INTERVIEW
Time to take tea
with the
TWININGS
Exclusive interview by Peter White
When Sam Twining kindly agreed to
be interviewed, it was just a question
of where and when?
“Why don’t you come round at
about 4.30 in the afternoon, then we
can have a cup of tea as we chat,” he
suggested.
How could I refuse? After all I was
about to meet the ninth generation
member of the Twining family, the
oldest and arguably most
famous tea company in
the world. So what could
be more appropriate
than taking tea with
Sam Twining and his
charming wife Anne?
Both talk about tea
enthusiastically, but
somewhat surprisingly Sam initially
had no real designs on working within
the company. His only thoughts were
on being a Royal Marine.
At their St Lawrence retreat, he
revealed: “I was born in Paddington –
not the station - and was brought to
the Island when I was three weeks old
to be shown off to my grandmother
who lived here. I used to come here for
all my holidays, and I was here staying
with my grandmother when war was
declared, and I remember going up
to the railway halt at St Lawrence to
collect my gas mask.
“I have terrific childhood memories
of the Island. My home in London
got a direct hit during the war, and we
were evacuated to Alton in Hampshire.
Because security was very tight on the
Island, my father would bring me by
one route and my mother would bring
my sisters by another route.
“You never knew who you were going
to meet when you got here. We used
to stay next door to the St Lawrence
permanently in 2000. Because the
company was based in Andover, we
lived on the mainland but used to
come here whenever we could. I
worked until I was 70, and then when
I retired we moved here permanently.”
Then he confided: “When I was
growing up I was never made to think
that I had to go into the business. At
the age of six I saw the Royal Marines,
and from that day I
kept telling my family
I wanted to be a Royal
Marine. When I was 16
my father asked me if I
still wanted to join the
Marines, and I told him
I did.
“So in 1950 I went off
as a boy to the Royal Marine training
centre, where I had basic training and
was given a uniform, and I returned
here very proudly two weeks later as a
Second Class Royal Marine volunteer.
When I got called up for National
Service I went straight into the Royal
Marines. I didn’t go into the family
business until I was 23. I was never
made to think that I had to go into
the business. For me that is the most
dangerous thing that a boy or girl can
have happen to them when they want
to do something else.”
Sam was keen to stay in the Royal
Marines, but said: “My uncle was
'I remember going to the
railway halt at St Lawrence
to collect my gas mask'
12
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Inn, which at the time was a guest
house. You couldn’t get down to any
of the beaches because of barbed
wire, mines and scaffolding, so it was
a pretty grim place really because of
invasion scares.
“My parents wisely decided that we
should not return to London, so my
sister and I stayed in Niton for a short
while, and then we went to Alton.
Then after the war we went back to
London and stayed there until my
grandmother died in 1946.
“My mother died in 1981, so in a
sense this has been our home since,
although we actually moved here