretted my decision to get ' into pharmaceuticals.
I still have an account with the Gateway Building Society, though it will be a long time before I think of it as other than the Temperance. I don't suppose I'm the only imbiber who found the old name of the society a sort of prop to self-esteerr. One can do worse than choose an investment by the ring of its name.
Bernard Hollowood, formerly editor of Punch, contributes this column weekly to The Spectator
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