FAREWELL then Harry Gration.
The BBC veteran departed the Look North studio stage left this week after a 42-year career with Auntie.
I’m never sure what qualifies someone to be described as a “legend”.
I suppose over four decades as a thoroughly nice bloke on the telly must qualify.
Mind you, I think becoming a father again at the age of 68 is pretty heroic.
That’s him, not me.
Over the years I’ve bumped into Harry at awards ceremonies, business dinners and charity functions.
He will often come over for a chat.
My fellow guests have always been impressed that such a well known figure from broadcasting takes the time to come and say hello.
I’ve never been totally convinced that he knows who the hell I am.
But then who does?
Me among them.
When I observed in this blog that Karen Swainston and Caroline Pullich of Barclays are the Cagney and Lacey of regional banking it went down well – with them.
Apparently they bounded into the Yorkshire Awards and told the event host Harry Gration, about my observation.
“If you two are Cagney and Lacey, then he’s Kojak,” said Harry.
Charming.
If you miss seeing Harry on your TV screen then there is still a way you can get your Gration fix.
Take a trip on the number 36 bus which connects Leeds, Harrogate and Ripon.
With leather seats, drinks holders, on-board wi-fi and a shelf of books it is a bit like Emirates business class, just without the vintage champagne.
And pre-flight massage.
Leave it.
It also boasts recorded announcements by Harry Gration telling passengers what the next stop is and nearby tourist attractions such as Harewood House and Betty’s Tea Rooms.
Harry is very popular with ladies of a certain vintage, as a conversation I overheard the last time I was on the number 36 illustrated.
Two ladies of a certain vintage were sitting together at the front of the top deck.
“Ooh, they’ve got him doing the announcements,” said one lady to her travelling companion.
“Who?” she replied.
“You know, him off the telly, Harry Gration.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“Harry Gration? No, he can’t be, he was presenting Look North last night.”
“Oh, I was thinking of Larry Grayson, that one that used to present The Generation Game.”
Just as I was about to engage with the two ladies about the merits of Isla St Clair over Slack Alice, my stop arrived and I missed the opportunity.
I don’t think Harry Gration’s ever forgiven me for beating him in the final of the first ever Lord’s Taverners Yorkshire Balloon Debate.
It is a story I’ve told marginally less than my Arnold Schwarzenegger one, but only just.
Triumphing ahead of not one, but two broadcasting legends (the other one was John Helm the football commentator who has worked at nine World Cups).
Perhaps now Harry has left the BBC I can tell the story of what he said when I was announced as the winner of the Balloon Debate following a show of hands by the audience.
I don’t like to brag about the result and I don’t remember the specifics.
But I got 105 votes and he got 28.
As I was presented with a bottle of champagne as a prize Harry walked up to the podium.
Looking magnanimous, he took the microphone and said to the audience: “I’d just like to say a couple of words.”
There was a pause as we waited for the polite platitudes from the man from the BBC.
“F*** off,” said Harry.
It got a bigger laugh than anything I’d said.
But when you are a legend you can do that.
:::
TALKING of legends, one man who is definitely a legend of Yorkshire business is Keith Loudon OBE, chairman of Redmayne Bentley.
Unfortunately the veteran stockbroker and former Lord Mayor of Leeds suffered a stroke in the summer.
It has impaired his movement and initially it affected his speech but a phone call from Keith this week brought welcome news.
He sounded like he always has and was bubbling with ideas.
After some weeks in hospital he is currently convalescing in a care home where he is undergoing rigorous regular physiotherapy sessions with the target to get back home as soon as he can.
Typically Keith was more interested in offering me advice and ideas rather than dwelling on his own situation.
He told me plans are being developed to celebrate the 145th anniversary of Redmayne Bentley in December.
In 1875 Yorkshire Bank clerk John Redmayne set up his own stockbroking firm just as steel and electricity stocks, on the back of the railway boom, took off.
That was in the days when Leeds had its own stock exchange.
And while Keith is not old enough to remember that, there isn’t much that has happened on the markets over the last 60-odd years that he doesn’t know about.
A doughty campaigner for the rights of private investors, a tireless charity supporter and fundraiser and a real ambassador for his home city, I’m sure you’ll join me in wishing Keith a continued speedy recovery.
He told me that he is looking to get some help when he does return home.
Either an individual or a couple who can live-in and help him with meals and daily chores.
Given he is such good company, I wondered whether I should apply for the job.
But I don’t have the energy to keep up with him.
:::
THE recent death of the designer, restaurateur and retailer Sir Terence Conran got me thinking.
The obituaries of this flamboyant character were accompanied by photographs of him smoking a big cigar wearing a smart suit, loud socks and reclining in a distinctive Habitat chair.
Here was a man who didn’t have one career, but many.
How he found the time to fit it all in between three marriages and countless affairs, I don’t know.
His creation of Habitat in the mid 1960s, the contemporary homeware and furniture shop chain, changed the way Britain lived.
The satirist Craig Brown once said that before Conran “there were no chairs and no France”.
His restaurants were must-visit places well before the era of celebrity chefs.
When I worked in London I visited The Bluebird Cafe in Chelsea, Coq D’Argent on Poultry in the City of London and, most memorably, Quaglino’s in St James’s.
Opened by Conran in 1993, the restaurant was a modern take on the original Quaglino’s which first opened in 1929 and was a watering hole of the capital’s glitterati.
When I visited I thought it was the closest thing I’d ever been to that recreated the glamour of New York nightclubs of the 1930s.
There were even cigarette girls visiting the tables.
Anyway, reading about Terence Conran’s eventful 88-year life and thoroughly deserved reputation as a bon viveur made me think he would have been a great guest at a fantasy dinner party.
I often wonder who I would invite to a fantasy dinner party, living or dead.
Winston Churchill? Muhammad Ali? The Queen would have lots of great stories, but would she tell them?
Tommy Cooper or Kenneith Williams would provide the laughs.
Someone definitely on my list would be Lord Michael Grade.
He comes from a family of impresarios, was Morecambe and Wise’s agent, ran the BBC and loves a cigar.
He’d be my ideal guest.
But who would you choose to join you around the table?
Let’s use the Government’s Rule of Six to say there would be you and only five guests allowed at this dinner.
Forget Tier Three and full lockdown, this dinner party is taking place, whatever the rules.
You can choose anyone, living or dead, and there are no time limits on the length of this gathering.
Send me your ideas and I’ll gather them together here in a future blog.
And if you are struggling, then you can always choose the guests who would attend your nightmare dinner party.
Mine, off the top of my head, would be Paul Hollywood, Chris Kamara and Alex Jones from the One Show.
I’m sure I’ll have come up with a few more by next week.
:::
LAST week’s mention of former Tory leader William Hague’s witticisms brought a couple of stories from Mike Firth.
Mike well remembers Hague speaking at the Yorkshire International Business Convention, the brilliant and much-missed event which he created.
One of the lines from Hague’s speech was from his time speaking in the House of Commons as Conservative Party leader.
“I stand at the Dispatch Box with the Opposition in front of me and the Enemy behind me.“
And Mike added: “Another memorable line from William.
“He was addressing a Constituents meeting in Richmond with a lot of farmers present .
“A farmer asked ‘What are you doing to help us farmers?’
“William replied: ‘I’ve asked 120 questions in the House on farming.’
“The farmer said: ‘Well you obviously know bugger all about farming.’”
Have a great weekend.