BOOK REVIEW: ONE MAN, TWO WORLDS BY RICHARD NEEDHAM

 

One Man, Two Worlds

A Memoir of a Businessman in Politics

by 

Richard Needham

 

The Blackstaff Press

Published 2021

https://blackstaffpress.com/one-man-two-worlds-9781780733159

 

Of all the literary genres, memoir is my favourite.  I like people’s life stories, even if they are not always great reads.  Of the many memoirs I have read throughout my life, some have been insufferable ‘look how great I am’ puff books, some have sagged in the middle and become plodding chores, some I have not looked forward to have been surprisingly satisfying ultimately and some I have looked forward to ended up as damp squibs. 

 

But when a really good memoir appears and hooks you in from the beginning and carries you along with pace, wit, anecdotes, interesting facts, insights and a healthy dose of self-deprecation, you have discovered literary gold.

 

Such a book is One Man, Two Worlds by Richard Needham (that is Sir Richard Francis Needham, 6th Earl of Kilmorey: “I came from a family of barely solvent aristocrats.”).

Eton-educated, Needham has been, amongst other political posts, an MP, Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Jim Prior), Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State, Northern Ireland serving Margaret Thatcher and John Major and Minister of State for Trade under Major.  His business experience includes running his own companies and stints working with James Dyson, GEC and Gleneagles healthcare.  

 

In both of these worlds, he was a globetrotting bundle of energy, full of vision, ideas and charm, championing the Theory Y style of leadership and management (encouraging optimistic, positive and inclusive teams) rather than Theory X, a style that focuses on a more authoritarian and controlling approach with heavy-handedness from the top.

 

Of the many interesting chapters in this superb book, Needham’s work in Northern Ireland, two stints over seven years or so, held my personal interest as a Belfast kid.  He worked hard to find ways to regenerate battered Belfast.  A challenging initiative was the development of what became known as CastleCourt shopping centre in Royal Avenue.  It opened in 1990, but during construction, progress was disrupted by IRA bombs.  The bombs continued in the years after opening, with a plague of incendiary devices disrupting trade.  CastleCourt is still operating, attracting around 17 million shoppers a year.  The tenacity of Needham and others paid off.

 

In one of the chapters, Studying the Past, Needham portrays four men in particular who “must be largely held responsible for the chaos, division and civil war that have impoverished the island over the last hundred and fifty years.  The four must take their place in the hall of infamy.  They have made a divide deeper, bitterer, bloodier, more poisonous and infinitely harder to resolve.”  His appraisals of Edward Carson, Eamon de Valera, Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley are punchy and highly critical: “If there is one trait they all share, it is cruelty.”

 

Richard Needham has written a thoroughly great memoir that shows his humanity, humour and determination.  He highlights successes and failures, his drive to overcome frustrations and obstacles and his fearlessness as a straight-talker, applauding the heroes in his life and condemning the villians.

 

As I finished the memoir, I was saddened to remember that we don’t seem to have a Theory Y Richard Needham-type to play a part in current politics.  This book has the power to inspire the next generation of leaders in business and politics to encourage optimism, positiveness and inclusivity.