‘The boy’s got to learn to be a man’
Sir John Harvey Jones is the very model of a successful businessman. Now in his
mid 80s, the former Chairman of ICI (once Britain’s largest company) looks back on
a brilliant career as a Royal Navy Officer, highly respected entrepreneur, and lately
writer and broadcaster. Yet his early years were hardly auspicious and as a boy he
didn’t see his father for 20 years!
Born in India, he was sent away to boarding school at the age of 6. ‘I was bullied
mercilessly,’ he recalls. ‘The bullying was both physical and verbal, and always with
numbers, never one-on-one. It resulted in my trying to slash my wrists in the toilet
with a blunt penknife.’
‘Everybody knew I was dreadfully unhappy. I’d written to my parents and told them
I was desperate, but I figure my father thought the boy’s got to learn to be a man
and stand up for himself.’
At 12, he left the school to go to Naval College, which he describes as ‘Pretty dra-
conian. The discipline was horrendous.’
One of the best days of his life was seeing his old school bulldozed to the ground
prior to redevelopment. Like many successful people who suffered abuse in child-
hood, it’s not that he has forgotten what happened – the memories are crystal
clear. It’s that he simply decided not to let it hold him back.
17 CHILDHOOD