No1 - Background

We were married in the late autumn of 1968 in the North of England. I was working in the then bright new industry of computers with IBM and Marion was a farmers daughter working on and around the family farm. We set up home in Teddington, Middlesex in a first story flat which we had bought for the then princely sum of £3750.00. In late 1969 I moved from IBM to a software company, Informatics Inc., based in Geneva, Switzerland. We moved to Camberly, Surrey in 1972 by which time we had one son Giles with what turned out to be a second son Simon on the way.

It was shortly after joining Informatics that I discovered wine. Up to this point I did not drink and Marion not much. I found myself travelling frequently and a fair number of times to Liverpool. I stayed at the Adelphi hotel and used to have my evening dinner in the French restaurant a very well known restaurant in those days. After I had stayed there several times the maitre d'hotel asked why I didn't order any wine when they had a very good wine list. After some discussion I decided to try something and ordered, at the maitre d's suggestion, a bottle of 1964 Gevrey Chambertain, I think actually a Chambertain itself at around the princely sum of £5.00 a bottle. It turned out to be one of those fantastic bottles which was just like an elixir. After less than a glass I was hooked, wine was for me and Burgundy in particular.