BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 72
ENTREPRENEURS
ENTREFLÂNEUR
By Paddy Renouf
The supremely well-connected
Paddy Renouf is London’s
go-to man for visiting 昀椀lm
stars, high-rollers, and anyone
else who wants a unique
experience in the capital. Also
a talented landscape artist,
writer and storyteller, he lives
in an historic Soho house once
occupied by a harpsichord
maker for Mozart, Handel and
Haydn.
“
Renouf, the only reason anyone
would follow you is out of
curiosity! They’d like to see what
decision you are going to make next.”
That was the conclusion of the
“Corporal of Horse” on my crucial
“What Makes a Leader” course during
basic military training at Sandhurst in
the late 1970s.
And it’s kind of true. It’s now 20
years since I initiated a private guide
business as a stop-gap between
jobs, with a view to generating
some ready cash. I had been in a
corporate career as the sales director
and ultimately the MD of a medical
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supplies company: among a range
of products, we manufactured all
types of thermometers, including the
clinical thermometer for the NHS.
My company had been supplying
these under tender since the NHS was
formed in 1948.
We had these medical thermometers
manufactured in Kodaikanal, a hill
station above Bangalore in the south
of India, about 2,100 metres above
sea level, which gives the place that
famously pleasant, temperate climate:
neither coastal nor sweltering, but
rather cool. misty and pine scented.
It was a good place to calibrate the
human range of the thermometer.
