Investing Against the Tide

chapter 20

How the industry has changed

The City of London I joined in 1971 and the City today could not be more different. The City in the 1970s was a place of relatively short working hours (at least compared with today’s long hours), long lunches where alcohol was usually consumed. It was nearly always the case that who you knew was as important as what you knew: many jobs were still awarded based on connections rather than ability. People worried about whether your shoes had laces and whether your shirt collar was stiff and detachable. The punishment for entering the stock exchange floor, if you were not a member and were caught out, was a public debagging (this was before women members were allowed). I remember a broker friend taking ...