search Eastbourne town centre. Shortly
before midnight, I was standing by the
vegetable garden of the Clarendon Hotel
at 20 Gildredge Road, when Sandy Reid,
a local estate agent asked what I was
doing. I told him the hotel might well be
suitable for conversion to our offices and
I was told it had come on the market that
day. The price was about £21,000 for the
lease and a few thousand more for the
freehold.
he always had
smelling salts in a
drawer of his desk
should any client
become distressed
fallen from roof level three-storeys high
right down to the ground. We quickly
sent flowers to his wife and a hamper
to the hospital. We received a prompt
and cheery note from the injured man to
say that, with only minor bruises he had
been sent home from hospital within 24
hours and had fully enjoyed consuming
the entire contents of the hamper.
Working in our new offices, we became
the largest, busiest and (we thought)
best firm in Eastbourne. We were a
happy ship and we sought to pay staff
over the going rate. A good example of
staff contentment would be Daphne Croft
(nee Brook) who joined us in 1969 well
content with £9 a week and stayed with
a break when her son was born, until
2013.
We played tennis, badminton and
stoolball together, held a party on the
least pretext, and no member of staff
(except articled clerks who progressed
elsewhere on qualification) ever left us to
work elsewhere.
and would find some time for business.
On one such weekend, we decided we
would never open a branch office but
within six months we had a branch at
Hampden Park!
The tragedies of these times were the
loss of Zoe Robertshaw at a young
age and in her memory we created the
office garden which is still kept as an
outstanding feature of Gildredge Road.
The garden was later enlarged when a
brilliant secretary, Lynda Owers, died in
1985 after a long illness aged 35.
In due course I became managing
partner but I set myself the highest
income target. The workload could not
be sustained (this was before any legal
office had a computer) and I left Mayos
in 1987 to enjoy the longer holidays of a
lecturer in a college of further education,
The continuing progress of MWB is a
source of pride for us old timers but we
do wonder how £7,000 will now meet the
annual wage bill.
By John Boyle
Extensive alterations were necessary to
the building and at one stage; standing
at the entrance, one could look up and
see a WC hanging from the back wall at
second floor level. During the work we
were shocked to hear that a builder had
We partners, led by the selfless Hugh
Riddick, all shared profits equally
with the result that we could attract
outstanding new partners including
John Bailey, Simon Dodds and Peter
Jelly. Annually we would take ourselves
with our families for partners’ weekends
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