If it is true that a picture paints a thousand words, then Richard Bryan’s LifeBook should probably be 2,000 pages long rather than 208.
The title, The Book What I Wrote, speaks volumes about Richard’s self-deprecating approach to detailing a lifetime of adventures, and I would dare anyone to pick up his book and not laugh at some of the many brilliant pictures inside, including:
- Richard made up as the Queen for a “surprise” Golden Jubilee visit to his village, Upton Cheyney,
- Richard in the stocks, getting pelted with wet sponges,
- Richard sitting in a Bentley car—inside his house,
- Richard’s pal dressed as a toilet at the wedding of Richard’s daughter, Emma,
- Richard dressed as Albert Einstein, a latter-day Teddy Boy, a gold inspector, and a rat,
- A bruised Richard with head bandaged and arm in a sling after a house-painting incident, and
- Sketches of Richard crumpled upon the ground after a particularly painful cricketing accident.
There are also plenty of snaps of Richard, the family man and businessman, and these pictures perfectly complement his many stories from an eventful life that are hilarious, insightful, and thoughtful.
A tough start in life
Richard’s life was not always a barrel of laughs. He was just 10 years of age when he lost his mother, and there was a long and sometimes difficult period of adjustment when his father married again a few years later.
Despite attending a fee-paying school, Richard’s younger days were all about sport rather than education, and his O level results were terrible, with passes in English and English Literature but little else. He left school to start work at a builders’ merchants, admitting, “I can’t imagine what Dad must have thought after paying for my expensive education, but it certainly opened my eyes, going from a moderately middle-class background to a very working-class pool of workers.” That move was to hold him in good stead when he later established his own successful businesses.
In 1972, Richard married Sally, and thus began many years of happily married life.
No electricity or running water, and mice scurrying around
Richard was always willing to take a gamble in both his business and home life, something that Sally had to learn to appreciate. This included the time when he bought a derelict cottage with no electricity or running water and only then broke the news to her that they were moving in. Among the issues at the property were water running into the lounge whenever there was heavy rain and mice scurrying between the stonework and the drywall lining. However, the spectacular views were a prime motivator, and, over time, Richard and Sally made it into a much-loved home.
Richard’s daughters, Emma and Katie, were 14 and 11 respectively when their brother, James, was born.
Richard’s sense of adventure was perhaps never better demonstrated than by his 50th birthday celebrations, when he took a week off to fly to New York on Concorde to meet an old pal for dinner, returned to join 12 friends for a hotel stay and golf, and then took the family away for a few days. For Sally’s 50th, they went to Venice on the Orient Express, on which he shared a dinner table with Denis and Mark Thatcher, the husband and son of prime minister Margaret.
A walking toilet for his daughter’s wedding
His daughters’ weddings allowed Richard to show off his eccentricities. When Emma married James, Richard got a pantomime buddy to dress up as a mobile lavatory and enter the reception in the middle of Richard’s speech (Richard had long ribbed Emma about her bathroom habits!). (A pantomime is a family-friendly, comedic stage show, beloved of British audiences, that blends fairy tales, slapstick, and audience interaction.)
When Katie married Stuart a year later, Richard had someone dress up as the famous footballer Gary Lineker and get down on one knee to ask the bride to elope with him!
Brace yourselves!
Richard greatly enjoyed his holidays, even if these often seemed to be a test of endurance. Among his many escapades were smashing a narrowboat into reinforced concrete (giving him the chance to shout the immortal words, “Brace yourselves!”) and falling overboard; tumbling into a gully in Mauritius while practicing his golf swing (and parading around a luxury resort’s dining room to show off his wounds to other guests); and watching the furniture blow off the hotel balcony during a week of dreadful weather on the hot-spot island of Malta.
Building a multi-million-pound business
Richard made the money for his homes and holidays by building up his own businesses, starting out by running a spray-paint operation from the flat he shared with his pal, Colin, before he married. This took off, and Brandon Hire Ltd officially started trading in 1971. Shops and depots were added as the business thrived and the number of employees hit 60, and in 1989 the company was floated on the Stock Exchange. It was valued at £7.5 million.
However, the outside influences of investors, shareholders, and pension companies in the new set-up proved frustrating, and, after an ensuing merger that saw Colin quit and Richard banging heads with fellow directors, Richard walked away after 26 years with the company. However, he was soon back in the driving seat, as he and Colin reunited to purchase a struggling division of their former company and completely turned it around.
Richard also got into other ventures, including property, cattle breeding, a public house, costume hire, and stocks-and-shares dealing. The costume hire fitted perfectly with his love of pantomime, which, on one occasion, saw him take to the stage dressed as a ballet dancer to perform a routine from The Nutcracker.
Stand up for the, er, Queen!
One of the laugh-out-loud moments in Richard’s book is when it was announced that a special visitor was to open the village fete to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee. The lanes around the village were closed, and the entire village was cheering and waving flags as a black saloon with royal trimmings pulled up. The “royal” couple (Richard made up as the Queen and a pal as the Duke of Edinburgh) stepped out of the car and were ushered to a designated area to greet the young children anxious to meet the Queen. It was all going well until a little girl stood in front of him and said, in a very disappointed and accusing voice, “You’re not the Queen!”
That same day, Richard won the knobbly knees contest—his prize was to be put in the stocks and pelted with sponges!
Giving back to the community
In later life, Richard, a dedicated blood donor who was honored following his 250th donation, volunteered at Bath Royal United Hospital (where a patient passed away while in a wheelchair being pushed by Richard) and became a trustee for the League of Friends. However, he continued to look for fun, and, with a group of pals from his local pub, he formed the Ridiculous Dicky Bow Club. This started with a meal out in Bath and finished with the group standing on the steps of La Scala, Milan, singing a bit of opera! For Richard, it was just one more adventure in a life packed full of wonderful memories.
Written by Stephen Pitts, LifeBook Memoirs editor
