Lessons for life from the Crash of ’73

David Young, who later served in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet and as chairman of Cable & Wireless, recalls his struggle for survival as an up-and-coming entrepreneur

There are some days you just never forget. It was Monday morning, 12 November 1973, and I was in my office at Town & City Properties in Carlton Gardens. I was a main board director and a substantial shareholder, having sold my company, Eldonwall, to Town & City some three years before.

Those years had brought about a remarkable property boom. We were already the second largest property company on the London stock exchange — but I think Barry East, the founder and chairman, wanted to be number one. The company had discovered an apparently inexhaustible source of finance and embarked on a frenetic dash for growth. We had always fully financed our developments before construction started but now we bought and bought — often, I thought, at the very top of the market.