My working life spans the period before Britain joined the European Economic Community, through our years of membership, and into the present day.
In the 1960s Britain still lived largely in the world of pounds, shillings and pence. We measured temperature in Fahrenheit, length in inches, feet, yards, furlongs and miles, petrol in gallons, milk in pints, and weight in grains, ounces, pounds, stones, quarters, hundredweights and tons. Altitude was in feet, and in many trades imperial measurements were not just familiar — they were the language of business.
Decimalisation came on 15 February 1971, when shillings disappeared and the pound was divided into 100 new pence. One new penny was worth 2.4 old pence. Metrication was not a single event in 1973, but a gradual process that had begun in the 1960s and gathered pace through industry, education and government standards.
I was lucky. I went through secondary school in the early 1960s and was taught both imperial and metric measurements. As a result, I can still think in both systems. Some conversions remain lodged in my mind from the days when I was forever calculating volumes and weights for shipping rates: 25.4 mm to the inch; 0.3048 metres to the foot; 3.28084 feet to the metre; 1 tonne as 1,000 kg; and an imperial long ton as roughly 1,016 kg.
In my opinion, joining the EEC on 1 January 1973 was a mistake. Britain still had deep trading, cultural and commercial links with the Commonwealth and with countries that had once been part of the Empire. Those relationships were not perfect, and history should not be romanticised, but they were real. We bought lamb from New Zealand, bananas from the Caribbean, and many Commonwealth countries worked with British Standards, British engineering practice and British commercial habits.
British Standards were one of the hooks that helped sell British products abroad. They gave buyers confidence. They also tied markets to British suppliers, British catalogues and British technical knowledge.
My own experience was in the copper tube and fittings industry, working for the largest manufacturer of copper pipe and fittings in the UK. The move from imperial plumbing pipe, such as half-inch bore, to metric pipe, such as 15 mm outside diameter, was supposed to help us compete in European and metric markets. We thought metrication would open doors.
But on day one of EEC membership, 1 January 1973, the reality felt rather different. A Swedish manufacturer was already distributing the European metric standard from a stock point in Hull. We had adapted, but so had our competitors — and in some cases they were faster, closer to the new standards, and better placed to take advantage.
Over the following decades, as I drove across Europe, I noticed a gradual change. On industrial estates abroad, British names seemed to become less common. In Britain, foreign names became more common. That is not all down to EEC or EU membership — globalisation, privatisation, management decisions, exchange rates, industrial relations and government policy all played their part — but EU membership was part of the commercial landscape in which those changes happened.
There was once a time when companies with “British” in their name were commonplace. Some were nationalised giants, some were private companies, and some were household names: British Leyland, British Steel, British Aerospace, British Shipbuilders, British Rail, British Airways, British Gas, British Telecom, British Coal, British Nuclear Fuels, British Petroleum, British Sugar, British Caledonian, British Midland, British Land, British Home Stores, British Shoe Corporation, BOC/British Oxygen, British Aluminium, BICC, British Printing Corporation, Associated British Foods, Associated British Ports and British Jeffrey Diamond.
Many of those names have disappeared, been absorbed, rebranded, broken up, privatised or foreign-owned. The disappearance of the word “British” from company names is not proof on its own of national decline, but it is a symbol of a profound change in ownership, identity and confidence.
ICI is another example. Imperial Chemical Industries was once one of the great names of British industry. Today, Dulux — still a familiar brand in British homes — is owned by AkzoNobel, a Dutch multinational, after its acquisition of ICI in 2008. The product may still be on the shelf, and the brand may still be trusted, but ownership, strategic control and profits may sit elsewhere.
In today’s uncertain political climate, I hear talk of re-entry into the EU being mooted by politicians and commentators. Before that debate goes too far, we should remember what the UK was in 1973: a country with long-established trading routes, Commonwealth relationships, British Standards, major national industries and global commercial recognition.
The UK’s 47 years of membership, from 1 January 1973 to 31 January 2020, changed the British commercial landscape. Some changes were inevitable. Some were self-inflicted. Some were part of global economic shifts. But those of us old enough to remember the country before membership can still see the difference.
That perspective is worth recording before the last of the old working generation disappears from the debate.
Gerald Bratley MCIEx