Leslie Joh arnett
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IN April, 1960, Leslie John Barnett came home. After a lifetime spent mostly in faraway places he was back, for good, in the land of his birth. For 22 years he had served the Standard-Vacuum Oil Company faithfully and well and in many parts of the world. Although he was only 54, and a young 54 at that, he had accepted retirement from the great oil giant. For retirement meant a one-way ticket to England, the setting up of a permanent home with his wife and son and daughter. There had been too many long separations. Almost too much sun and humidity.
But a lifetime spent in oil cannot be cast off as easily, as that—not that Mr. Barnett ever contemplated a slippersand-fireside homecoming. How little, though, he could have known then, that within 12 months he would be engaged in one of the toughest battles of his business life— leading the campaign to get the French fuel, Total, established in the already very competitive British oil market.
He hadn't let the grass grow under his feet in that 12 months either. Soon after his return he was appointed managing director of the Milford Docks Co., Ltd., at Milford Haven—not so very far from his birthplace at Newport, Mon. Then, in March this year, he accepted the appointment of director and managing director of Total Oil Products (G.B.), Ltd. A tough assignment in a tough business. A challenge that Mr. Barnett couldn't resist.
In his office in Seymour Mews House, just off Wigmore Street, in London's Mayfair, I asked him about his career, his travel, his early days, the adventures in distant lands. " What can I tell you about Total?" he countered.
I looked at the parchment-skin on a face that had seen the sun rise in so many lands ... and I knew that for Leslie
Men Who Make Transport
Barnett all those sunrises were in the past. In 1961 the sun had risen, for him, on Total petrol_ That homecoming of 12 months before was just the end of a chapter, not a final sunset, as it were.
Service. .. good service .. one that British vehicle users had never before enjoyed. That was the standard Total had set themselves, he said. "We convince service station operators that .good service benefits their own interests as well as ours, and it is clear so far that this policy is succeeding."
The first Total filling station opened in Britain on December 1, 1960. When 1 saw Mr. Barnett they had just celebrated the opening of the 50th Total station. By December this year that number will have been doubled. No mean feat for the new British baby of the great French oil giant, Compagnie Francaise des Paroles.
French, of course, is almost a mother tongue to Mr. Barnett. He did some of his schooling on the Continent in readiness for the role prepared for him in the family shipping business. But the slump years, when so much shipping was laid up, put paid to all that. So young Leslie Barnett shipped himself out to Madagascar. And that was how he got into oil.
A Bush Life He spent three and a half years there... "A bush life ... wonderful." And he joined the Vacuum Oil Company of South Africa there, becoming their representative in the Indian Ocean Islands. I poised myself for stories of the romantic life in the tropical islands—but in vain. They were part of the chapter that Mr. Barnett had closed. From Madagascar he went to Nairobi where he became a founder-director of Standard Vacuum (East Africa), Ltd. There followed sales trips to the Far Fast and other places, two years in New York, a return to Nairobi, and finally another two years in New York.
But Leslie Barnett is no romancer. His life during those years was work and more work. Golf? A little . " The usual life in the tropics, you know." And, of course, there were the partings from his family_ That, clearly now, was the impression that had remained through those years. That was Leslie Barnett, the family man. Today he and his wife have a flat in London. And, he confided almost guiltily, a house at Milford Haven which will be their haven when. . .
Their son, 20, is studying economics. The 19-year-old daughter is at ,finishing school. And Mr. Barnett has his Total products. He was beaming now, contentedly. For the managing director of British Total is an essentially honest, straightforward man—no trimmings, no big-business manner, no desire to impress falsely. And that, I'm sure, is why he's so happy in his work. He believes in Total, in its ability to sell itself on its merits. He wasn't " putting anything over." He could, as always, look the world straight in the eye. And he could go home after his day's work and settle down with a free mind to his books and his music . and in the family atmosphere that means so much.—C.M.H.