From a rented lock up to a big aviation brand
GLASNOST and perestroika are Russian words closely associated with Mikhail Gorbachev, former premier of the Soviet Union who died recently at the age of 91.
The terms referred to the new spirit of openness introduced by Mr Gorbachev, designed to ease the tensions that had existed between east and west Europe since the end of the Second World War.
To demonstrate the seriousness of his intent, the communist party leader and premier of the Soviet Union visited the United Kingdom, one of the few times a political heavyweight from the other side of the iron curtain had ventured west.
It was April 1989. After extensive talks with British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the two leaders spoke to the world’s press outside 10 Downing Street.
That was when Mrs Thatcher famously reported that her Russian counterpart was “A man we can do business with”.
Not surprisingly, Mr Gorbachev’s itinerary on his visit to Britain was crammed.
But he found time to visit one company. And it was a firm owned by the Gloucestershire based Dowty Group.
CASE Communications, located in Watford, had been bought by Dowty in 1988 and established strong trading links with the USSR in the field of telecommunications and computer equipment. Welcoming Mr Gorbachev to the company’s premises were Tony Thatcher (no relation to Mrs T), who was chief executive of the Dowty Group, Lord Harrowby and Lord Young, who was then the British secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy.
Many high profile political and other leaders visited locations owned by the Dowty Group during its years of operation.
In 1944 minister of aircraft production Sir Stafford Cripps arrived at the firm’s Arle Court HQ to inspect the test rig, then the largest in the country, that was used in the production of landing gear for Lancaster bombers.
George Dowty founded his company named Aircraft Components in 1931. At the time he was still employed as a draughtsman at the Gloster Aircraft Company. But working from a rented lock up behind Lansdown Terrace in Cheltenham he moonlighted, making the innovative aviation product he designed. It was a new kind of landing gear with an internal shock absorber.
The onset of the Second World War boosted demand for the company’s products and by the 1950s Dowty was a name known world wide in the aerospace field.
Queen Elizabeth II made the first of many visits by members of the royal family to the group headquarters. In 1981 Prince Phillip conducted a walk about at Arle Court and spent a good deal of time talking with Dowty apprentices.
The Princess of Wales was photographed at the control console of a Dowty weapons fire system produced by the company for the Royal Navy.
Though based in Gloucestershire, the company operated from production facilities around the world.
In 1984 Princess Anne called in on the factory in the Isle of Man, where she was given a guided tour by managing director Peter Lowther.
Politicians of all complexions were pictured being shown this and that at various Dowty sites.
Reginald Maudling, minister of supply, attended Dowty’s silver jubilee dinner in 1956 and was photographed with Pat Smythe, the British equestrian Olympian who lived locally at Miserden.
In 1967 the Labour cabinet member John Stonehouse was guest of honour at the company’s apprentices and trainees prize giving. John Stonehouse is perhaps best remembered today for attempting to fake his own death in 1974.
Michael Heseltine when minister for aerospace was a guest at Dowty Rotol in 1973. Sir Geoffrey Howe, foreign secretary, dropped in on Dowty Aerospace in 1984.
And so the list goes on. Which, of course, the Dowty Group didn’t.
When the cold war came to an end, largely due to the foresight of Mikhail Gorbachev, the world was promised a peace dividend. All that gross national income spent on arms and weaponry, so the argument went, could now be devoted to more constructive purpose.
But curiously, it was the decline of military contracts that heralded the demise of the Dowty Group. Which surely couldn’t have been on Mr Gorbachev’s mind when he visited the company in 1989.