Articles by Gerald Bratley
Every article on this website has its roots in almost sixty years spent travelling, negotiating, selling and solving problems in more than sixty countries around the world.
During that time I worked with small and large British manufacturers, overseas diplomatic posts, foreign governments, international contractors, engineers and business people, witnessing at first hand the remarkable transformation of international trade, technology, communications and the British economy.
Those experiences gave me a unique perspective on how the world changed during the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. I have seen international business move from telegrams and teleprinters to email, video conferencing and artificial intelligence; from handwritten export documentation to fully digital systems; and from an era when Britain’s heavy engineering products were exported across the globe to a very different economic landscape.
The articles collected here combine practical knowledge with personal observation. Some draw directly upon my experiences in international trade and exporting, while others explore travel, engineering, history, politics, culture and the remarkable people I met along the way. Together they form a record of both a working life and a period of extraordinary economic and technological change.
My aim is not to tell readers what they should think. I have never belonged to a political party or ideological movement, and I have no wish to persuade people towards a particular viewpoint. Instead, I try to describe events as I have observed them, placing them in their historical and constitutional context wherever possible. Readers are free to draw their own conclusions.
Many of these articles began as notes made while researching my books. Others were prompted by current events or by memories of experiences that still seem relevant today. Collectively they represent my attempt to record, as accurately as I can, the changes I have witnessed over almost six decades of professional life.
To make browsing easier, the articles are grouped into six broad subject areas:
- International Trade and Exporting
- Memoir, Travel and Working Life
- British Politics and Democracy
- History, Culture and Conflict
- Engineering and Technology
- Electric Vehicles and Transport
Whether you are looking for practical guidance, historical perspective or simply an interesting story from someone fortunate enough to have lived and worked through a remarkable period of change, I hope you will find something here that informs, interests or perhaps even challenges your own thinking.