Woellwarth & Co - Part 1

• Leave  being a dealer to be a broker - I now arrange deals, not originate them
• My Salary jumps again - £2,000p.a. to £3,000p.a. but there is a catch
• Salary is paid as £440 p.a. weekly and the rest is commission - 1.1% of the company turnover.
• 2016 equivalents = £29,500 - £44,000 - nice big jump!
• Is this a disaster in the making - first impressions, I hate broking
• They start me on Forward USD - this is a surprise
• I admit to Gerry Waghorn that I hate what I am doing but there seems to be no way back to a trading desk.
• I am a Deutsche Mark(DEM) Dealer and Woellwarth will be able to trade DEM in June so I expect to be on that desk not USD
• Eventually move to DEM desk. The team comprises Tony Le Ray-Cook, Roy Jarvis, Graham Winterbourne, Bob Davis, and me. Later, Roy brings along a relation - Keith - who takes the line to Finacor in Munich. I get sent to Munich to meet and buld a relationship with the brokers out there. It seems that the only have three customers - Bayerische Landerbank, Bayerische hypotheken and wechselbank and Bayerische Veriensbank. Not a market in depth one could say. 
• I get told from London that Tullett & Riley have BeerBahm (? spelling?) and Harlow Mueller - both top brokers in Frankfurt. It seems that all our regular traders have now left us so we have a struggle on our hands.
• Eventually David Raison joins from the Canadian $ desk and my best man, Roger Whittle joins along with another new comer - Linton Viney.
• Roger, David, Linton and I get the job of quoting DEM forward but this isn't a success
• Eventually, I go back onto the Spot Mark as we are making a success of that. 
• I decide to quote prices to the BofE - some ridicule from the rest of the team as "the BofE doesn't trade in the markets"
• I get called out to lunch to meet the dealer I have been speaking to (Richard Diggory) - plus the chief dealer - Ted Bradshaw. I am being evaluated.
• It seems that, as I can talk serious banking, then it is OK for me to quote them
• Surprise, surprise, they do trade and quite large as well. It seems that the UK has to pay the Germans for the bills of the "British Army Over The Rhine" - BAOR -  (i.e. our soldiers over there). This results in DEM20 - DEM25,000,000  every month - and I get it all.
• As commission is £75 per side per DEM1,000,000 we get £150 brokerage for every one million. I go up in the company's estimation.
• David Lincoln joins us from Bankers Trust with the intention of setting up a Swiss Franc desk. I get moved over to - as Reg Winterbourne, Woellwarth's managing director, put it - to keep him on the correct track for our company!

We have a baby!

• Well, Valerie has the baby
• I call the ambulance and see Valerie off and then I go to work!
• I manage to get to Mayday Hospital (Croydon) after the birth
• Sam is a lovely little thing but doesn't seem  very keen to eat so feeding is drawn out.
• Sam loves her black glove
• Roger and Marian (Valerie's sister) are regular visitors. Marian works round the corner from me in Mark Lane
• I get told off because I cough when I go to bed at night (due to smoking) and being told off just makes it worse
• Eventually we decide that we have to try to buy a house
• Bank says no to mortgage unless we have a 10% deposit - no chance
• Get offered new job with 10% house price loan - I take it
• Hobbies keep going. I make a Hi-Fi amplifier from a Heathkit kit and some speakers from a plan.
• I make a variety of Renwall military vehicle kits and a Tamiya Gold Leaf Team Lotus car in 1:12th scale - very large.
• Roger and I design a hugely complex war game covering the battle for the Atlantic in WWII. We spend months building the rules and only play it once!
• I am up making a feed for Sam when we watch the moon landing on TV.