An honest living: Roger Babington-Hill’s Thought for the Week

‘His word was his bond.’

In Roger Lipsey’s book Gurdjieff Reconsidered, an exploration of the quintessential Western esoteric teacher of the twentieth century, there is reference to Katherine Mansfield’s visit to The Prieuré, a former priory where Gurdjieff had established his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. Mansfield, a modernist writer and critic, had tuberculosis, and spent her last years seeking a cure. She eventually suffered a fatal pulmonary haemorrhage at The Prieuré, and Gurdjieff’s reputation suffered – unfairly, according to contemporary accounts. But in fact Lipsey records that Mansfield’s impression was very positive, and the quality that struck her there most forcibly was honesty.

I was reminded of my father’s work as a Lloyd’s underwriter. He specialised in insuring ships and their cargos. Back then, some thirty or forty years ago, the system was simple. The brokers representing a ship’s owner would circulate in the huge underwriting room at Lloyds. They each carried a narrow piece of paper, just a couple of inches wide and seven or eight inches long, known as a slip. On it would be written the name of the ship to be insured, its value, and the value of the cargo, as well as the date of sailing and the ports to be visited. A broker would first visit a lead underwriter such as my father because, if one of them would agree to take a percentage of the insurance, others would most likely follow to complete the deal.

The reputations of the ship’s owner and the underwriter were key to the transaction. The exchange relied completely on mutual trust. On one side was the reputation of the ship’s owner. This included the care with which the ships were maintained, the truthfulness in describing the cargo, and the skill of the crew. On the other side, the underwriter’s reputation for honesty and reliability had to be beyond question.

After a brief conversation with the broker, my father would agree, or not, to take a percentage of the risk. On the slip he would write simply the proportion he was willing to take – say three per cent, which might represent a risk of many tens of thousand pounds – followed by his initials, HBH. That was the contract: a number and his initials on a slim piece of paper. His word was his bond.

A few days ago I was playing in the garden with my little five-year-old grandson. He wanted to water the garden, but had the idea that fertiliser is sometimes added. He went to the kitchen and found salt.

‘Please don’t use that’, said his father.

‘OK, I won’t.’

‘It will hurt the plants.’

‘Dad, I said I wouldn’t.’

His word was his bond too.

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