As a social work student at the LSE in 1964 I was lucky enough to be given a placement in the personnel department at Glaxo in Greenford, Middlesex, where Richard Stokes was the director. I got some very good advice and entertaining stories from him, including the admission that he was quite relieved not to have won the Spelthorne constituency seat in the general election, since at that time MPs were paid much less than personnel directors.
Richard advised me against going into personnel management, because he said it would clash with my socialist views: “In the end you are on the bosses’ side.”
He told me of a personnel director friend who became a Labour candidate and got called in to see the directors, who gave him the ultimatum of giving up being a candidate or his job. “How long have I got?” he asked. “Half an hour,” they replied.
Appreciating the point of Richard’s advice, I became a lecturer, and later a politician.
