Modest Beginnings

In one of the earliest Sea Containers' Christmas parties, somewhat less ambitious sketches were based around the suggested modest beginnings of the Company's leasing activities.

The picture shows Andrew Evans, as a schoolboy lessee, and Cedric Marie, as a very young Jim Sherwood, eavesdropping at a baseball game.  The young Master Sherwood had the bright idea of renting his greengrocer father's empty orange boxes out to friends who couldn't afford the price of a ticket to attend the ball game.  In later years, what option had he but to continue the theme by having somewhat larger orange boxes?

The same show, I seem to recollect, featured a number of parodies of American ballads, all poking mild fun at the leasing industry.  Thus to the melody of "Our Love is Here to Stay . . .

It's very clear

The box is here to stay.

Leased by the year,

Or rented by the day.

In time the roofs may grow rusty,

The floors become dusty,

The lessee will have to pay

For that's what the contracts say.

Another such song, to the music of Dancing in the Dark, suggested

Leasing in the dark,

Sea Containers is

Leasing in the dark . .

It was at this point, I believe, that I introduced a "potted history of Sea Containers" that suggested the leasing business ultimately grew so complicated that more and more responsibility devolved on the accounts and financial departments and, in particular, on the VP Finance Peter Molony.  Again, very tongue in cheek, we recited a verse of which only the following remains in memory:

 . . . but

to allocate responsibilities

for assets and for liabilities,

eventually Pete Molony

was driven to complete boloney;

until at last the role fell into

the temporary hands of Joseph Pinto . . .

The truth was, I believe, that Peter Molony who had looked after the finances of the company since its inception in Old Jewry, was wooed away by the offer of a senior management position at the Post Office, where he spent 2 years from 1971 to 1973, and then joined the board of the Scottish and Newcastle Breweries.   Joe Pinto was at that time responsibile for corporate finance in New York.  This scene was presented by Andrew Lavey and Rob Ward as an imaginary duet between Joe and his cousin Morrie Pinto in London - and the lyrics are those given in the section headed Oh Morrie this Park Street . . . .

Attention then turned to the areas of engineering and control and to one of the mainstays of the Engineering Department (the late) John Foster:

A mighty slide rule wields John Foster

To demonstrate he's no imposter.

And proving it's no idle boast,

He's used it for a corner post.

The cast of these shows included John Foster, Cedric Marie, Andrew Evans, Andrew Lavey, Kathy Evans, Jacky Peaple, Sandra Levy, Bea Hughes, John Witton, Peter Coy, Rob Ward and Trevor Milner