Flitting from flower to flower in adland

I went to see my cousin and godfather, L Graham Browne  ‒ ‘Uncle Bill’ ‒ in the Birmingham office of his ad agency, to ask him to give me a job. I was nineteen, in awe of him, and fundamentally unemployable in the opinion of both me and my father.

‘You need to leave home,’ he told me. ‘Go to London. If you really want to work in advertising, I’ll give you the addresses of the leading agencies there. You’ll need to apply for the mailroom.’

A few weeks later I found myself in an interview with the head of traffic control at J Walter Thompson in Berkeley Square, Harry Garnell. It seemed to be going quite well.

‘Do you have any questions?’ he asked me.

‘What do you particularly have to have, to be successful in advertising?’ I enquired.

‘Well, you need more than anything to have a butterfly mind,’ he responded, ‘able to shift from one thing to another in an instant.’

How right he was.

 

Remembering Uncle Bill

Thinking today of all those soldiers, sailors and airmen involved in the D-Day landings in Normandy, and of all who lost their lives in that great battle – British, American, Canadian, French and German.

Thinking especially today of my cousin, Captain L Graham Browne MC, “Uncle Bill”, after whom I was named, who landed that day with the Dorsets on Gold Beach. Soldier, advertising man, rally driver, champion cyclist.

 

He represented for me throughout my childhood a beacon of what might be achieved in life.