For my Dad, former Editor and Publisher of BEST magazine, from his son Ollie.
As I compose this, ‘the Final Groundpath’, I wonder if, somewhere, you are quietly proofreading….
In October, we said ‘goodbye for now’. Those were the words we parted on each time I came to visit you, not knowing quite how long was left or if there would be another visit. I suppose that those who came to know you well through the industry knew less about your years after retirement. So it feels important that I tell that part of your story too.
Life after BEST magazine was not a fairy tale. Isolation, declining health and the pandemic, to name just a few things, were enormous challenges. Many people will know that you battled with your health and that it shaped much of your later life.
But behind the pages of BEST and the work, you were my Dad.
I lived above “the shop” from an early age. You started working from home when I was about six. Many people did not understand this and some possibly thought you were unemployed, as it was not common practice in the late 90s!
I remember the owner of the only Apple shop in Brighton coming personally to the house to install the Apple Performa 630, which sat proudly in the hallway. I was able to play SimCity 2000 on it.
You started out writing for a few small companies. The Kemble Instrument Company was the first and each subsequent contract became known as a “Kemble”. Slowly the business expanded from a single IKEA desk to a garage conversion and then a garden office.
In the school holidays, childcare was, as it remains now, extortionate. So, I would tag along with you to interviews. You would take notes in your trusted A4 Black and Red notebook. I remember sitting in the back of the car on our way home from a printer with 500 copies of a newsletter you had edited for a client, reading it aloud and asking if it was meant to say “is is”. Those who knew you well can easily imagine the choice words that followed.
When you began writing for Batteries International, our world and horizons as a family changed. I will never forget travelling with you to the USA aged 9 or 10 within hours of landing in New York, you had developed a kidney stone. Watching on, as they took a swipe of a credit card on a trolley in a crowded Emergency Department, before you received any care. We visited both coasts and later I was inspired to travel there on my own.
Crucially, you always understood your own worth. Starting BEST magazine was a risk, but what strikes me now about that precarious period, was your clarity and focus. Recognising that the value in the product was ‘in your head’ and not in the title. Conversations like that stay with you.
It is safe to say you never dreamed of writing about batteries. Yet even in your final days, you were passing comment on the choice of battery technology in the control unit of the portable syringe driver at your bedside. Of course, you were right. AA batteries that needed changing daily were hardly suitable!
You always encouraged me to be curious and you had a gift for explaining how things worked in a way anyone could understand. You got things wrong at times. Not everyone will have good things to say about you and that is okay. You were always prepared to question and probe.
I am not writing to judge or to rewrite history. We fell out a lot, but we were fortunate to repair our relationship.
You helped me get ‘back on the horse’ many times and reminded me never to give up.
Almost a year ago, you moved closer to my family, a mile down the road. We only managed to get out of the nursing home to the pub a couple of times, but we spent many hours in your room talking. You were always delighted to see your grandson, Thomas. One of my proudest memories was our final visit, the day before you died. Thomas, Catia (my wife) and I sat together in your room. I can still see the smile on your face as you listened to him speak so fluently.
71 is no age really. You faced your own morbidity and mortality with bravery and brutal honesty. On several occasions, your capacity to refuse active treatment was challenged, but you remained resolved. You articulated your wishes to the end and I was proud to support your choice.
I am not ashamed to say that you had the best ending. I am fairly sure that if you were reading this, you would laugh and encourage me to start a business there. Perhaps I will.
We both owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the staff who supported you at the end. So, I will sign this one off, trusting that you are happy with my draft.
Goodbye for now, Dad.
Ollie
From the current publisher:
For many years, Groundpath was the final column in BEST magazine and had the strapline: ‘Where lethal voltages and rhetoric pass harmlessly to earth’. It was internally known as the Editor’s rant.
In selecting a sample of the Scribe’s column, the Groundpath pictured below and linked here is, perhaps, poignantly appropriate… and leads one to question how much has changed (or not) in the years since its publication in 2016. Gerry is pictured with Shep Wolsky, industry leader and founder of the International Battery Seminar & Exhibit (the longest running annual battery event), now run by Cambridge Enertech. Also featured is Gerry’s love for his canine friends who accompanied him the the BEST offices for many years and continue to be featured in BEST Battery Briefing – the industry newsletter known to many in the industry as: the one with the dog.
After the passing of Labrador Retriever Bertie, before the offices in Goring, there was chocolate Labrador Asbo (in the UK an Asbo was an Anti-Social Behaviour Order) followed by Bimbo, a poodle cross. You can probably imagine the joy Gerry would have calling out his dog’s name when out for a walk! For many dog years Asbo would lodge with me and my family while Gerry was away on his many conference visits. Asbo would arrive as round as a barrel but, after a couple of weeks exercise and ‘restricted’ diet, return having lost a stone or so in weight. (I guess Gerry was as mindful with his dogs diets as he was with his own.)
From a personal perspective – having worked with Gerry, and his business partner Hugh Cullimore soon after they founded BEST magazine in 2003 – I would have to echo Ollie’s comment above and say there were good times, when he could be generous, considerate and a pleasure to work with, and times when he left you wanting to do him harm. And this is borne out in comments I have heard from those within the industry where his insightful questioning would leave some speakers reeling and probably wishing the ground would swallow him (rather than themselves) and some who were ‘interested’, perhaps ‘amused’, onlookers.
In 2018, Gerry handed over the reins of Energy Storage Publishing. Mark Stevenson of Australia’s Global Lead Technologies, who chaired one of the ELBC sessions in Vienna, publicly thanked Gerry for his service to the industry. “He’s always been at the front of conference hall, wherever they’ve been held, and challenged us all with his questions and for that I thank him,” Stevenson said to applause from the hall.
Finally, if you have recollections of Gerry (good or bad) that you would like to share with Ollie then please get in touch. And, if appropriate, we’ll share them here.
From Richard Jell, former director of Euromoney Institutional Investor
I first met Gerry in 1995. Euromoney had acquired Batteries International magazine from Don Gribble, its founder and also the editor of the magazine. Don wished to retire so we had to find a new editor but the advertising manager, Hugh Cullimore, was happy to stay on. He worked with Hugh on Batteries International for several years and then on Batteries and Energy Storage Technology [BEST] magazine.
So, I advertised the job of editor and Gerry was one of the applicants. He had a science degree and experience in business-to-business journalism, but his knowledge of the battery industry was non-existent.
But I took the plunge and offered him the job despite Don Gribble suggesting I needed a battery industry person. It turned out to be an inspired choice as Gerry soon learnt about the battery industry and his writing skills gave the magazine a voice. He was soon asking penetrating questions at industry conferences, a major source of editorial in each quarterly issue. He travelled widely interviewing manufacturers, suppliers and research institutes in the industry to give the magazine’s editorial a breadth it had not had before.
Gerry’s copy always needed careful editing for two reasons. First, in the opinion piece at the back of the magazine his left-wing political views always shone through as did his dislike for Margaret Thatcher. Second all his copy was always full of typos and other errors. I had to employ a retired, former editorial colleague of mine as sub-editor.
Gerry and I were not sure what brought Batteries International to the team of “Have I got news for you”, a popular, topical news programme on the BBC. But we featured in an edition. Each programme took an obscure magazine, and the panel had to guess the full headline of a story with part of it redacted. Fame at last.
We worked together very well and very happily for 5 years until I retired in May 2000. Gerry then reported to another Euromoney manager, and this was not a happy relationship. The result was that Gerry and Hugh left and started BEST, Batteries and Energy Storage Technology, in January 2003.
I remained in touch with Gerry until his death. On visits to the south coast I met Asbo and Bimbo, his dogs. Their names tell you something about Gerry and his sense of humour. He became, in his own words, a bit of a battery bore and for the this he blamed me, perhaps quite correctly.
