: FOREWORD

I have spent most of my working life in the small business founded by my father. I was a trainee for six months in 1965 before going to university and then from 1969 to 1994 was production manager, company secretary, director, book-keeper, managing director and chairman at one time or another. Chief cook and bottlewasher is an expression that comes to mind to cover all the different aspects of what I did.

Since being elected to the European Parliament in 1994, I have become an absentee boss and my wife Ginnie has taken over responsibility for running the business. This is very much in the family tradition as my mother did the same in my father’s absence through illness and, later, on his sailing trips. In my case, it has been the lure of politics.

However, that long experience of the real world of small business serves me in good stead in my parliamentary and constituency work. I have made a big thing of visiting businesses wherever possible so as to keep in touch. I have organised workshops for SMEs on opportunities in Europe. I have organised visits to the EU institutions in Brussels for various groups of small business men and women, including farmers and fishermen. And I have organised a major conference for small businesses from all over the UK (but mostly the South West as it turned out) in Brussels.

It has long been my intention to produce a pamphlet to help give small businesses access to information. At last with the considerable help of my collaborators, Louise Kennerley and Natalie McCoy, I have been able to do it.

I hope it may prove of use to you.

                             2006