| This story allows me to
remember my brother who died suddenly at the age of 48.
It is a story that will be added to over the coming years as there
is so much to tell and yet, I am very cautious about what I should
put into print to begin with. One cannot imagine a more
exciting life than the one my brother and I shared and it is for
that reason it must be told. There are many stories of
our business escapades, about our travels worldwide, our dealings,
some spectacular and some unspectacular, and I would love to recount
his input and his ideas and his involvement but, due to constant
fears of the taxman and commercial enemies, I am unable to relate
them yet and probably never.
We spent the best part
of 45 years growing up and going into business together and we must
have visited over 50 countries in that time which allowed us to meet
so many different people. I remember all the things we did together,
I remember school – particularly school as he was always far better
at sports than me and I also have fond memories of our rugby
days.
He never boasted, nor bragged, nor tried to
impress. Even in the most distinguished company, social
or commercial, if he got bored with the conversation, he would
merely take out his Rizla paper, roll himself a cigarette and switch
off. Many a time we would have dinner together and we
would open a bottle of wine and when the contents were half gone, we
would discuss whether the bottle was half full. Being an
accountant, my brother would consider the bottle was half empty and
that we should be satisfied with what we had. Whereas
me, being an optimist, would say it was half full. Life
is a bit like this bottle. For some of us it is full,
for some of us it is empty. I have been lucky to have
had half my life with Jamie and that must be the better
half.
What first prompted us to go into business together was
the story of the goose. When I was young, in my teens, I
had a goose, quite a large goose, and I put all my silver coins into
the goose. The only way I could count the silver coins was to stand
on the weighing machine with the goose and deduct my
weight. However, the goose started getting lighter
instead of heavier and I couldn’t understand it. So I
set a trap. And low and behold I found my brother with
his hand in the goose taking the silver out. He looked
me in the eyes and said I will never take your coins out
again. Some weeks later I noticed my goose was beginning
to get much heavier and I couldn’t understand it. So I
decided to look inside my goose and in it I found that my brother
had taken out my silver coins and replaced them with copper
ones.
From that moment on there was no question but that he
had to be my partner and my accountant. In terms of
business, we had the good fortune to travel the world
together. We saw most countries in most continents and
the travel, the excitement, the deals, the rollercoaster, the
mystery, was all part of the Forsyth heritage and that was very much
Jamie.
In business, I still miss him so much, so shall all
those people who were touched by him. Not only did we
play golf together, we went racing and listened to stories of
racing. I remember that cold day at Sandown.
We lost all our money as was usual when we went to the
races. There was still about 7 or 8,000 people in the
stands. For a bet, my brother and I decided we would run
the last ¾ mile on the race course, but this time with a difference
– we would have to jump the fences. So in front of the
crowd, we stripped off to our pants. Jamie was a faster
runner than me and he went sprawling over the fences. It
was the longest ¾ mile he had ever run. But not content
with just that race, with over a dozen friends, we went
to the pub in Thames Ditton, still cold and highly inebriated and
swam across the River Thames. God knows how we survived in the
middle of winter, but we did.
We worked and played
competitively together. Not so many years ago we had a
memorable game of squash at the RAC. We played like
school boys, neither of us conceding a point and crying foul as soon
as a point was lost. I recall it well. At
two games all, it was the fifth and final game, 8 points each, and
we looked at each other, both red in the face, dripping with sweat
and out of breath. We just shook hands and walked off
the court, neither of us wanting to be a winner or a loser to the
other.
Jamie never wanted to be old bones. He
always wanted to be young. He still went round in life
both physically and mentally as though he were 25. He
was very competitive in whatever sport or whatever business task he
was doing.
I am very fortunate that on the morning of the
Friday, the day he died, I was on the telephone to a friend and he
came into my room and said, I’m off to play badminton. I
asked my friend to hold on and I put the phone down. I
stood up, I hugged him and I said, “I love you brother”.
He said the same and he left my life.
My advice to you all is
to take the time and take advantage of that time with your family
and your friends. In our case, our family is strong and
the friendships we have will allow us to remember. This is the
great treasure of life.
I tried to reason with myself as to
how to deal with this dilemma, to lose a brother who was so close,
to try to put it into perspective and I came across in one of my
readings a letter which Benjamin Franklyn wrote in the 18th
century to a friend who had suffered a similar tragedy of
a lost brother and I quote:
S.A.
FORSYTH
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