AS the man who masterminded the Queen's Press Office throughout a
turbulent decade of royal revelation, Michael Shea might seem to have
jumped from the frying pan of the palace into the white-hot fire of Lord
Hanson's amazing business organisation.
His new boss was described by the Financial Times as a man ''content
to move largely unseen in the corporate jungle, as befits a dangerous
predator''.
As for Mr Shea, the career move to the rough and tumble of big
business must seem like a picnic after the realms of royal rumpus and
rumour. Indeed he relishes his post of looking after the external
relations of Hanson plc (the
people-who-are-doing-well-over-here-over-there), covering everything
from Government and public relations to advertising.
''The most exciting thing I have done in years,'' he says, ''is to be
involved in the announcement about discovering the old Globe Theatre
foundations in London, in which Shakespeare himself had a financial
interest and where some of his plays were first performed.
''They were discovered in a disused car park at the Courage brewery,
which Hanson acquired when it bought the Imperial Group. Unlike the
controversy over the Rose Theatre, we are actually funding the
investigation to the tune of #250,000 and have taken the initiative in
applying for a listing, as a building of outstanding national
importance.
''The find is all the more intriguing in that they have unearthed
shells of hazelnut, which was the pop-corn and potato crisps of that
time.''
Changed days indeed for the silver-haired Scot who has travelled the
world as diplomat and Buckingham Palace press secretary -- and raised a
few eyebrows with the subject matter of his political thrillers, which
he began to write when he followed John le Carre at the British Embassy
in Bonn.
All that lay far in the future, however, when the Shea family first
set foot in Scotland in the 1880s. Michael's grandfather, a Boston
Irishman, was sent by his Singer bosses to help establish a sewing
machine factory in Clydebank.
In Glasgow, he met and married an Orcadian, who outlived him by 60
years and was herself given a job as head of the clerical staff at
Singer's. Michael's own father worked for Walter Bergius of Dobbie's
Loan, makers of the Kelvin engine, and home was in Lenzie, where he
attended the Academy in which his mother was a teacher.
A scholarship to Gordonstoun, however, set him on a route to Edinburgh
University and the Diplomatic Service, which not only landed him in the
Bonn office formerly occupied by le Carre but brought him an
introduction to his future Norwegian wife, Mona.
''It was there that I began writing thrillers,'' he explained as he
relaxed from a hectic business life. ''I thought if people like John le
Carre and Douglas Hurd could do it, so could I. So I wrote Sonntag,
which was translated into eight languages.
''In Bonn I was dealing largely with Britain's attempts to enter the
European Economic Community -- and helping to counter President de
Gaulle's opposition to it.''
It was later that he wrote the controversial Dollar Covenant, the plot
of which had to do with political rioting in Scotland, based on the
notion of a big, multi-national company -- yes, that again -- virtually
buying up the country. (There are actual precedents, he points out, like
the Firestone rubber company with Liberia).
''Dollar Covenant was going to be televised but, with the Scottish
National Party on the up-and-up at that time, the BBC considered it
politically too sensitive.''
When he became Britain's deputy director of information in New York,
the same book came under the scrutiny of film director Paul Winston, who
has never lost his desire to turn it into a major movie.
It was during that same New York appointment, however, that Michael
Shea came to the attention of the Queen, whose American visit he helped
to arrange.
''That was followed, in 1978, by an invitation I couldn't refuse,'' he
says now. ''I loved the palace job. I went to 52 countries and saw great
ceremonials. We had the Royal weddings and so much else and, after nine
years in the job, I do miss the people, though, in all honesty, I don't
miss having to deal with the press.
''It was when I went to China with Her Majesty, and found that my
punch-up with the Chinese security guards in Tiananmen Square was the
lead item in the television coverage, that I decided enough was
enough.''
Despite a tabloid label calling Shea the Queen's ''Anti-Press
Secretary'', his Peking punch-up had to do with helping the journalists
overcome security obstruction.
Back home there were sundry embarrassments, like the Irish intruder in
the Queen's bedroom and, not least, the rumpus over an alleged palace
mole who was supposed to have told the Sunday Times that the Queen was
at political odds with the Prime Minister.
Michael Shea revealed himself as that ''mole'' but claimed he had
merely answered a series of questions which were then moulded in a
different interpretation.
He explained: ''If someone asks you, for example, 'Is the Queen
worried about the wave of strikes in Britain?' the answer must be 'yes'.
I knew the story as it appeared was unfounded and was total nonsense,
but there were demands for my resignation.
''That incident probably delayed my departure from the job because,
while I had been thinking of leaving anyway, it would then have been
perceived as a response to a story which I knew to be non-existent. I
left about a year later.''
The prestige of the palace appointment would guarantee no shortage of
opportunities, and some interesting offers came along.
Among the important figures he had entertained to lunch with Prince
Charles was Lord Hanson, whose shrewd business movements are legendary
in the City. There were other connections.
His former superior in the United States, Sir Gordon Booth, with whom
he had achieved New York landing rights for Concorde, had by then joined
the Hanson board.
Shea was invited to take up a post which was created for him, looking
closely at all aspects of the company's public image and serving that
dynamic duo which has turned it into the western world's biggest maker
of bricks, typewriters and Jacuzzis, as well as taking over companies
like Imperial Tobacco, Ever Ready and Consolidated Goldfields.
The other half of the partnership is, of course, Sir Gordon White, who
runs the American end and was the Hollywood model for the British
corporate raider in Wall Street.
''I love the change,'' says Michael Shea enthusiastically. ''For more
than nine years I was in a job which was largely reactive. Now I am in
one which is pro-active, where I have to initiate, and that is
enormously stimulating.''
Michael Shea's latest non-fiction book is called Influence, an
interesting analysis of power and how it is so often exerted from an
unexpected quarter. He points out how people make judgments on the basis
of first-sight, gut reaction and reach decisions based on image rather
than substance.
''Take the case of Ronald Reagan,'' he says, ''where they created a
President out of a B-movie actor, a nice guy who could read his lines
but who was all image.''
Despite all his travels, Michael Shea has retained his main home in
North Berwick, where his mother still lives. His daughter is at Oxford
and his son at Gordonstoun, where he himself is a governor.
If his Dollar Covenant has still to reach the screen, so too has his
TV series, The Embassy, which has been sold three times without ever
being produced.
One day soon, he vows, he will return to fiction. The fact that he now
rubs shoulders with Lord Hanson and Sir Gordon White, perhaps the
outstanding industrial success story of the post-war period, should
ensure a continuing supply of grist for the mills of mega-busting
mystery.
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