NUFFIELD—THE REAL MAN

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 12

NUFFIELD —THE REAL MAN

Great Mental Speed

could be further from the truth than to picture Viscount Nuffield as a hardened, abrupt, and aloof Industrialist, a man who is trail* ed across the world by a staff of secretaries and servants, publicity agents, and red tape, writes a correspondent in the Sydney Morning Herald. At heart, and in his actions, he is still “Bill” Morris, the mechanic, who began his career making bicycles in a backyard shed near Oxford 45 years ago. Nor is giving away money merely a matter of giving it away. Viscount Nuffleld’s gifts to hospitals, to universities, to the relief of suffering among crippled children and people in distressed areas, and gifts for the use of his country as it saw fit, are nearing the £11,000,000 mark, and not one penny has left his hands without serious and prolonged thought on his part “There is far too much suffering in this world,” he once told me, when discussing the purpose behind his gifts. “There are t*r too many people in hospitals who should not be there. I cannot imagine any sight more cruel, more depressing, than that of a crippled child. If it is possible to cure crippled children—and it is, in thousands of oases—then it is a crime if they do not have the opportunity of receiving the kind of treatment that will make them better. Crippled children will always have the first call on my money."

Viscount Nuffield is 61 years old, and except for his thick crop of polished steel grey hair, which he brushes straight back from his forehead, giving 'his head a streamlined effect, he might jwell pass for a man 15 years younger. ; One of his friends once remarked that jhe has the look of speed about him, and that is very true. His mental speed, at all events, penetrates deeper than the look. He is lean and lanternjawed, always keen, always alert. I have never seen him relax. He invariably sits forward in a chair, gripping the arms with his strong, lean fingers, and generally tapping one foot when he ,is not puffing at a cigarette. He gives one the impression that he is thinking rlife is so short and that there is so much real work to be done. He has an almost uncanny solicitude lor the feelings and thoughts of other people, particularly people in distress. One day a woman was injured slightly while playing sport on deck during a

previous voyage to Australia. Viscount Nuffield left the game he was playing and sat with her for some time watching the others. She suggested that he might like to resume his game, but he refused. This story was told by a fellow passenger, but later, Lord Nuffield, referring to the world and people generally. observed: “Not enough consideration is given in this world to the mental and physical misfortunes of other people.” Lord Nuffield does not believe that the day when a humble motor mechanic, for example, might become a leading industrialist has gone. “Opportunities are always there for the lad who will grasp them,” he told me on one occasion. “In my own case, I owe my success to sheer hard work. I don’t think anyone would get anywhere without hard work. But boys should begin their careers early. I believe it is a mistake for a boy to spend his life until he is twenty at school, and then go out into the world to gain practical experience. He should have had some practical experience long before then. A boy has got to learn to take knocks early. He has also ::ot to make up his mind what he want, to do early. And don’t forget that there are just as many opportunities to-day as there were when I was a boy.”

Lord Nuffield abhors humbug, conferences, and speeches. “If I *bad my way,” he said, “I would abolish all conferences. You never get anywhere with them. There is talk and more talk. If you want to achieve results you want to get a few fellows around a dinner table or a fire and have a frank discussion. In that way I believe you will get somewhere.”

When one meets Viscount Nuffield and talks with him, one ceases, almost, to think of him as the great manufacturer, but as the man whose guiding interest is the welfare of humanity. “In my life there has been no spectacle more thrilling than that of a ones crippled child playing normally with healthy children.” And in the laboratories in all parts of the Empire, equipped as the result of Lord Nuffield’s gifts, doctors and scientists are engaged in research work with one ooject in view—to relieve human suffering. Ihe attainment of that object is Lord Nuffield’s greatest wish.