And which 'Mr Archer' appears twice on the menu to speak to the assembled guests on this most important day in the 100 years of the firm? Is it the 52-year-old Managing Director who actually runs the business and has been working in it the last 31 years? No, it is not. Is it his brother the 54-year-old Transport Director who has been working in it at least 20 years? No, it is not. Those two 'Mr Archers' have no official role on this auspicious evening (61 years and 20 days ago as I write these notes on 5.4.2018). No, it is their 'control-freak' father, WGRA, who hogs the limelight. Aged 78, but with only 7 years longer in the business than his son Fred (my father). Only WGRA would have the lack of vision to be blind to the absolute importance of letting his sons do their stuff on this never-to-be-repeated evening. And his daughters went along with all this, apparently. No one else (than WGRA) was allowed to control things. Perhaps the presence of his three daughters on the board of the company was to ensure his sons (who actually did the work) could always be outvoted? I shall never know. What I do know is that WGRA remained 'working' for the firm, and presumably drawing an income, almost until he died in 1969, aged 90. That tells you quite a lot. And it also explains why the business died with WGRA. There was no other course open to them than to sell it. The way it was set up meant that no other member of the family could be offered anything remotely attractive as a career!
Alan Course was an Oxford personality, who I recall used to do a cartoon in the Oxford Times or Mail. And Mr Isaard was President of the NAFWR (National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers), Archer Cowley's professional association.
This page also needs to be re-photographed because the auto-focus did not work well enough.