CHAPTER ONE

Julian's legacy

If his elder brother, Julian, had not died in a motorcycle accident in France on 26 July 1950, this account of Adrian Cadbury's life would, most likely, tell an entirely different story. Adrian had never intended to join Cadbury. As a natural linguist, he had thought about the Foreign Office. He could have excelled as an academic or teacher. For a brief period, he had even toyed with journalism.1 The Cadbury name might now be synonymous with chocolate, but until financial losses grew out of hand, the family's newspapers remained a force on Fleet Street right up to the start of the 1960s, with their News Chronicle and The Star.

At the age of 21 Adrian must have felt there was time enough to reflect on his future. That July, he was staying at The Davids (so named after the two original builders), his parents' sprawling Edwardian house in Northfield, Birmingham. The long summer holiday stretched ahead after his first year at King's College, Cambridge. In any event, it had always been his brother Julian's prerogative - as the eldest of six siblings - to join the Quaker-rooted firm. The family home lay within easy 'sniffing distance' of the enormous four-storey Bournville chocolate factory complex, still owned by the numerous descendants of John Cadbury, the man who founded the business in 1824.2 A faint aroma of chocolate was unmistakable when the wind blew from the east.

This succession had been preordained by their father Laurence. Aged 61, he had been chairman of Cadbury for six years when Julian died; he was a commanding character whose passions for firearms and fast cars were unlikely to have been widely shared across Birmingham's close-knit Religious Society of Friends. At the beginning of the 1950s, Laurence was presiding over a resurgence in Cadbury's fortunes as Britain was at last emerging from wartime austerity. With the lifting of sugar rationing, chocolate production had surged. He sensed huge opportunities across the English-speaking world and plans were afoot to expand manufacturing overseas - everything from Dairy Milk and Flake to Cadbury Roses. This would have been an auspicious time for any Cadbury youngster to join the firm, not that preferment was in any way guaranteed. Even for the Cadbury bloodline, promotion was won strictly on merit.

In the decades to come, as we shall see, this branch of the Cadbury family would again be touched by tragedy. After Julian's death, another two of Adrian's four remaining siblings would perish unexpectedly. His younger sister Anthea would die in an air crash in 1964, and 18 years later in 1982, Jocelyn, a Conservative MP who suffered from depression, was found dead in the grounds of the family home with a discharged shotgun by his side. However, it was the death of 24-year-old Julian, the oldest of this third generation of direct descendants of the original founder of Cadbury, that had the most profound impact on his younger brother. Decades later, his surviving relatives and siblings still consider the loss of Julian as the defining moment in Adrian's life. His daughter Caroline believes that it was 'the biggest thing he ever had to contend with - he spent his life trying to compensate for it'.3

The family had learnt the dread news in a telephone call from central France. Overseas calls were a rarity in this era, even for a prosperous household of Midlands manufacturers. Within 48 hours, accounts of how Julian's 1000cc Black Shadow motorcycle had smashed into the side of a lorry near Moulins started appearing in British newspapers. It was the saddest end to Julian's road trip with three other Old Etonians. He had wanted a final, carefree break before knuckling down that coming autumn to a training contract at the family firm. Poignantly, his surviving sister, Veronica, remembers that one of the last things Julian said to their mother, Joyce, was that he would give up motorcycling on his return.4

It was family duty that finally drew Adrian to agree to take Julian's place at Cadbury after he graduated from Cambridge. Veronica remembers that her parents and Adrian spent many evenings in discussion: 'It was early summer. he had a couple of months to think about it - what was the right thing to do? They knew something had to give, it was a very sobering time'.5

According to Adrian's eldest son Benedict, 'My father felt he needed to step into his brother's shoes, that was a huge undertaking. [He] had a very strong sense of duty that would have overridden his personal considerations. These are Quaker characteristics. That's why I'm sure it was the defining moment [in his life]. it took him down a whole road of considerations. It really was a total change of direction, instant and unexpected. He did it because he felt that it meant so much to his father'.6

Doubtless it had been far from easy to make this life-changing decision. Despite the age gap, Julian and Adrian had been the closest of brothers. This fraternal bond, according to Adrian's children, was as strong and significant as their father's relationship with his parents, although they had entirely different personalities. Julian was the charismatic man of action with a 'sparkle' and 'overflowing energy', as one of his eulogies described him. Open-faced with a high forehead and side-parted dark hair, he beams out of photographs - a character who had 'a remarkable capacity for making friends wherever he went'. Ewen Macpherson, who came across Julian during his time at Trinity College, Cambridge remembers him rather more candidly as 'totally nerveless, and also a great pursuer of ladies'.7

Julian Cadbury (1926-50) [left]. Enjoying National Service leave with Adrian in the late 1940s.

In surviving photographs Adrian seems to be trying to mirror his brother's pose, but he comes over as more reserved, with his lanky frame and angular face. One can already see why in later life Adrian was described as having a 'donnish mien'. Veronica paints a vivid picture of their contrasting personalities. Up at Cambridge, Adrian 'had a Hillman Minx, a pretty staid sort of car - that tells you something. It was never fancy but serviceable. That typified the difference between him and Julian'.8 By contrast his elder brother drove a racing green MG sports car with the snappy number plate, Joe 125.

Adrian always felt the need for his father's approval, but it was Julian who had far more in common with Laurence, the family patriarch. Both he and his eldest son were obsessed with speed and powerful cars. Laurence was an accomplished amateur racing driver. He had raced Prince Henry Vauxhalls (a high-performance sports car)9 at Brooklands before the First World War. Adrian remembered watching his father driving flat out against his uncle Norman on the road to the Henley Royal Regatta, both drivers oblivious to the risk of oncoming traffic. Laurence and Julian shared the same robust, and sometimes black, sense of humour. Veronica recalled that Adrian 'did have a sense of fun [but] it was hard to find. He wasn't as fun-loving as his elder brother or his father. My father had a great sense of humour, not always the kindest', she added with a smile, declining to elaborate further.

As a younger brother, Adrian was often the scapegoat in games arranged by Julian and their cousin Robin, a member of the broader Cadbury clan who lived nearby.10 His sister remembers an incident when Adrian, who was in his early teens, was required to don a heavy overcoat and run up and down the long drive at The Davids so that the two older boys could practise their air-gun shooting on a live moving target. These kinds of antics, often involving firearms, were by no means unusual during Adrian's boisterous childhood growing up at The Davids. Veronica was adamant, however, that one could not describe Adrian's attitude towards Julian as hero worship: 'He [Adrian] wasn't going to follow in his [Julian's] footsteps. He wasn't going to follow his character, Adrian was his own character'.

Adrian also had the self-awareness to realise that he would have to start assuming a lot of Julian's qualities if he was to make a success at Cadbury. Both brothers had been at the same house at Eton, and at Julian's memorial service at the Bournville Meeting House on 2 August 1950, their housemaster H.G. Babington-Smith expounded on Julian's National Service in Palestine - he had become an expert in explosives and was mentioned in dispatches. What became particularly apparent, however, was the strong impression Julian had already made on the factory's management and workforce during his numerous holiday jobs at Cadbury. It was not just his 'frankness and his friendliness' or his 'pleasing and vital...