Memoir, Travel and Working Life

The friendships formed through international travel were among the most enduring rewards of Gerald Bratley’s six decades in overseas business. One of the unexpected rewards of a career in international trade was not the countries visited, the contracts signed, or even the business successes achieved along the way. Those were important, of course, but they … Read more

British engineering exports once carried the products, standards and expertise of UK industry to major projects throughout the world. Britain’s industrial export strength in the 1960s–1980s, was in heavy engineering, infrastructure, manufacturing, at that time UK companies supplied products and expertise to major projects globally, but over time there was a gradual shift toward finance … Read more

Categories Theme: How international business travel used to work. International business travel before email required careful preparation, personal judgement and the ability to work independently for weeks at a time. For most of my working life, international business was conducted face to face. A typical trip might last a month and cover several countries. Flights … Read more

International trade before digital communication depended on telegrams, telex messages, concise reports and decisions made far from the office. Having spent the last sixty years in global sales and marketing, I became accustomed to communicating with people at every level — from the shoe-shine boy outside a hotel to government ministers. My work took me … Read more