Last spring I came across Louis Armstrong in the Reform Club. A cranial depression the size of a baby’s hand marked the spot where the former chief executive of the RICS had endured surgery for a brain tumour a few months earlier.
He joked about filling time in hospital reading my book Planet Property. I laughed in disbelief, departing with a promise to buy him lunch. Cancer could not possibly kill a 68-year-old so full of life. Yet it did, on New Year’s Eve.
After joining the institution in 1998, the former rear-admiral set the good ship RICS straight, taking over a job executed to the instructions of president Richard Lay, then boss of DTZ.
The refit allowed the institution to sail into international waters to pick up thousands of new foreign members. Howls of indignation were heard from members in the home port, indignant at branch closures and subscription hikes imposed to fund the global adventure.
Armstrong was typically unrepentant when I interviewed him for the book in 2009, one year before he retired.
“The institution ceased being what I would describe as a ‘cosy gentlemen’s club’ based somewhere in Little England and set in the 1960s or 1970s. We had to move away from meetings, masquerading as CPD, in the back room of a pub. They were simply cosy networking sessions – not the way professional bodies should operate.”
Wondering if he had gone too far, he laughed and said, “Sod it, I’m going soon. Let’s just tell the truth.” After a pause, he went on: “We underestimated the emotional attachment of active members to their branches.”
Indeed he did. A rare admission of culpability. Truth is, the former HMS Britannia supply officer was always more at home on the bridge, sailing foreign waters, than he was coddling the crew and grumpy UK members bitching about his large salary.
He did have the ability to drive me crazy by never following up on meeting action points with EG when I was its editor. But I eventually realised that his staff ignored instructions to deal with snippy journalists.
Armstrong was tall and imposing, a rich baritone presence whose jollity could lighten a room and gladden hearts. A man made larger by his generous spirit, humour and self-deprecation. He’s a figure I can scarcely believe has been felled. I dearly wish I’d followed up on my promise of lunch.
The lure of the high street
Thought for the day. Online estate agents have been popping up like mushrooms. Start-ups such as e-moov, Purplebricks, easyProperty – and now HouseSimple, backed by Carphone Warehouse founder Sir Charles Dunstone – feel that a financially significant number of sellers will deal directly with buyers if they can pay £500, rather than 1.5%.
This notion is most likely nonsense. Sir Charles and his ilk will probably lose their shirts come the next crash.
But given the sheer number of start-ups, might it be prudent for high street agents to squash the start-ups by offering listing-only-services? After all, 90% of sellers taking up the cheapo offer are likely to plead to pay 1.5% once they realise how hellish the chain-driven process can be.
NHS online: be amazed
A pat on the back for NHS Property Services (a pat that is in no way linked to the very
full English breakfast enjoyed in the company of NHS Property Services non-executive director Martin West and head of London Tony Griffiths just before Christmas, honest).
This newish, 3,000-strong organisation directly controls 3m sq ft of NHS stock in more than 3,000 buildings, amounting to about 10% of the entire NHS estate.
The plaudit comes after inspecting the amazingly detailed report published last September showing the make- up of the estate. This report can be found on an impressive website that also allows you to search the assets for sale by type and region. Take a look. Be amazed.
Peter Bill is a former editor of Estates Gazette
