Nearly a decade ago the writer, by accident, became innocently involved in a scandal - what was to become a cover-up in respect of the origins of the current superbug epidemics of MRSA and C.Diff.
This led to an organised campaign of defamation, abuse and some stalking. This was originated by paid lobbyists and officials of some national farming organisations.
Their defamations have hurt the writer and his family very badly.
Given his health, a straight forward libel action may be impractical, but inevitably, given the serious nature of the background, it will become the focus of a major police investigation at an appropriate time.
They will investigate in the normal way, so nobody innocent of such activities need fear anything.
Most of the libels centre on the writer's previous business activities and the purpose of the article is to refute deliberate lies.
A completely clean record is easily checked via Companies House for a few pounds. The libellers deemed that unnecessary even though they were both asked to check and had access through their offices to Companies House and in-house accountants and lawyers to interpret the data.
They were spreading deliberate fabrications.
It is quite amazing, or perhaps sinister, that national organisations should employ such sleazy incompetents in senior posts. It should certainly be a matter for public concern.
Some of those involved are probably innocent of doing more than "follow my leader" and have had ample opportunity to publicly retract and disassociate themselves from such activities.
Personal business records had been lost in two successive business sales, the last of which was when the writer was really ill and in no position to take much action to protect them.
Since all these events were before the internet, there is little record of his former business activities on-line.
By sheer chance, a precious trove of mementoes and bits and pieces overlooked has been located.
They will be posted here from time to time. They are all consistent with his claims.
The personal bookkeeper for the holding company when the writer was too ill to make it to the office was the very famous Edgar Griffin, a kind neighbour and friend.
The writer does not share Edgar's politics, and is not a Freemason, but is sure that he will confirm the writer's integrity and the existence of a small maritime empire trading profitably at the time of the final sale prior to retirement.
Anyway the first little scrap found in an old wallet. It is a Canadian Crown Corporation
The telephone numbers etc are old, but you should be able to trace them.
More will be posted later, but only when there is time from the main task of exposing a terrible scandal.
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Some time was created.
Here is a silver rose bowl
The front is inscribed
PAT GARDINER ESQ
CHRISTMAS 1987
The other side
WITH THANKS FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION TO
FCP80
MARITIME CARGO PROCESSING PLC
You can find out more about FCP80 (now Destin8) all over the WWW
MCP have their own site.
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You can see how the writer knew that MAFF-Defra were wrongly blaming imported meat for the 2000 Classified Swine Fever and 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemics.
Now the photography is not too good
But this paperweight reads:
G P Gardiner
Vice Chairman
Felixstowe Port Users Assn
1985 - 1988
The writer was actually Chairman during 1973 at the age of 29.
The FPUA can be found on http://www.fpua.co.uk/
It has a pretty prestigious membership list. All officers are elected by competitive ballot and serve without remuneration.
Are you sure we have to continue this farce? When some of the farming organisations with their batteries of lawyers find out what some of their people have conspired to do to a respectable businessman's reputation, they are not going to be too happy.
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Now we move to something unique.
One day in the early/mid1980s, there was a call from the most senior daily newspaper editor:
the oldest daily newspaper in the world, the insurance and a shipping sheet founded in Mr Lloyd's coffee house in the City of London, "Lloyd's List"
They wanted an interview.
Kevin Willmott took the piece which was published in the weekly book of sailings, Lloyd's Loading List.
As far as is known, this was the first and only time such a profile was published in the "Loading List."
It isn't on-line, so you will have to be patient as it loads. You can magnify to read, as necessary.
Now, despite being retired for many years, contact has been maintained with the Lloyd's market and journalists and I have had occasional pieces published.
Despite continuing health problems, he hopes to be doing some possibly remunerative work for the insurance sector, possibly in respect of zoonotic disease cover.
That makes the immediate retraction of these infamous and quite deliberate malicious libels an absolute necessity rather than merely equitable.
It also opens up a whole range of possible actions to achieve this.
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The writer has always said he has lived a colourful life. It also had its bad times. The 1980s were a time of cover-ups and conspiracy.
The first of a series of blows came in 1978, when Mrs Pat got cancer. There was a reoccurrence in1981 with the usual operations and debilitating radio-therapy. It was quite hard running a lively group of companies, and coping with a sick wife and children at the same time.
Worse was to follow. The writer, not for the first time, was ill too, although he did his best to hide the problems.
It was an Australian locum that spotted that his scars did not match the records. There has been a medical disaster more than twenty years before with unrecorded and misdescribed operations.
The writer had one of the first heart resuscitations in 1959. A time when the headlines for such operations screamed from the tabloids
"BACK FROM THE DEAD!
DID HE SEE GOD?"
He had been the victim of a cover-up resulting from a botched appendectomy. A whole series of illnesses, some serious resulted.
There was no point in taking any action, and with the writer's agreement, the faked documents were destroyed. Fortunately the destruction was not too efficient and one crucial paper was retained, later to become unexpectedly important.
Anyway, during this period, life was a struggle. The really important things were done in the office and colleagues stepped in to provide support. The writer was grateful.
The problems started when the writer, the Chairman, founder and 60 percent owner, found his chair firmly occupied by the other directors and a distinct reluctance to allow him to take back his former role.
He was in a spot. If he insisted and was ill again, there would be real problems. The main company was continuing to do well and he decided to develop the computer side, as being likely to be less demanding.
He was still taking the main decisions and decided to acquiesce in a situation he found uncomfortable. He was still often unable to get to the office so arranged for additional signatories for the cheques and often worked from home.
Although, this advertisement was taken later, it gives an idea of the specialities and dangerous areas in which the biggest company was trading. Libya, and Bulgaria in those cold war days, in particular were very important, profitable and potentially troublesome.
The blow fell in 1987. The minority shareholder backed by some of the other directors staged a coup, deciding that they wished to expand the haulage interests by borrowing money from a bank. They were encouraged by outside advisors who spotted a chance to make a fortune in fees.
The writer refused to allow borrowing and was eventually outvoted at a carefully staged board meeting. After spending more than 100K of his own money on advice, decided to accept the inevitable and sell his shares, at perhaps a 70 percent discount to the minority director and his colleagues.
The bank even refused them the money to complete the deal unless they used the "Gardiner" name. The writer refused to sign a confidentiality agreement, although he said little about the real circumstances.
It was 1988. He was exhausted, ill and his life's work was in ruins. His lawyer , saying it was the worst case he had ever handled went off to join the Crown Prosecution Service. The opposing lawyer was soon to be struck off.
The following day, however, the writer's staff started to walk out from Anderson, Gardiner. They were not prepared to work under the new regime, some departing in the most spectacular manner. It was a process that was to continue for several years.
It was their loyalty that inspired the writer to pick up his spirits, form a new company under his own name, and start again from scratch.
The port was aghast, and rumours flourished. One Anderson Gardiner director was reported as being told that shipping was awash with allegations replied with the unforgettable "...and they are probably all true."
They all thought the injured lion had wandered into the bush, vanquished. Nobody expected the counter-attack.
However, in 24 hours he was under way and opened up virtually next door
...and a new chapter had opened.
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The astonishing thing was how helpful his former competitors were. An office was quickly loaned, and other help provided.
The writer travelled to see all his former major customers. He had acted as their UK fund holder for years and felt that he owed them an explanation for allowing their money to fall into other hands, if they asked.
Amazingly nobody asked.
He did get a bear hug from Sloman's boss who doubtless felt sorry for the ousted sad creature, his former agent, before him. The others mostly supplied a farewell boozy lunch.
Everyone had accepted all the explanations offered by the new owners and their backers.
The writer was actually happy enough with this, a collapse of a company that had so recently been under his control and bearing his name, through loss of business to him, was not on his agenda.
Customers, even the very best, come and go, but a reputation for absolute integrity is everything, and there is more than one way of protecting it.
A couple of small customers did change, one specialising in shipping large parcels of china clay up the Khyber Pass, the other the famous Ciclitira Brothers for their now only occasional shipments via Felixstowe.
A long hard struggle lay ahead.
Everyone accepted that there was a difference between the Anderson Gardiner Group and the new emerging Pat Gardiner Group.
They probably chuckled at a ridiculous situation.
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At first, things were difficult and the few staff stared at one another across empty desks waiting for the telephone to ring.
Then the first major shipping line was acquired - a coveted "national" line: Zambia National Line.
This was large vessels on a regular trade including an unusual cargo - gelignite for the copper mines.
Then in 1989, the big breakthrough, Losinjska Plovidba, a Croatian line anxious to extend their business from purely intra-Mediterranean into the North Sea.
They came to the writer for his knowledge of the trade between Britain and the Med, bringing economical but modern container vessels and a burning ambition to succeed.
Whereas Sloman had traded to and from the Western Mediterranean, Losinjska were also adding the Eastern Mediterranean, the exotic Levant and southern Italy.
The writer was in full competition with his former colleagues, his former major customer and many of his former staff.
It didn't make him happy, but he was free to compete and intended to do just that. Indeed, it was his duty to his new clients.
So, he competed. The ships were filled, north and south, and the company became very profitable. The best staff were recruited from the queue outside the office door. More ships were added enjoying the high freight rates to places others avoided like Libya and Lebanon.
The "Susak" gained fame in the BBC TV series "Around the World in 80 Days" staring Michael Palin.
The containers for Lebanon were off loaded in Cyprus and sent at night on "black ships" to ports in the war zone.
Business was good and another company's Felixstowe office was taken over.
New offices were needed and a spectacular barn renovation overlooking the River Deben was organised and equipped.
He also did a great deal of writing, some lecturing and the occasional broadcast.
But two disastrous and one momentous event intervened.
To this day the writer has difficulty in recalling the exact sequence of the three, they over lapped to trouble mind and body.
His old group "Anderson Gardiner" called in the administrators in 1991. It was a moment of great sadness: no moment of glory, just a feeling of unfinished business finally closed.
The debts were staggering and the writer made himself available to the Administrators even though sufficient time had passed to make this unnecessary. They did not take up his offer, everybody knew what had happened.
The second event was the start of the Balkan war. The immediate impact was slight but the writer was sad to see a country he knew and liked come to such times.
The third came because the writer was tired, took a holiday on the Isle of Wight and had a heart attack at the age of 47 chasing his wife up Boniface Down shouting "I'm going to get you!" She ran too fast and the legendary elephant sat on his chest. It was probably the result of damage dating back to the botched operation a third of a century earlier.
The immediate impact was that he had to take it easy and certainly not travel to the war zones where most of his business lay and the hospitals were full of civilian casualties.
Eventually in late 1992 further health problems and an imminent operation forced him to retire.
He sold a successful profitable business, without bank overdrafts or borrowing, to a friend and reluctantly retired, still in his forties.
No company owned or managed by the writer had ever been in court as a Defendant (and only once as a Plaintiff to collect a debt), and none had ever gone bust whilst in his care.
So, in conclusion, that chance find in the attic would appear to have exposed the campaign to denigrate the writer's business career as based on outright lies.
Somebody must have been very worried about the exposure of the deplorable state of pig health in Britain and been prepared to spend large sums in attempting to silence a critic by fabrications.
It didn't work and will no doubt prove an interesting line of enquiry for investigators for years to come.