Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Ahamed Liaquat
Title : Lords of finance The bankers who broke the world
Year : 2009

Link download : Ahamed_Liaquat_-_Lords_of_finance.zip

Introduction. On august 15, 1931, the following press statement was issued: “The Governor of the Bank of England has been indisposed as a result of the exceptional strain to which he has been subjected in recent months. Acting on medical advice he has abandoned all work and has gone abroad for rest and change.” The governor was Montagu Collet Norman, D.S.O. - having repeatedly turned down a title, he was not, as so many people assumed, Sir Montagu Norman or Lord Norman. Nevertheless, he did take great pride in that D.S.O after his name - the Distinguished Service Order, the second highest decoration for bravery by a military officer. Norman was generally wary of the press and was infamous for the lengths to which he would go to escape prying reporters - traveling under a false identity; skipping off trains; even once, slipping over the side of an ocean vessel by way of a rope ladder in rough seas. On this occasion, however, as he prepared to board the liner Duchess of York for Canada, he was unusually forthcoming. With that talent for understatement that came so naturally to his class and country, he declared to the reporters gathered at dockside, “I feel I want a rest because I have had a very hard time lately. I have not been quite as well as I would like and I think a trip on this fine boat will do me good.” ...