Adam S Page

We have been notified of the sad death of Adam Page who died on 20th July 2019, aged 83 years. He is survived by his wife, Alice, and our thoughts are with her and the family.

Alice writes:

After leaving school Adam joined his father’s subhose manufacturing business ‘Christopher Day’ (a factory in the Lace Market in Nottingham) before joining the Army for Military Service. Thereafter he set up his own businesses, eventually becoming Chairman and CEO of the public limited companies Grosvenor Leisure, Midsummer Leisure and Springwood, along with farming and a roof truss business.

At the time of his death, which was sudden and unexpected (although he suffered from a serious heart complaint) he was still managing business affairs from his office on a daily basis and continue to be as sharp as a razor, bright as a button with perfect recall, ie. a very good memory to the last.

The following is a tribute written by Adam’s son Jason:

Family and Young Days

Born in Nottingham 28th June 1936, younger brother of Inigo, elder brother of Philippa, son of Harry and Sheila. Husband, Father, Grandpa, Uncle.

Dad’s early life was spent largely in Nottingham. First in Lenton and then on Park Terrace. Unusually, but perhaps not in these gender fluid days, his first school was Nottingham Girls’ High School, which had an infant section. As he proudly said, there was still a photograph of him in a blazer with N.G.H.S. emblazoned on it.

His father was a successful partner in a men’s half-hose factory (otherwise known as a sock factory)- Christopher Day’s based in the Lace Market, Nottingham. He had started work at 14, cycling the ten miles to Hucknall. Sheila, his mother, worked as a journalist on the Nottingham Observer before settling down.

His Grandfather, who had studied at the Glasgow School of Art, earning a much­ coveted Gold Medal, was a talented artist specialising in stained glass. He had a studio behind what is now Primark in Maypole Yard and lived at Lenton Manor. – Some of his work is on display at Ely Cathedral.

When the war intervened the children were briefly evacuated to Cumbria. Dad can remember American troops wandering along Park Valley with Inigo and him assailing them with the plea “give us some gum chum”. The factory his father was running at the time, in Beeston making parts for Rolls Royce Engines, was bombed but fortuitously the documents and drawings held in the safe largely landed intact in their own garden on Park Terrace, some three miles away. Amazing!

Holidays were spent on the Lincolnshire coast, renting a house in Chapel St Leonards with his father coming out at weekends on the train from Nottingham. On one occasion, he and Inigo had an unfortunate incident on the Skegness model boating lake. Whilst trying to help tum around a very smart wooden launch, they accidentally sank it!!! And then decided the best course of action was to leg it, with the shout of “they’ve sunk it dad, they’ve sunk it” ringing in their ears.

Weekends were sometimes spent at the summer lodge “Barton on Fabis” on the Trent, owned by Aunt Flossy and her husband, who ran an upmarket store in Friar Lane, sometimes entertaining the stars who were working in the Nottingham theatres.

He showed an early sign of self-confidence when, at Presbyterian Sunday School which was partly run by his mother, he refused to sign the no drinking pledge, as he decided they were too young to make an informed decision. As it turned out, this was quite percipient.

School

At the age of seven, Dad was sent with his brother to a non-denominational boarding school near Stroud in Gloucestershire – Wycliffe College – for both prep and senior school. He greatly enjoyed his time there. The school was very progressive for its time and is still going strong. The school motto “Bold and loyal” is one which he greatly admired. Three short, simple, memorable words; ones which inspired him throughout his life.

He was in the school’s first teams for rugby, tennis and swimming. The boys were encouraged to have an independent spirit with various expeditions, both locally and to the Matterhorn. They were taught to be resourceful and he was very proud of the fact that the boys had largely built the school chapel themselves, with some help. But it is still standing and looking resplendent.

One of the masters who taught my father also taught me at prep school – a Mr Robinson. In his eighties he still used to take part in the school run up Killer Hill, despite arthritis. But Dad remembered him playing fives barehanded!!!

Dad showed early acumen by signing up for the vegetarian boarding house as he had established that there were double rations of cheese and eggs, compared to the paltry meat ration. He never tired of pointing out to Mum that rationing ended in Germany in 1945 and in Great Britain in 1954.

He was incredibly sad to have to leave school at 17, before his A Levels, to go and work in the family business, despite the attempted intervention of his House Master. But this might have proved to have been one of his great motivations. I think school, of which he always spoke fondly, formed a large part of his meritocratic outlook on life.

I get the impression that Dad in his youth, as a Man About Town, was something of a “Ledge”. He never lost his cheeky wink whilst at the same time having an air of authority; sometimes a cool silence is better than bluster!

Workwise he decided to part-company with his father after a few years, as a “conscious de-coupling”. He had always felt he had been under-valued and under­ paid and encouraged the secretaries to listen at the door as he told his father so.

There followed a number of jobs but always with entrepreneurial spirit. Attempting to sell the Encyclopaedia Britannica door to door resulted in only one sale in four weeks. But he had a break by landing a job with a National Coal Distributor.

They presumed he had a driving licence as he had applied for the job. So he had the added pressure of having to pass his driving test in a somewhat decrepit car, using only hand signals, the day before he was due to start. He established himself well and eventually moved on to work for the Co-Op, running first a coal depot in The Meadows and then several filling stations.

It was whilst there that he made the mistake of challenging the foreman, with whom he had had a turbulent relationship, to a drinking competition in the Poets Corner on Christmas Eve after work. This resulted in somewhat affecting his first Christmas Day with my mother but did not stop him from going to the Leicester Rugby Boxing Day match,

During this period, he also decided to do his National Service – with the Sherwood Foresters via the Midland Officer Cadet Corps. His most dangerous posting, as it turned out, was in Derby; although in fairness it was in the Normanton area. In the second year he suffered very badly from asthma and was hospitalized for a long time. Asthma was a very common ailment in the Trent valley, due to the pollution.

Nottingham had one of the first provincial curry houses and he became a very keen curry connoisseur; usually vegetable curry. He also became a regular at the coffee shops with their jukeboxes. Pubs in Nottingham then closed at 10.30pm but-there was also the Plaisance Yacht Club in Wilford. Thankfully he managed to escape arrest for after-hours drinking, when someone else judiciously lobbed a flower arrangement at the arresting sergeant standing on the table.

He was a keen supporter of Nottingham Rugby Club when they were based at Beeston and would often take me, as I was a very useful beer carrier! He did the JFK-inspired 50-mile walk and finished near the front despite stopping off at the Royal Oak in Radcliffe-on-Trent. He continued to be a formidable squash and tennis player and a great stalwart of the clubs. He was in the Market Square to welcome the FA Cup back in 1959.

After leaving his job with the Co-Op he struck out on his own, setting up Nottingham Home Heating on Bridlesmith Gate and Derby Home Heating on Friar Gate. He bought a British racing green MG and then a house on Park Valley which had previously been home to the Spaldings of Griffin and Spalding, John Player of cigarette fame, and William Gladstone when he was MP for Newark.

When love struck, it struck hard and fast. After gate-crashing a Hospital party and meeting a beautiful young lady, he decided he needed to take her off the market as quickly as possible. From meeting my Mum to marrying her took the great total of three months. Even allowing for a small mix up on their first date over timings resulting in a no show! He obviously saw something very special in this beautiful, well educated, young lady and decided she was unquestionably the one for him.

The marriage was conducted at Marylebone Registry Office. The MG might not have made it to Gretna Green!!! No friends were meant to attend, but a delegation from Nottingham had heard about it and followed them down to London. An impromptu reception was held in a local pub and I remember my father saying how surprised he was to see my mother drinking spirits (Cherry Brandy) and smoking: because as far as he was aware, she did neither. The marriage even survived the surprise honeymoon venue of Newport Pagnell. They had planned to get back to Nottingham but that was where the M1 ended then and, fortuitously, The Swan Revived still had the honeymoon suite available.

Dad was always loyal and proud of Mum and she gave him the stability and platform to forge on with his endeavours. She even took the potential remand notice to Holloway Prison, which came through the post in a test case dispute with the Performing Rights Society.

Not always the greatest romantic he always loved her and their 52 years stands as a great testament to this. On never-before-celebrated Valentine’s Day this year, he left this card for Mum…

Dearest Alice

Breaking a habit of a lifetime, I am writing today to say how much I appreciate your kindness and support for me in my current predicament. It is extremely galling to find I cannot reciprocate in any substantive way.

However, I am trying hard to sort out HMRC and get on with current works. All my love and many thanks… have a good day at the dentist.

I know she will miss him deeply.

Adam Page was an unlikely Disco King; he was not a great music lover. Always sartorially elegant, turned out in his English brogues and Gibson Mather of Sherwood Street suits, Nottingham’s answer to Peter Stringfellow was the complete antithesis of a common perception of a discotheque magnate. I did however, on more than one occasion see him do an incredibly energetic twist on the dance floor with my Mum.

He fell into the licensed trade by accident. He was meant to be a silent partner with his great friend, Barry Foster, who also lived on Park Valley. Barry was landlord of the Sir John Borlace Warren on Canning Circus and had a new proposition- to revive a run-down pub, the Newcastle Arms. Together, with the enormous help of their respective wives, they made a great success of it. Keith Moon of The Who even stayed there, although this was largely due to him being barred from all the major hotels locally. Foster and Page Limited was born, and they went on to open another pub in Mansfield with a nightclub above, called Harvey’s; opened by Harvey Smith, the show jumper. And the rest, as they say, is history.

There followed Mortimer’s Hole and Isabella’s, named after the She Wolf of France and her lover Roger Mortimer, who had taken to running the country from their bed in Nottingham Castle. It was also loosely modelled on Annabelle’s in London, which Dad had visited, that had a book-lined library and a restaurant. The grocers, Burton’s, butchery department was then converted into the excitingly named Love Machine, and indeed it seemed to work as Tony and Kathryn- here today – met in the offices above whilst working for Dad. There followed numerous other ventures including The Town Arms on Trent Bridge – where Dad refused entrance to Elton John, not knowing who he was. This was when Guy Page, his nephew, joined the firm and proved an invaluable help to Dad on the development side.

Eventually Dad and Barry decided on a very amicable split of the business. Barry decided to run a couple of venues and pursue his love of E-types and sailing. Others then joined the company and it went from strength to strength. Exotic locations such as Ilkeston, Leicester, Worksop and Coalville were followed by less salubrious locations such as Oxford and Cambridge. However, it was probably two successful nightclubs in Luton that brought them to the attention of Whitbread, who bought Grosvenor Leisure to launch their own leisure division.

Obviously it was now time to retire. Or not. I once asked him at what point did he want to stop? He said he had made enough money to keep him in beer for the rest of his life, which seemed to be setting the bar a little low. But his motivation was always business not money.

The first time I saw him drinking champagne was when he had borrowed a million pounds from a Merchant Bank in Nottingham (now, of course, a bra shop). Whilst this might concern most people, for him it was a great opportunity. He was always optimistic and positive. He was an entrepreneur to his core. He did, however, have a favourite saying: “Never be a gold rush pioneer. Be on the second wagon train and open the hardware store, the bank, the bar or the brothel. ”

So now it was time for a pic. He bought the pub arm from Campaign for Real Ale and immediately began to develop it into a broad based leisure company. One of his first purchases was the lease on the Wheatsheaf at Woodhouse Eaves.

Midsummer Leisure eventually comprised pubs, bars, nightclubs, a shop fitting firm, two sign making firms, a fruit machine manufacturer (he said the boffins seemed to know what they were doing, and they did), the largest snooker club chain in the country, a snooker table factory, and a toy manufacturer. Businesses from Inverness to the Isle of Wight. He had the opportunity, instead of buying a leasehold nightclub on Leicester Square, to buy Manchester United for about the same price. There was an audacious bid for Boddingtons Brewery, but he finally got his “Beerage” when he purchased the Firkin Brew Pubs and enjoyed comparing the number of breweries he owned with the Managing Director of Courage at Twickenham.

Ultimately it did not end well for him when an agreed takeover became a hostile one. He held onto his shares to fight the skulduggery in the deal and from then on was always somewhat sceptical about some financial institutions in England and Scotland. He always planned to write a book.

Time to retire??? Of course not. A new venture arrived with the purchase of a Leicester timber business. But, of course, nightclubs followed and the business grew exponentially. He fondly remembered a young lady coming up to him in his Stafford nightclub, and telling this unlikely suited customer to cheer up because they always had great fun here.

He was pugnacious and positive. He always said he never wanted to retire and he achieved his aim. Still in the office dictating memos the day before his death.

Dad had always liked the idea of owning a country estate, and in purchasing Swithland Hall achieved his aim. I am sure that he would have been pleased to have died at Swithland after visiting the Wheatsheaf with me the night before, rather than in hospital. If you want to see his monument, look up the Church path.

He had been looking at houses for some time and I will always remember when he told Mum and me about it at Reno’s Restaurant on Alfreton Road. When we went to view it a few days later we were dismayed: the house was essentially derelict. There were mushrooms on the walls; water ingress all over and pheasants being reared in some of the rooms. If it had not been bought then, it would surely have been demolished soon after.

Sadly, although he attended the dispersal sale at Christie’s in 1979, he only bought a couple of items, not knowing that he would purchase the house. In the sale catalogue he had marked the Bernini bust, which had not then been recognised. It was later sold for a fortune.

It took many years to restore the Hall. It proved to be a massive project, with workmen able to form two full football teams on the back lawns in lunch breaks. It took over five years but in the end the ugly duckling was rescued. It won a Conservation Award and has been Mum and Dad’s home for thirty-four years. At first it came with very little land and it was some years before Dad could purchase remnants of the old estate. In the meantime, he bought a large a large farm in Nassington, Northamptonshire.

Farewell

It is time to say farewell to a great man who lived a full life. At times like this it is also an opportunity to remember those who have been less fortunate, taken sooner, or in pain. I think particularly of his nephew, Adam Berny Page.

We will miss him greatly. His sartorial elegance, witticisms, and even the newspaper cuttings he was so fond of providing. His optimism, his determination, his verve and his stoicism.

If you aim for the moon and miss, you stand to land amongst the stars

Go with our love on your next journey. My father. Alice’s husband. Amelia’s grandfather.

Bold and loyal.

Jason Robert Page, 2019