The remarkable life of Bobby McAlpine
There aren't many people who could accuse Margaret Thatcher of being too kind about striking workers. But that is what Bobby McAlpine did when he incurred the famous wrath of the Iron Lady on the cusp of her rise to power.
The encounter is among many chronicled in the 80-year-old's autobiography, One Shot At Life, detailing his time at the family business, global construction firm Alfred McAlpine, along with his views on John Major, whom he met a number of times, and even how he ended up drinking with legendary footballer George Best.
Born into wealth and privilege as one of the heirs of an already successful company, Bobby began his school life at Llanfyllin, near Oswestry, and has spent much of his life since in the corner of the world where Shropshire, Cheshire and North Wales meet.
Today, he lives with his second wife Angela at Tilstone Lodge, a few miles north of Whitchurch, and his family has owned the Llanarmon shoot, near Oswestry, for more than 80 years.
Bobby joined his family's construction firm at the age of 18 as a junior engineer, initially studying one day a week at college and becoming well known on the local tennis and squash scene. It was during his 44 years with the company, resulting in seven as chairman, that Alfred McAlpine was involved in the road and house building boom and built stretches of the M6 and M5. It was also responsible for a series of Shropshire projects, including the £14 million scheme to build the A53 bypass at Hodnet, near Market Drayton.
Bobby McAlpine is the great grandson of the company's Victorian founder Sir Robert McAlpine. For nearly 20 years he was a director of Aintree, home of the Grand National, and has chaired the Chester and Bangor-on-Dee courses. Mr McAlpine has owned racehorses since the mid 1950s, winning various major races including the Ascot Gold Cup, Champion Stakes and Supreme Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham. His love of horse racing grew after he became a steward at Wolverhampton racecourse in his mid 20s, which he did alongside his job in the family business.
In his early 20s he was living at his father's home at Tickwood Hall, overlooking Ironbridge, but for three months of the year his father would go away to South Africa so Mr McAlpine would live on Tettenhall Road in Wolverhampton.
He recalls the terror he felt at asking a question of Mrs Thatcher in the late 1970s, while she was trying to win favour with those opposed to James Callaghan's handling of the Winter of Discontent.
He was at a lunch at Claridge's in London, attended mainly by members of the construction trade, and had been given a question to ask her by the Conservative MP Tom King following remarks she had made about brave firemen, who were on strike, risking their lives.
The MP, now Baron King of Bridgwater, was of the opinion that some firefighters were extremely well paid and 'moonlighting like there was no tomorrow'.
"She went cuckoo", Mr McAlpine recalls. "She said, 'Mr McAlpine, are you a frightened man?' and I said, 'I'm absolutely terrified'.
"Of course back then she was just doing what politicians have always done and jumping on the opposition bandwagon, despite what she would later think about the miners' strike."
Despite their awkward encounter, Mr McAlpine regards Mrs Thatcher as the country's best prime minister, something he felt her successor John Major fell far short of being.
He recalls how he had been with Mr Major in the final months of his premiership hosting him at the Grand National when Mr Major was faced with a booing crowd. The following year they met by chance at Lords' Cricket Club and the former PM ignored him completely.
The book also tells of how Mr McAlpine played bridge with Lord Lucan a matter of days before he went missing in November 1974. They were both members of the Portland Club which counted politicians and peers of the realm among its members.
"He looked terrible," Mr McAlpine says. "I'd never seen a handsome man look so dissipated. He had been drinking for days on end and was at the end of his tether."
His encounter with George Best was at the height of his football career in a nightclub in Manchester, where he had gone with a friend he knew through horse racing.
"We ended up drinking until four in the morning and then George Best went and played a blinder of a match for Manchester United," he says.
But to focus only on the famous people and politicians he has met would be to neglect the huge accomplishments of Mr McAlpine's life.
He and his second wife Angela have a daughter, Emma, while Mr McAlpine also has two sons and a daughter, Euan, Christopher and Jane, by his late first wife, also Jane.
He stood down as chairman of Alfred McAlpine in 1992 and left the company altogether in 1998. It is now owned by building giant Carillion.
And he has plenty of advice for today's politicians about how to revive the country's economy.
He says: "One of the big scandals of recent years is how successive government neglected infrastructure.
"We built Gatwick Airport but its runway is still exactly the same today.
"The only thing the Government seems to want to build is high-speed rail when we're desperate for roads.
"The problem is governments are not interested in things that take a long time."
By Daniel Wainwright
