In 1982 my husband received early retirement, that is, redundancy with a pension. We invested the redundancy money in a ten-year investment policy, according to the orthodox financial advice we were given. Ten years later, in 1992 (my husband had died by then), when the policy had matured, I discovered, to my horror, that the money had been invested in South East Asia.
What had the money been doing? Was it cutting down rainforests? Was it using exploitative labour? Whatever it was doing, it was flight capital. Against the advice of the investment manager and my accountant, I knew I had to bring the money back to this country.
How should I invest it? That was the question. I knew that it should be invested in Britain, in a way which should be environmentally and socially benign. I didn't just want to invest it in Britain, I wanted to invest it in Wales. Even that was not specific enough. I wanted to invest it in North Wales, in Gwynedd, in such a way that it would help to provide employment in an area of very high unemployment.
How would I do this? How could I find the people who need the capital that I might be able to provide? My little bit of capital might help one or two people caught in the unemployment trap, but how could I expand the idea to involve more people?
Mercury Provident Bank is an ethical bank that matches socially concerned investors with projects that have social or environmental added value, but that was in England, and I wanted my investment to benefit the North West corner of Wales.
I started to make enquiries of Mercury Provident, as to the possibility that they could facilitate the idea I proposed.
This is now in progress.
A speaker from Mercury Provident Bank has met with a small core group, and explained how such a scheme would operate. The subject has now been discussed with a wider audience, and possible schemes to be financed in this way will be put forward for discussion.
At the same time, I contacted the Rev Geoffrey Hewitt, of the Office of Social Responsibility of the Church in Wales, who arranged a series of Saturday morning seminars about the need for new economic approaches to the problems created unemployment and debt. Credit unions and LETS Systems will also be discussed in this series.
Patricia Knox, Pen Llywenan, Bodedern, Holyhead, Gwynedd, Wales LL65 4TS (tel 01407 740767).
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