Heigh-ho sterling

THE biking banker of Barclays, Justin Urquhart Stewart, is preparing for another day in the City, hauling on his big black leather boots, zipping up his leather jacket and winding his white silk scarf around his neck like a noose.

Suddenly he stops, looks around his living room and says: ``You'll want to see our claymore from Culloden!''

It seems a curious time and place for a history lesson, just after 7am in a townhouse in Hammersmith. But Stewart is already drawing a beaten sword out from a dirty brown scabbard, which usually rests upon his mantelpiece. ``What I always wonder about is: if all the Stewarts were slain at Culloden, how the hell did we get it?''

Stewart retrieved the claymore from his uncle prior to his father's death to continue the line. The reason the original owner survived the slaughter becomes part of another piece of Stewart intrigue.

It seems that since Culloden, a member of Stewart's family in each generation has served in a military regiment. His father was a member of the Gordon Highlanders, serving in Burma and Malaysia, and his brother now serves in the Queen's Dragoon guards. Curiously not one of them, since possibly the lucky wielder of the claymore, has been wounded.

Stewart, however, went into banking and took a bullet in Uganda.

``It was during the war in 1979. I was driving an old VW Beetle with my assistant managing director, when we were shot by Tanzanians at a roadblock. It's like a video - clear and crisp and perfect.

``Time slows up wonderfully. There I was, going along `tumtee-tumtee-tum' about 25mph. The first thing I heard was a funny pinging noise then the windscreen lit up; things were going through it, it was tracers.

``So there was this very beautiful glare. I thought `this is amazing, what is going on?'. Alan went `f***!'. So we braked, everything was in slow motion, opening the door, diving out the car. I was hit by a bullet in the ankle. You're lying there, feeling warm tea being poured all over you.

``My pal Alan was shot in the knee - straight through, very bloody - and then he was shot in the neck but it didn't hit anything, it just took the bottom of his ear off.''

Despite his wounds, and the fact that he resembled ``a horror movie star'' Alan succeeded in hauling Stewart back into the car, then sped off to the safety of the Liberation Front headquarters. During a long spell in hospital Stewart received a one-line telegram from his family back in Blighty. It read: ``Dear Justin, Typical!, love family.''

As Stewart was shot while driving, he now rides a motorbike. It's a sleek BMW K75s and as we take off through the still, quiet streets, I clutch on to his sides and keep an eye out for Tanzanian gunmen. I'm wrapped inside an armoured biker's jacket and a full-face helmet as Stewart bombs towards work. You can't be too careful.

He's describing the sights while I'm humming the theme tune from Streethawk, an American TV series about a biking crime-buster. It only lasted a series or two before being beaten off by David Hasselhoff's Knightrider. Whizzing through a few streets, I imagine Stewart in his own series with a finale involving a number of disgruntled crooks muttering: ``If it wasn't for that pesky, meddling business planning director!'' But it doesn't scan.

Senior management at Barclays don't approve of his new transport and think it unsuitable. We pass two City candidates, stretched out in the back of a chauffeur-driven Daimler perusing the pink pages of the Financial Times as we wait at traffic lights.

I wave, hoping they'll wind down a window and we can discuss Bunny bonds and Alligator spreads or whether they have invested in the living dead recently. They take no notice. The lights turn green and we speed off, with me muttering about them eating exhaust fumes.

We pass Di's Kensington Palace, and minutes later we round Buckingham Palace. It is such a short distance that it's a wonder Di doesn't pop round more often. By journey's end we've covered a lot of London and I'm considering opening a new account at Barclays to save up and buy a bike.

After parking behind the offices in St Thomas Street, he strides into his office before 8am and begins changing. Taking off his jeans, he stands in his briefs and says: ``That's the benefit of coming in early; none of your staff see your knickers.''

There is a refreshing irreverence that extends beyond his teddy bear tie and duck braces. A regular TV spokesperson, he has jousted with Zig and Zag on The Big Breakfast where he donated, to a young boy whose ambition is to be a stockbroker, a pair of mandatory red braces, a copy of the FT, and a toy Porsche.

``The good stockbroker should be able to get a Porsche for his client,'' he explains, now fully suited and ready to tackle a 10-hour day. Today he will lunch with the head of the Stock Exchange, while the rest of the day is made up of meetings with colleagues. Stewart's job is the future, and to figure out the money people will need.

The answer is simple, a lot more. He explains that Britain's economics are now apolitical. ``It's not clear blue Conservative or red Labour or clear blue Labour - whoever is in will have to deal with the little that is left in the pot.''

He says the NHS will soon be the EHS - emergency health service - and people will have to pay for more as support from the state is reduced.

It is his job to help prepare them for such an eventuality. In his opinion this involves simplifying the financial markets so that people don't just understand but take part. The Thatcher Years went some way to achieving this. The number of shareholders rose from two million in 1979 to 11 million in 1996, six years after she left office.

But the majority of people still don't trust the financial services as they don't understand them. ``They don't trust the banks, they don't trust the building societies, they don't trust independent financial advisers. It's not that they don't trust stockbrokers, it's that they wouldn't know where to find them. Even if they did they would be worried about speaking to them.

``But they've all got a brother-in-law. There is a brother-in-law somewhere who seems to advise most of the country, if only I could find him. That brother-in-law seems to be the source of all their knowledge and understanding. I think it is good that they know what is wrong though.''

Stewart's research into the public's attitudes involved watching test groups of paid members of the public discuss their financial affairs from behind a one-way mirror.

He explains: ``You're changing the old Stock Exchange, the old flotation systems, the old banking systems. They are all happy to stay as they are but I'm delighted to behave like a vandal and break some of these things down, on condition that we replace them with something that is better than is there now, more understandable.''

He considers the current financial markets a contemporary equivalent of the tower of Babel, everyone speaking another language. A thick book has now been published listing a glossary of financial terms such as: living dead, a stricken company.

To achieve this goal he must create influence. ``My job is not one that you would find in any other stockbroker. I suppose if it has one role it is to try and create influence. In order to achieve my personal goal we have to address a whole series of audiences; politicians, industry, stockbrokers, etc.''

Stewart was responsible for Barclays' nationwide call centre, based in Glasgow, where the public can become involved with one simple phone call.

Born in England after his father returned from serving overseas, Stewart was at first raised in Scotland before continuing his education down south.

Banking was not the first choice for a boy who loved to paint. After a year biking round Europe, he returned to London to work as a labourer and union rep for the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians before completing a degree in European Law at Southampton University.

He drifted into Barclays after becoming disillusioned with the Bar. He was first sent to Uganda, and after recovering from the shooting he was transferred to Singapore. After more than two years in the field of corporate finance he came back to launch Barclays' first clearing company, handling the background work of other stockbrokers.

Following the launch, a senior Barclays executive congratulated him on the idea of the company washing its own windows! ``He thought we had set up a cleaning company.'' The past 10 years has seen his profile climb to include appearances on GMTV and Business Breakfast where, during the newspaper review, he included Motorcycle News.

Bikes remain a deep passion. Each year he and a group of mates attend a motorcycle rally at Bold'or in the South of France. ``It's one of these events where you've got to earn the good grace from your wife so you can attend.''

He remains a character among stockbrokers and a proud ex-pat, even being sent home on St Andrew's Day to change after he arrived at the office in a kilt, his regular attire for Christmas functions. ``It's just so much more fun than a stuffy dinner jacket.''

To Stewart banking is a mission. The task of convincing people that they must take more interest in their finances and use money in a wiser way is of crucial importance to him.

``The attraction of banking is you can make a crusade out of it. I am doing something that I am one hundred per cent convinced is right and important. If I know what I am doing is ethically correct and helpful to people; and if I don't do it I am concerned that other people will come in and do the wrong thing.

``That is what gives it a great buzz. It's positive, it's creative, it is all the things you would like to do at art school. You are building things. You are making things. The pride I have in going to our place in Queen Street is in seeing 450 people there running it, not me.

``I set it up but now there is something there which has a life of its own and is still growing. It's exciting that you're giving more people more security.''

This autumn will see him change into another role. He may well discard his pinstripe for a role as an extra in the new series of Sharpe, the ITV series starring Sean Bean. His sister-in-law is the chief make-up artist and the latest episode features the battle of Waterloo. ``I'll no doubt be 39th spear carrier.'' He knows, however, he'll have to leave his bike behind.