Jonathan Lloyd

Its all so long ago that one needs the odd photographic nudge. I was appointed Northern European rep for Pan and Fontana in the early 70's having been the Fontana Central London Junior rep for 18 months under the legendary Raymond Poynton. Huge salary increase as shown here to £1836 pa and net £140.43 per month. Also given a Mini Cooper GT priced at £900 (subsequently written off by my brother!)

Tim Wilton-Steer, who became a lifelong friend till his tragic death last June was Southern Europe rep for these two leading paperback imprints. The Pan export people were of course Roger Lloyd-Taylor and sales director Bill Macmullan and the company was headed up by Ralph Vernon Hunt. For Collins we had Paul Scherer and Mark Collins who hated Pan as they resented having their export sales handled by Collins - usually rather older hardback reps. One of them, Ray Adam, was locked up in a prisoner of war camp by the Germans when they invaded Denmark as he was calling on a bookshop.

L-R: Tim Wilton-Steer, Christine (an early girlfriend), Henrik Jul Hansen, Hetta (his wife), JL and Hilary Wilton-Steer.


Here is an early B&W; photo of a dinner with Henrik Jul Hansen, our Danish distributor, at the top of the Post Office Tower - an early example of corporate entertaining. We sacked him shortly after.




L-R: JL, Rebecca Lloyd and Chris Hadzopoulos, in Greece.

Having taken responsibility for Europe and the Middle East I remember so well taking on David Love and taking him for his first ever trip abroad round Scandinavia. Ask him if he remembers Sophia Loren in Helsinki! For a few years I did the South and here is a photo of Rebecca, wife 2 and Chris Hadzopoulos. He was a great friend and I used to go off for weeks on end with him all over Greece.

My next appointment to succeed me was Brian Davies. Ask him to tell you the story of the Mother and Daughter in Gibraltar. And then there was Ray Kennedy - I think we played cards for 12 hours on one trip.

Trips followed in the Middle East, Iran and memorably to Afghanistan, where my first order was confiscated by the Russians.




Sailing in Sydney Harbour

6 months on 6 months off. Wads of Royal Bank of Scotland travellers cheques. Fierce competition with the US houses and with the stalwarts like Peter Ward and Paul Walton, Warwick Bailey, Chris Owen and John Blake always there usually just before you arrived. It was a great life but could never last, so then it was back to UK sales and then to the colonies.

If you can remember the 70s in Europe in any detail you can't have been there!

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email: jonathan@curtisbrown.co.uk