Project: British Toy Making Project

Mr Ralph Ehrmann Former Chairman Airfix Industries

Interview conducted by Juliana Vandegrift

June 2012

Transcribed by Kerry Cable

September 2012

Edited by Ralph Ehrmann, Juliana Vandegrift and Laura Wood

February and August 2013

Copyright © 2012 Museum of Childhood

Ralph Ehrmann

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FULL NAME: Ralph M. Ehrmann INTERVIEWER: Juliana Vandegrift

DATE: 11th June 2012 PLACE: Home of Ralph Ehrmann,

London

TYPE OF EQUIP: PMD Marantz 661, Wav, 48Hz, 16 bit

LENGTH OF INTERVIEW: 1 hour 28 minutes, 8 seconds

PERSONAL DATA

DATE & PLACE OF BIRTH: 8th March 1925, Leipzig, Germany

OCCUPATION: Former Chairman of Airfix Industries

EDUCATION: South Kensington Preparatory School (2 years),

The Hall in Hampstead,

St Pauls School

UNIVERSITY/COLLEGE: Leeds College of Technology (now Metropolitan

University in Leeds) to study agriculture to become

a farmer, Reading University

CAREER BACKGROUND

Ralph was born in Germany but grew up in England from the age of six or seven when

his father made arrangements for the family to leave Germany in the early 1930s.

Ralph's father had worked in the Secret Service and German Army in the First World

War and had global contacts and ran a global company so Ralph thinks his father was

tipped off by one of his contacts which is why they left Germany very suddenly.

However, even though Ralph and his father were good friends, Ralph never had any

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'heart to hearts' to find out the detailed story with his father who died when Ralph was

21 years old.

The family arrived in England via a stay in Switzerland. Ralph attended three schools:

South Kensington Preparatory School, The Hall in Hampstead and St Pauls School. At

his father's guidance he steered away from a career in academia even though he loved

history and instead chose farming and began a degree in agriculture in Leeds.

However, it was during the war and he managed to then 'disentangle' himself to join

the RAF (even though farming was a reserved occupation). Ralph trained as a bomber

aimer during the war but by the time he'd finished his training the war was beginning

to end.

After the war he joined the bank, Warburg, as a management trainee, and was sent to

various businesses to make them more profitable. Eventually Ralph joined Airfix as an

assistant to its founder, Nicholas Kove. Ralph thoroughly enjoyed rolling up his sleeves

and tackling every area of the business even though Kove was an extremely difficult

personality to work with.

Ralph worked his way to become the Chairman of Airfix Industries and took the

company through its best times. Sadly he felt responsible for its demise in 1981 and it

was not a subject he wished to focus on in great detail.

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INTERVIEW SYNOPSIS

Ralph Ehrmann discusses moving to England and his education; his early career and

how he entered the toy industry; his work at Airfix and business trips to America.

Ralph's love and enjoyment of his career at Airfix is very clear throughout his

interview. He tells some stories which illustrate just how the mindset was of the

young company during the early years and how he approached his role in the company

as he became more senior. He prides himself on his caring approach to the workers in

the Airfix employment and gives examples.

INTERVIEWER’S COMMENTS

There is one pause for a quick break and very occasional knocking of the microphone

but overall the sound quality is very good.

NOTE: This transcript has been edited by Ralph Ehrmann and Juliana Vandegrift to

make it easier to read, and therefore differs from the recording (February 2013).

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Right. So it’s Monday the 11th June 2012 and I’m at the home of Mr Ralph Ehrmann and

he’s the former Chairman of Airfix Industries and we’re recording it for the V&A

Museum of Childhood, the British Toy Making project, at his home in Holland Park.

And I could just hear a wire rubbing on my mic, hold on a tick. [Silence] Okay. Let me

wrap it, good. (Laughs) If you could see how many wires there are. (Laughs) Okay.

Right, if we could just start with where were you born and where did you grow up?

<0:00:43>

I was born in Germany. I grew up in England. My family left Germany really in

’32, the end of ’32. As I was so young I did not know what it was about. It may

be about the Nazis. My father had many influences on him so I really don’t

know, it’s not something he talked about. We spent the winter of ’32 in

Switzerland and then came back for two weeks to Germany to our house and he

then went ahead to The Hague where he took a flat for us and left an old Dutch

friend to look after us and bring us out. And he then spent his time arranging

for us to come to England and we came to England. We’d had an English

governess for two years before that already as partially because my father had

an international business and thought it was necessary that we should speak

English but I don’t know his preparation, I do not know really. I know that my

sister was told, she was five years older than I, not to tell the boys anything,

which was my brother and I, but when we came back from Switzerland she

knew that we were only there for a few days to do our packing and disappear.

Now as I say my father had war time experience where he’d been in the army

and also ended up in the Secret Service in Germany and he had connections all

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over the world because he was in his business. He had an office in New York

and in London and in Moscow. So I don’t know who gave him the whisper that

he should get the hell out of there, but he came back from a trip in Russia and

said to my mother in the evening, ‘I will go to Holland tomorrow morning and

start arranging this, Arthur is going to look after you.’ And now I don’t know

what happened and we never got round to discussing it. Of course between his

travels and my then schooling and boarding and all that kind of thing, when I

think about it we didn’t have that many heart to hearts. We were very good

friends and we were a father worshipping family, but I really can’t tell you. So

basically I came over here when I was six/seven and had the rest of my

education here.

Where did you go to school? <0:04:10>

I went to three schools. I went to South Kensington Preparatory School for

about two years because we had a flat in Kensington first of all. Then we went

to live in Hampstead and I went to The Hall in Hampstead which is the one

which had great influence on me. And then I went to St Paul’s and I spent two

years at St Paul’s. And I intended to do history and I was in the history Sixth

after the second year, I’d already taken my matric, and my father persuaded me

that I should really not be an academic because he said he’d look after the

academic all his life, one of his cousins who’d been a professor of philosophy,

and he didn’t think he’d be around to pay for my lifestyle. So I decided to go

into farming and went up to Leeds with my mother, because she’d gone to

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Harrogate when the bombing was on in London. And I went to the Leeds

College of Technology, which is now the Metropolitan University in Leeds which

is luckily enough to be able to teach my grandson. That’s how I know about it.

But it ended up that I went up there for a little while and went to Reading

University. Then as soon as I was able to disentangle myself, I was in the Air

Force, disentangle myself meant that I was lucky enough to be able to do it

because I was taking an agricultural degree and agriculture was considered a

prime industry and they didn’t allow you to go into the Air Force or anything

else. But I did get out of it.

Can I just ask you the question, what was it like growing up in Britain with your

German heritage at that time in history? <0:06:26>

Well children change their language very easily and besides I had some English

already from the young lady though most of it was ‘you are a fool’ and things

like that. But it was no real problem. I was a healthy boy wearing a school cap.

I was also, especially in the small prep I was in in South Kensington, I was the

best fighter in the school so I had no troubles at all. And I had a lot of very dear

friends and it’s really a happy memory for me. The Hall was the best academic

prep school in Hampstead and probably in London, and the Headmaster was a

retired professor from an Indian family, you know, he’d been a professor at

Punjab University and his great great grandfathers were missionaries and they

were either teachers, missionary or army in each generation. But they were

very much entangled with India and so at 40 he was ready to come back. And

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he was my hero for many, many years and my idea of what a gentleman is and

what an educated man is. I must say coming from a German Bourgeoisie family

the idea of education is much higher than today’s. Any of my worthy uncles

could get up and make a speech in rhyme just at the drop of hat, like that. And

Latin tags flew around like missiles. The idea of education today horrifies me

because people are not educated.

It’s not the same. <0:08:49>

No.

Right. So you grew up in England and then you were doing your farming, agricultural

degree? <0:08:56>

Yes.

And then you explained before about your war years. <0:09:03>

Yes.

And then when the war finished how did you find yourself entering into the toy

industry? <0:09:10>

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Well first of all when the war finished, I will try and cut this a bit short. The last

few months of my time in the Air Force I was working with a man called Richard

Collier who left early and became the Editor of Town and Country and so he

gave me a sort of covering letter which appointed me there as their writer on

tourism in Scandinavia. So I went to Scandinavia and I had wonderful time for

about six months. Unfortunately it didn’t pay me as well but it was very good

and I did write a little bit and I became Court Correspondent for one of the

Swedish papers which only consisted of my reading the Daily Mirror and then

pretending to know all about the British Royal Family. So I wrote a little bit for

them, got a little bit of pay there. So I went there for about six months. But

that came to an end because paper rationing came to England and they really

cut back very feverishly. And beside, my girlfriend at the time had fallen very ill,

I brought her home and said my mother could look after her. And then I had an

introduction to Warburgs and they introduced me to a factory as an

Administrative Student, whatever that might mean, but to teach me how to run

a factory. And I went to evening classes and I took a diploma in Management

and in time motion study.

You didn’t come across a colleague called Geoffrey Cass did you? <0:11:14>

Geoffrey Katz?

Cass. <0:11:17>

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Cass?

He was doing something similar and went on to run Cambridge University Press. He

might have been your peer. <0:11:24>

I don’t think I met him but actually my family came from somewhere or other,

there’s a school called the Cass Business School and my mother told me that we

were somehow related to the Cass’s. But I don’t think I ever met him. Is that

where you went?

No, no, no, but I’ve interviewed Sir Geoffrey. <0:11:50>

Right. But at any rate so I did a diploma there in the evening classes and it was

a nonsense diploma. What I’d heard from my father allowed me to answer all

the questions without even going to anything. It has given me a constant bias

when employing people to take people who did their study in evening classes

because I’m convinced now that anybody who’s done their study in evening

classes is twice the man of somebody who went to university, if you know what

I mean.

That’s interesting, yes. Because the motivation’s there, you mean? <0:12:39>

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Yes. Actually my best friend in my Kensington school was a chap called

Fleming. His father was Alexander Fleming who’d ---. Now he had done his

whole chemical and then medical degrees in evening classes in Edinburgh.

That’s extraordinary. <0:13:07>

And I really have real respect. When I was in America and did, I really helped

people an awful lot to go to this part time education because they’re very

determined. Either they gave it up or they did it. But at any rate, so they left me

with this company and this was in the early days of injection moulding or

plastic moulding at any rate, and there was a terrific boom. As I said to you,

after the war they took any manure and were happy with it. As things became

harder that little boom disappeared as demands were set up on them and the

real engineering came into it. And I and my direct boss took the company from

800 people down to 200 to make it more efficient and make it survive.

Which company was this, the name? <0:14:18>

That the first plastic company I went to when I doing the evening classes.

Was it Trix? <0:14:25>

No, no, that was called Lacrinoid.

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Lacrinoid, okay. <0:14:28>

And they did just pure plastic work and electrical cases for junction boxes and

things like that and they made buttons too. And when we’d done that I went to

the Chairman and said, ‘You’re paying me,’ I can’t remember six pounds a week

or something like that, ‘at this moment and I’m now doing the work for which

you pay people,’ I forget how many hundred pounds. At any rate lots of,

because I was doing all kinds of functions. And he said, ‘Well I can’t pay your

more than twelve pounds a week because my top man is only paid twelve

pounds.’ And I said, ‘Well look, under those circumstances I can only tell you

that you’re sitting more comfortably than I am because I’m not going to work

for twelve pounds a week, I can’t live on that.’ So I left them and then I went to

Trix, where I was also introduced by Warburgs. And at Trix they were an old

Nuremburg family and had set up before the war in England. They made a

building set like a cheap Meccano set, which wasn’t painted, you cut your own

rods. They also had a train set in double-O size and treble-O size. And they

were keen to get on in the hobby business and this all sounded very nice. So I

went up to Northampton to run their manufacturing connection with Bassett-

Lowke. Does Bassett-Lowke still mean anything to people?

Yes, yes, it’s collected. <0:16:56>

Yes, because they were a fantastic engineering company, model making

company and all the sort of models in engineering company’s showrooms were

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always made by them. But at any rate, I happened to go to Switzerland or

Germany, I can’t remember, and saw that the German companies were starting

to use plastics instead of having toys which were made out of sheet metal. And

I told the Chairman or owner that we must modernise and bring ourselves on.

He said, ‘No, I don’t want to get too good because my family became the

biggest toy family in the world and we produced God knows how much for all

the various great companies and then when the recession came, the depression

in the ‘30s, we had to sack so many people, I never want to be a big company

again.’ And so I gave him my notice too very shortly after that.

Can you remember the name of the gentleman? <0:18:14>

Yes, his name was Bing. Bing was one of the early toy companies. I don’t think

he ever got married. He had a twin sister called Mrs Summers who was the

man in the family. But if they were not willing to put modern things in as

modernity came, I really wasn’t interested. So I left them and went back to

Warburgs for the third time. And they then found me this company, Airfix,

which they’d held. In those days there was something called asset stripping

which was very much like what these venture capital companies do. You know,

they load the company with a terrific lot of debt and then take that cash out

and give it to them and their shareholders as cash and the company then has to

work like hell forever to try and get rid of it. They had done this asset stripping

and then Kove had fallen ill with this terrible stomach cancer or kidneys, I can’t

remember which it was, and he had a steel or silver stomach which you were

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encouraged to tap. He was a very courageous man, that I’ve learnt, that

courage is an great virtue.

I’ve got some specific questions about, well I’ll go through it chronologically. Such as

what are your earliest memories when you began your career with Airfix? For

example, what was your first role in the company? <0:20:14>

I was his Assistant.

What does that mean in specific terms? <0:20:22>

That I had to make it work. He had a terrible temper and therefore he had no

executives who stayed with him for very long. Now once I had a steady, the

people, I mean this John Gray had come as Buyer from Lines Brothers. He was

very good but I had to stop him leaving too, once I’d discovered his qualities. I

had to ban his wife from the factory because she used to go through all the

dustbins to make sure nobody was stealing anything.

Whose wife? <0:21:08>

Kove’s wife.

Kove’s? Really? <0:21:11>

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It was a tiny company.

Where did her mistrust come from? <0:21:19>

Well what kind of degree did you take?

A history degree. <0:21:24>

Well then you’ll know exactly what. The Kove family came, it’s a lovely story.

Do you have time for this whole thing?

Yes. <0:21:36>

He was very proud that he’d gone to a Catholic university, as Jews we’re not

very popular, and he’d gone to a Catholic university and come out with a

fantastic degree and got into a cavalry regiment in the Austro-Hungarian Army.

When the war came in the first cavalry charge he was knocked off his horse and

he was sent as a prisoner to a prisoner of war camp just outside Siberia and he

stayed there until about 1917 when he somehow managed to escape. He’d been

very comfortable, he was allowed his own batman and everything else. And

through a network of Catholic priests he was brought back to Austro-Hungary.

And he came to see his father and uncle who had quite an estate, they had five

villages in it and so on. And they said, ‘You don’t ever have to work again, we’ve

had three wars over our territory which is fairly well ruined and we’ve invested

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all the money in Austro-Hungarian War Bonds at eight per cent and you’ll

always have enough money.’ Of course two or three months later the war

ended and Austro-Hungarian War Bonds were as much of a dead history as

Austro-Hungary was. And so he was given, I think somebody from his

university days was involved in the Béla Kun government, the communist

government in --- who were madly unpopular. But he made his first little bit of

money I’m sure as you remember, he was an Under Secretary in one of the

Ministries. And when Béla Kun either was ousted or looked like being ousted,

he thought it was a good idea to get the hell out of there. And he went to Berlin

and sat near the patent office in Germany and looked at all the patents that

went through, and this is his story, or any that were allowed to lapse and he

found a starching process to starch men’s collars very much like the Van Heusen

family did later. And he was put into business and started producing this in a

factory in Italy backed by some very wealthy Italian man. I don’t know how he

got in touch with him. And then --- sorry, in Spain. He went to Spain. And

when the Spanish War broke out, the Civil War, he had to scarper and he went

to Italy. And then he was in Italy and suddenly they started introducing the

Nazi racial laws and so on, so he scarpered to England which was about

1938/39. In England he started making rubber toys which had air in them and

partly explained the name Airfix and also the fact that he believed ‘A’ would

always put you at the head of the index for every company. So he came to

England, he started doing that but then the war came and he had courage, and I

don’t know where he got the ideas from, but he started making children’s

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rattles from off-cuts from aluminium products --- (pause while telephone

rings).

I’ll pause it. <0:27:18>

I’ll go and see --- (pause in recording). So he made rattles from off-cuts of metal

and ---.

What was his personality like? <0:27:33>

He was not too tall and had a Napoleonic complex as I said. I think Hungarians

didn’t treat their working people very well because there was a real vast social

gap between them and he had a volatile temper and I think one of my first jobs

was to stabilise the company and get rid of him. I didn’t get rid of him as an

owner but that he came in less and less. He used to say to people, ‘Warburgs did

me a great favour, they sent me Mr Ehrmann.’ Whenever he wanted to come

back he said, ‘I think you’re very, very good but you’re still a bit young I’d better

take over again,’ or something like that. But he never came back. And my first

job was to stabilise the company and I then started looking for products to use

the machinery on. When I came there, of the seven machines, the six English

and the one American, only two were working and the other ones they’d taken

bits off them to patch up. There was no money at all.

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How do you go about learning the business? <0:29:32>

You mustn’t forget that I had already been working in a plastic company for

over a year and in a toy company for another year and a half, both in junior

managerial positions. I had a natural education from my father’s life and I had

hope in my heart and I had also taken evening classes for a diploma in industrial

management. And Kove was no fool, I certainly learnt something from him also.

Although as I say I had to fight a battle against him, we had respect for each

other. He was a telephone throwing man and little habits like that. Even my

two years studying agriculture, I had courses in book keeping, architecture and

other similar practical subjects as part of my degree course. I had a fair

education and I also came from a mercantile family. My parents were pretty

well educated, so there were standards in our family. And I just learnt a bit as I

went along. I was one of the earliest members of the Institute for Directors.

Did you have anyone you could turn to, to provide mentorship in the business in those

early days? <0:31:42>

I probably had a lot of people. First of all, when you’re in your 20s and a

reasonably decent chap, you usually have a lot of help from older people who

see you as a reincarnation of their possibilities. My family was a very nice

family and we had a lot of good contacts. I’ve always read a lot. I was generally

educated in the old sense of the word and I just learnt the hard way actually. I

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had a lot of people who helped me and wished me well, both amongst my

customers and other professionals.

He’s (Branson) made mistakes and learnt from the mistakes, hasn’t he? <0:32:44>

Exactly. And so I just got on with it. One thing which attracted me to Airfix that

injection mouldings automatically allowed you to produce things in large

quantities so you could grow. And so I knew the first thing I had to do is find

some products and I did go out shopping to see for whom I could make things.

And after a very short time I decided that we had to make our own products.

(Pause in recording) I’ll switch it back now. Okay, we’ve had a short break. It’s

recording. You were thinking about what products Airfix could make but you decided

to make your own products. But I read in Arthur Ward’s book that you went on two

fact finding trips to America in the early ‘50s. <0:33:51>

Yes, that’s right. Yes.

Can you remember much about those, where you went for example? <0:33:59>

Well I went to towns in New England which are now completely changed. Islyn

Thomas’s father-in-law was a man called Hoffman, a Swiss, who’d set up in

Newark, and he was one of the finest toolmakers in America. Thomas was a

friend of Kove and Islyn Thomas himself wrote the book on injection moulding,

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and was well known in the industry. He introduced me to many people and I of

course had introductions from the English Woolworth buyers to the American

ones. The American Woolworths buyers were very polite and were willing to

see me. I don’t know if you’ve been to America as a young girl but if you did you

know that people always said to you, ‘Ah, I do love to hear you talking.’ And so I

had a very good time in America. And I had some contacts, as I told you my

father, who had died in ’46, had had an office there and I had an uncle there

who tried to be helpful, you know. One way or the other people do help you.

And as I said, the younger you are, the more they wish to – they don’t see you as

competition, they see you as their lost opportunities in life.

Yes. And where did the idea come from to manufacture the Golden Hind ship first of

all? <0:35:52>

That was an idea given to me by a Woolworths buyer. Somebody had started

making little ships in bottles in America and they were selling them for a vast

price. And I did see how attractive it was. And then we came back to England

and we priced it up and we could do it for about five or six pounds in today’s

money. But he wouldn’t accept that, he wanted it right down. So I and John

Gray, and John Gray very much, thought of the idea of the polythene bag.

Instead of having a box around it with a polythene bag inside, we thought of a

polythene bag with a coloured header which also had the drawings of the

assembly in it. And that allowed us to reduce it to about three shillings or three

and eleven, I think. And they said that we should go ahead on that. And when

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we’d finished it, they said they wouldn’t give us an order unless we went down

to two and six, half a crown. And then just as that order was due to be collected

he said that their director of buying had said that it should be two shillings in

their shops. I had a terrific row with Kove over that because I had put the whole

project forward and masterminded it. However, by the time Woolworths had

finished there was no profit in it. In fact, we had to write off the tool practically

and no amortisation on our tooling and we really had no money. The tooling

cost eight hundred pounds, I remember that, so I said I’ll take it on my

shoulders. And we finally got the orders and we got terrific re-ordering, you

know, they had test stores and so we got terrific re-orders from them. And then

we had a bit of luck. The polystyrene powder which we were using, suddenly

instead of a shortage became a surplus commodity, and the price of that

tumbled down. And we were of course selling far larger quantities than we’d

been ever thinking of originally. So John, for instance, negotiated very well on

our printing, on the paper headers and so on, and suddenly we had a real profit,

which I didn’t tell Woolworths, and we ended up with a net profit of thirty per

cent and that is a real life change for a bankrupt company. And we went on and

immediately invested that in the next tooling and from there we moved along.

We started with the ships but we quickly saw that we must do the aircraft

which suited us very well as both John Gray and I both had a background in

wartime aircraft and their predecessors. And as we grew I started introducing

the historical bent into it to all. The cereal companies at the time had lousy

little plastic figures in their packs and I suddenly realised that if we could make

those figures as accurately as we were trying to make our aircraft we’d really

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have a winner, especially if they were not in dangerous plastic. And so instead

of putting one figure in, we were able to put a whole – do you know what a

sprue is?

No. <0:40:49>

Sprue is the liquid plastic which is shot into the cavities and if you have more

than one cavity it holds it on the tree. So I thought of that and we carried it out

and they were all double-O figures which made them suitable for the model

railways which people had at the time, and we had a second line there very,

very quickly. And with those things for instance we created war situations from

different wars with descriptions of the battles and things like that. And we

started doing that with the aircraft too of course, in further detail. And if we

made an English one we’d probably make an opposite one, either German or

Italian or something like that, Japanese. And of course we started having quite

a lot of business in America, so we started making American models too. And

I’m very pleased that the present management at Airfix has kept this on and if

you look at their catalogue you’ll see that they have detailed stories of the

various battles and things which happened. So it attracts people to history.

The historical figures as well, yes. Yes, I was reading about that. <0:42:39>

We also started other series and made mechanical items like the Trevithick

pump and historic machinery such as that. And the early Stevenson pumps

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which they used to bring the water out of the mines and then the earliest

locomotives and all that kind of thing. It was great fun and actually we were

making an awful lot of money. I and my colleagues did not take any

extravagant salaries because we were having such a good time.

Can you remember in colourful detail a working week for you in those early days, a

description? <0:43:31>

A working week for me ---. Well I would probably always be there about 8

o'clock and I would say in the earliest days I did everything. If we had a

nightshift I’d climb over the gate to see if the nightshift was working. And I’d

take on all the senior people. All the export was done by me, travelling there

usually over weekends and so on or long weekends. I was very lucky that I could

rely on John for instance, and one or two other people in the company. We

were all young people and I introduced the tabletop soccer and found a cup so

at lunchtime we’d be playing tabletop soccer with each other and we were

really a band of brothers. There was no doubt that I was the leader but I

actually didn’t take a bigger salary than any of my colleagues.

And what kind of numbers of employees are we talking about back then? <0:45:08>

Back then I should say somewhere around ---. By 1952 we’d probably have a

hundred people there working, or it could be probably a bit more because we

were also working in three shifts. But later on it grew very, very much because

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we were working in three factories after a while and probably we had two

thousand five hundred people working in England and another five hundred to

six hundred people in America and in Germany. No, but all of us, and not just

the sort of managerial top, the people running the nightshifts in the factory and

so on, they all grew with us. I know that the captain of a team probably has a

different view of life from the goalkeeper, but even so we were very good

friends. One of my colleagues was in a bad accident and his wife came along

because they wanted to remove his arm, and I just had broken my arm for the

third time I think by then, and I went to the specialist, consultant, and I got him

to go along to the hospital and got him to break protocol because, you know,

doctors don’t interfere with each other, and we were able to save the man’s

arm. We were really good brothers at that time and we had that relationship

nearly to the end of the time. And it was a very great and wonderful time to see

people growing, to see the company growing, the products being better, each

product being better and more exciting than the previous one and to see the

human beings growing with it.

And how would you describe the managerial style? Because it went public, didn’t it,

and was there a board? <0:47:57>

We went public. Yes. Well look, I’m afraid that to some extent both the good

things in the company and the bad things go back to me. Because I was the

person who made the company, it was I who invited people to become directors

of the company. I had this very close relationship with the Hoare’s Bank

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25

because – well we were introduced to them when we had no money but were

starting to make money and they were very, very good friends to me, and

Quintin who was their senior partner came on our board. And as I told you my

father died in ’46 when I was 21 and I think Quintin for a long time was really

my role model and my drinking companion. But, you know, there was real love

there. I don’t know, I’ve led myself astray now.

How would you describe the managerial style of the board throughout? I suppose it

changed throughout the decades? <0:49:46>

Well you mustn’t forget it was much more friendly, decent, a companionship of

decent people as was the whole style of boards in Britain before the war, and

this was just an aftermath of the war when the style hadn’t changed that

much, and with a real ---. As I said, my pleasure came, yes I was able to give my

children and my wife a decent lifestyle, but it wasn’t money. It was really we

just had a bloody good time.

I read a story in Arthur Ward’s book that you sold your car because you were

negotiating a pay rise. <0:50:48>

Yes, well that was early on. I was negotiating with our toolmakers and when I

suddenly realised that I was spending as much – I had a beautiful Armstrong

Siddley, it was a great car and the first great car I had, and I suddenly realised

that I was negotiating with them and their wages were as much as I was using

Ralph Ehrmann

26

in petrol. I decided to get rid of the car and buy a lower usage car. But yes, we

had the services, I can even go back further. My entire upbringing was very

much involved in social consciousness. My parents, especially my mother, had

worked in sort of teaching evening classes and things like that as well,

voluntary, and in fact we were always told that, you know, you had a duty to

the other people as well as they having a duty towards you.

Right. And as far as factory life goes, how would you describe the working atmosphere

in the factories? <0:52:26>

It was bloody good because again I was a young man, I was entitled to flirt with

the girls and the girls were entitled to flirt with me, very respectably because I

did respect one’s own doorstep. But, you know, and the men had all had the

same service background as I had. So we were very good pals. And actually

when we’d become quite large, by which time I had a convertible Rolls, and the

Chemical Workers Union decided they were going to unionise us and they had

some of our people joining them, and they had people at all our gates and so

on. I came in late, with my hood down, it was a sunny day, and my people

cheered me into the gates. And then even the people who were the pickets also

cheered. So the Chemical Workers Union disappeared. Even when we were

already quite substantial and when we had our troubles later in 1979 or ’80,

people were trying to work very hard to save the company. The only people

who buggered us up were Warburgs who I didn’t realise were going bankrupt

and then NatWest Bank which I remember one of the directors ---. When the

Ralph Ehrmann

27

whole thing went up my people produced a sort of document on all the illegal

things which had happened, including that secret information was passed and

so on. But as I was down to my last knockings of money, I decided I couldn’t

take on a bank.

Is that well documented, that story? <0:55:03>

Yes. I don’t know who’s got that, I imagine I could get it for you.

When you say secret information, I haven’t heard that. <0:55:14>

Well we were negotiating to sell a company and one of the area directors of

NatWest gave inside information to the people who were negotiating with us

who immediately therefore cut the price. And Warburgs, this is not

documented because I only found that out afterwards, had had an offer to take

over our plastics side there, the house ware side which was very, very successful

too, from somebody and they turned them away because they were so anxious

to complete the deal because they needed the money themselves. But I heard

that from the man who they told him they couldn’t do it and it was all open.

But I really didn’t have the money to take on a bank. But this is I don’t think

something which I want to really follow through in conversation, you know.

Okay, that’s fine. I respect that. Where would you say Airfix’s main competition came

from over the years? <0:56:40>

Ralph Ehrmann

28

We were in the general toy trade, so the general toy trade was our competition.

As far as product, I suppose there were two or three companies which tried to

imitate us and the only one which was a serious one was Revell in America. The

other ones all came and disappeared.

Did you ever feel any real pressure? <0:57:19>

Well many of them were encouraged by our customers as a lever against us.

The only people we really felt and on whom we kept an eye was Revell. And one

or two of the American companies but that was only to see the quality of how

they’d improved their product so that we could improve ours to that level or

better.

Okay. And in terms of production methods of manufacturing, I’ve read about the first

injection moulding machine in Britain, which you touched on, but it mentioned that it

was liberated, the ideas, by the wartime engineers in the army who saw the German

manufacturers and their factories when they were doing their wartime work.

<0:58:09>

That you wouldn’t have got from me, I do know that we were the first people to

take a machine from Windsor’s because they in fact replaced two machines

later for their museum because they though they would be there forever. But

they aren’t. Injection moulding, which was the material first acetate however

Ralph Ehrmann

29

which is I think it’s called hydroscopic, it takes up water and therefore twists

after a while, and then polystyrene and then various types of polystyrene which

became less brittle and things. There was that development all along. But that

happened after the war. Acetate was around during the war but, you know,

that was not an ideal engineering material.

Can you remember the workers’ reaction to working with this new equipment and

material? <0:59:19>

Yes, because again, in the early days, we only had a few people, I was

supervising them too. One of the terrible things which happened is that as they

were paid on a production, that there was always the temptation for men to try

and snatch things out of the machine which was automated after a while. And

instead of letting the machine come to rest they would snatch it out so that

they could start. And that worried me a bit. Look the war was over, people

were looking for a new form of living, women were looking for work, people

didn’t have cars, people didn’t have television. For instance, when our

accounting was wrong and we wanted to check something, we could always

ask people to come in on Saturdays and even Sundays to catch up and do the

work because they were yearning to have some extra money and they were

yearning to be busy. There were twice interferences with that. One is when

television came on the market and they suddenly wanted to stay at home and

then of course television introduced them to all kinds of new desires in life

which they wanted to make money for, so that was all right. And then the

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30

other thing which happened is that cars suddenly became a common

occurrence here and our people, who were amongst the better paid people,

started being able to afford cars and their wives wanted to take the cars away

over a weekend. So those were the only reactions which we had. We never had

any kind of strike from our people. We tried to be as fair to them as one could

be and there wasn’t anybody in the factory who would be frightened to talk to

me as I walked around. If I heard a telephone ringing and nobody answered it I

would answer it. That was one of my rules, you didn’t keep any telephone

ringing. I knew things and all my executives were so involved with the ---.

somebody tried to run a secondary business out of our warehouse, somebody

who’d decided to buy some of our stuff. But because of our involvement, in one

case they sent a lorry to collect stuff from our despatch depot and as the lorry

didn’t come through at the right time, they rang up to apologise for the lorry

being late and somebody picked it up and so when the lorry came we were

there to receive them. So no, we were really part of the company. And you’re in

a different world now, that we did not have the differentiation of the ugly side

of unions or the ugly side of management. And no manager got these stupid

salaries which they get today to differentiate them completely. Yes, we lived

better, I ate better and everything else. But it was within reach of their dreams.

And I keep on coming back, we had these five, six years of the war together that

we were not so competitive in a personal sense. The thought of working as a

team was ingrained in everybody.

Ralph Ehrmann

31

Did people ever play practical jokes? Do you remember any practical jokes people

played? <1:04:23>

I can’t remember them. I can’t. But I’m sure we did all these things. I don’t

know if we ever sent anybody for striped paint!

In terms of factory life was there a division of labour with the genders? Did the

women tend to do a certain type of work? <1:04:47>

Yes.

What sort of work were they doing? <1:04:49>

They were doing assembly, which at first when we were still making products

which had to be stuck together they might do that, or it would be packaging.

And we always had a lot of women. And the admin side of the factory was very

much dominated by them. And towards the end of our time one of my

directors, not on the toy side, introduced a woman director in his company and

we saw that she was doing great things and we were turning ourselves around

to take one or two, admittedly only in Human Relations because we found that

they did a very ---. The chap whom I mentioned who was running the other

factory, the house ware factory which was much more a straightforward

moulding because they were large lumps you were making and therefore less

women, we had an awful lot of Indians there. And we had an awful lot of

Ralph Ehrmann

32

strikes there. And he thought about it and I think he had just taken this Human

Relations woman on board, he thought about it and together they decided that

these Indian moulders who were so unhappy, I don’t know whether they were

Pakistani or Indian, that the reason why they were unhappy is that they didn’t

speak enough English to get any of our information and they were getting the

information from the union instead which was always twisted. So we started

evening classes for the moulders and as soon as some of them learnt English

well enough we never had any trouble anymore. And that came from the

woman. Actually he was an Israeli and the woman he brought aboard, she

convinced us. Obviously one should never forget these things. And we became

quite conscious of that. But in the offices, the offices were largely staffed by

women. We were one of the earliest companies to use computers.

Really? How did you get involved so early on? Can you remember? <1:07:43>

Well again you have influences on you. I was an early member of the Institute

of Directors and I knew people in it. I did my reading. In those days I read the

Financial Times a lot, and these days I’m completely in the hands of The

Economist, but just an educated person’s interest in life. Computers obviously

gave you the ---. We were dealing in very large quantities and fast moving

merchandise and I’m sure that the people who supplied us with machinery also

fed thoughts into us. And we had accountants who also came up with ideas. In

fact, in our group we had a company which was an IT company, because one of

our IT men he wrote a new language to get over the introduction of Cobol, and

Ralph Ehrmann

33

which probably isn’t even an existing language anymore, but obviously he was

doing a good job that we backed him to build up a whole science out of that.

Okay. This is interesting, ‘cause it was the foremost British manufacturer and it’s how

you operated and different things you learnt about the workforce and how to manage

it. <1:09:28>

It was fantastic, a difference in so many ways. For instance as a successful

company we got very good treatment from the banks and therefore it did not

really cost me anything to start another company because the banks were

always happy to back us. And actually when we talked about competition I said

there was very little competition apart from the fact that part of our business

which was in the toy business proper, yes we had a lot of competition there, but

the real competition today is television. Because when I was in the toy industry

we reckoned toys were with you until the age of fifteen and sixteen, today toys

are with you up to the age of eight, maybe some girls’ toys like dolls are with

you a bit longer. But our kits, in the years that they were successful, were in

universal High Streets. They would have toys in Woolworths, in W H Smith –

not toys, kits. W H Smith, Boots, British Home Stores. There would be at least

three or four in our Kensington High Street where you could buy a fairly good

range of kits. Today the number of kits made is so few because ---. Oh and

that’s another decision which I made. I always believed that you should make

things as cheap as possible. Of course partially this was an input from

Woolworths and later Marks and Spencer’s. Incidentally, Marks and Spencer’s

Ralph Ehrmann

34

probably had a great input on it because I was very close to the Marks and

Spencer’s people, or we were, and they were always very forward looking both

in human beings and in running a company.

So you had more outlets and twice the age of childhood? <1:12:28>

Do you realise we would never put a mould up for a kit for less than fifty

thousand pieces and usually it was really a hundred thousand pieces. Today I

know that Hornby’s who are now the owners of Airfix, put them up for as little

as five thousand pieces. But they charge enormous prices compared to what

we charged. They’re going from a completely different customer range. Our

little soldiers, the ones I told you about which I’m so proud of, they were called

Hoover Armies ‘cause children used them and scattered them all around the

carpet or lino or whatever and the mothers would have to clean them up. And

it didn’t matter because they’d get about thirty little soldiers for two shillings.

And the two shillings was more in those days than it is now. But today because

the great competition is the television, it becomes more mighty all the time

whether it’s doing exercises to television or mental ones or just hanging on the

soap opera. But that was our main competition for a long time. And I see that

this is the main competition which our successors have.

That’s interesting. Yeah. And how are you doing for time? <1:14:20>

For me I’m fine. As I said, if I’m talking too much?

Ralph Ehrmann

35

Okay. I have a couple more questions (laughs). <1:14:26>

Carry on.

I’ve read that there was an anti-war movement and it started in Australia with a lobby

against violent war toys and it reflected Airfix and then it came to Europe and you had

to change your packaging. Now what are your memories of that? <1:14:47>

I don’t think we changed our packaging. I do remember being on television

with a lady who tried to say that all our war toys was creating murderers and I

said in that case our building sets should be creating a lot of architects. And I

had a helluva job, having been brought up politely I don’t interrupt a lady easily,

and she interrupted me all the time and I hardly had a word in edge ways, till

finally I burst all over her. But no, that was never a serious ---.

It wasn’t a serious problem? <1:15:24>

No. In fact I have a daughter who’s a single parent and she was convinced that

she would never allow her son to have a gun or anything in the house. He’s got

his guns and he’s got his little whatever it is because boys and even maybe girls

today just like going pop pop pop.

And I also read that there was a Juvenile Probation Centre in Orpington. <1:16:04>

Ralph Ehrmann

36

A what?

A Juvenile Probation Centre it’s described as, in Orpington, that they used to send over

Airfix kits for them to make ‘cause it helped the relationship between the staff and the

boys. <1:16:16>

Yes, that kind of thing we encouraged.

Could you expand on it, have you got any memories of it? <1:16:25>

Do I have any?

Any memories of that? <1:16:26>

No, I really I can’t have anybody I can give you for that. There was the lovely

story which has been repeated by me once on television too, when Peter May

had me. Or was it Peter or whatever the May is, you know, the man with the

long hair?

James May? <1:16:56>

James May, yes. There was a youngster who sent us a half a crown or

something like that, and said he’s had such a wonderful time with the thing

Ralph Ehrmann

37

and this is to help you build more kits and so on. And so we immediately sent

him a large parcel of kits and so he obviously started this correspondence a bit

further. And at a Toy Fair, probably Nuremburg, sitting there drinking late at

night with other people, I told the story about this young boy who’d sent his

pocket money to us and everybody started laughing, because he’d done it to

everybody else and they’d all sent him freebies. (Laughs)

(Laughs) What a clever boy. (Laughs)

And I dared use the term, the little b*****d, on television.

(Laughs) Is there anything else that you feel you’d like to cover with your career? I

know you had the British Toys and Hobbies Association, you had a link with them and

you got the Roll of Honour for example. <1:18:11>

Of?

The BTHA? <1:18:13>

Yes.

You were involved with that and you were given the Roll of Honour award. <1:18:16>

Ralph Ehrmann

38

Oh yes, that was very nice and I’ve still got it next door. But actually I was lucky.

We were probably one of the first companies really to explode in the English

market, in the toy market, and as such I was one of the first outsiders to get into

the Council of the BTHMA. I think by 1952 I was already in the Council. And I

was after that also Director or Chairman or – we had the Chairman and

President, yes. I was always one of those things. And so I was very much

involved in the growth of the BTHMA and in fact they do bless men, and when I

got this award they did point out that the fact that the BTHMA was on a good

financial foundation was due me and that I had insisted they bought a freehold

building instead of renting an office block. Which they did and I think it’s stood

them in good stead. And even now when in fact there’s very little toy

manufacturing in England, it’s very sad actually. We were the second biggest

toy manufacturing country I think in the world but certainly in Europe. And the

BTHMA is really a distribution association now and not such a creative one. And

again we were all proud of what we were doing in our different ways and so our

evenings together would also be very, very good. We had a very active official

trade thing which was the BTHMA, and we also had a very good friendly one

called The Fence Club. You heard about it?

I have yes. <1:20:49>

But it really was pride of product rather than pride in money.

Ralph Ehrmann

39

Pride in product? When you started out working on the Council what were your

strategies over the decades? <1:21:07>

I had no strategies, I just wanted to do a good job. And as in life, I had my

principles and as I said both my family and later on my other principles

including Quintin Hoare’s, you know, Quintin Hoare was the nephew of Quintin

Hogg, who started the Regent Street Polytechnic and the whole polytechnic

movement in Britain, or now it’s Met Universities. But Quintin I don’t think had

– he may have had a degree from Oxford, I’m not sure. I think his education

probably also disappeared in the war years. But he came from a very fine old

family and he had the best Christian social beliefs. In my years I think very few

people were very religious in any sense but we had a framework which was

religiously inclined and which is not much different from one religion to the

other. And we did feel we had a duty to each other.

A duty to be kind and respectful do you mean? <1:22:57>

Yes. When I was looking for product for Airfix in the first days in the company,

somebody offered me a very large contract to do a condiment set, not a very

high class one, consisting of a urinal, a lavatory seat, and I can’t remember

maybe it’s two urinals, the salt and pepper in the urinals and the lavatory seat

was for the mustard. And I said, you know, I can’t take this contract because I

couldn’t show it to my mother. And one was very surprised if people went

outside that. And some of the people who produced shall we say some of the

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40

top shelf magazines and so on, were a shock to our generation because the

pornography it’s always existed but that it could become a real public business

both for them and for W H Smith and so on, was not in our thoughts.

I wonder what started the turning of the way people do business in this country?

<1:22:57>

I think it’s excess communications. You mustn’t forget – and transport – what

has happened is that in a small town, which is where we all were before it was

so easy to even get on a bus, that your cousin would know what you were up

and the cousin would tell his or her mother, just as in conversation, and his or

her mother would gladly tell your mother and the circle was made. And I know

when I was in the Air Force how much worse we all behaved in the anonymity

of our uniforms than we did at home. And I think the sort of drinking all round

and getting drunk was something which has always existed again, but getting

drunk every night and that kind of thing is not something which really existed.

And I think this anonymity of modern life which has allowed people a) to grow

up alone and look for company. Don’t forget at that time a small family would

be four children and a large family would be ten and they would have the ten

because so many of the children would be dying. And so between you and your

surrounding family you were in a world where you were responsible for what

you did. You couldn’t put on the anonymity of even the street girls which girls

parade in now. I know all the stories about girls who spent their time the

moment they got out of school tucking up their skirts so they were way, way up

Ralph Ehrmann

41

over the knees so they’d think – well if you’re going to meet your cousin round

the corner you’d keep it down because it would sooner or later come out.

Yeah, it’d be reported back to the family, yes. That’s an interesting insight. That’s

good. And do you have any sort of final reflections you’d like to mention, looking back

at your career over the years in Airfix? <1:27:20>

It was such a pleasure dealing, mind you I was successful so I’m probably bent,

but it was a wonderful time when we were producing better and better things

all the time and we were very proud of them and making steps and discovering

new worlds either technically or actual worlds abroad. It was a very happy time

and of course I was young and beautiful.

(Laughs) Okay. Thank you very much indeed. <1:28:04>

[END OF RECORDING – 1:28:07]