Reflections on the past forty years of Japanese business in the UK – what’s next? – 3
(continuing from part 2)
When we returned to Britain in 1977 after nearly five years of living in Japan, it was quite a shock. We had become used to a lifestyle of easy travel by train or car to cities such as Osaka or Kobe with brightly lit streets full of department stores and shopping arcades, regularly going out to eat wonderful food and drink excellent coffee and for me, the best ever chocolate cakes in the plentiful restaurants and coffee shops.
Back in England, we initially lived in a village between Bath and Bristol and then moved to a village in north Buckinghamshire. We had to buy a car for my mother to drive to Bletchley station and commute into London. In Japan we’d had a much loved Daihatsu, so my parents wanted the nearest equivalent Japanese car in the UK. The only available Japanese cars in Britain were from Nissan, so we bought a Datsun Sunny 120Y – very similar to the one in this photo.
It rusted quite badly but was utterly reliable, starting every morning, however frosty. I remember hearing the hacking noises of neighbours’ cars as they repeatedly try to start the ignition. My grandparents were horrified that we had bought a Japanese car rather than a British one. They were of the generation that had bad memories of Japan in World War II. They had bought a Triumph Dolomite, which had to be taken to the garage frequently for repairs.
Everything in Britain seemed broken, dirty and inefficient compared to Japan. My childhood memories are coloured by brown, orange and a grey dampness. The atmosphere was also depressed and antagonistic – strikes continued, culminating in the Winter of Discontent. It was no surprise that Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative Party won in 1979.
(PS: This debate in the House of Commons shows the tone and concerns in 1977 regarding the British car industry and Japanese imports)
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