In 1972, David moved to Fladbury, a small village in the 'Middle of England'. He hadn't been there very long when the young Rector; Michael Goode, knocked on his door: He'd seen David canoeing on the Avon with his family, and he asked if he would help two or three young people to build canoes to give them something to do. Michael pointed out, that, if adults didn't provide leadership, and something for the young people to do, they get bored, cause trouble, and society suffers. David told Michael about his job, about travelling thirty five miles to and from work each day in Oldbury, and said he hadn't the time to help. Michael asked him, "What about your duty to society?"

David agreed to help. The young people held a sponsored walk, raised £189, bought a mould, built canoes in the garage at Glen Villa, and formed Fladbury Paddle Club. Since then many boats have been built; over eighty people have represented Britain from the club; three have been to the Olympics and two of David's sons, Stephen and Andrew, have been four times Olympic finalists and three times world canoe marathon champions. David became Olympic Coach and the Fladbury way of teaching became the national method for teaching on placid water.

His life in industry was not so placid. As a managing director of an engineering company which was part of a large Birmingham based group David occasionally gave talks at their central School of Management in Birmingham. There he met Terry, now Lord Burns, who was had become a lecturer at London Business School. David talked about people and business. Terry gave talks on strategy. At that time the economies of Germany and Japan were outgrowing that of Britain. The thinking at that time was that Germany and Japan had benefited from the destruction of their old industries in the War; and that Britain needed to destroy its old industries to be able to compete economically. David heard a theory from Terry Burns that if industries were destroyed new people would emerge, with new ideas to take their place!

When the Thatcher government came into power Terry Burns left London Business School and joined the Treasury, eventually becoming the Permanent Secretary. The destruction of the old industries affected many people, including David, who had to sell the company he was then MD of to his German competitor: The ideas he had first heard expressed by Lord Burns ended his career in manufacturing engineering in 1989 and he sat down to think about what he had learned and what to do for the future as Britain moved to a service economy.

In 1990 David gave a talk to the Coaching Service of the British Canoe Union which connected his work in industry and sport. Many were teachers and without exception wanted to leave the profession because of the systems they were working in. Realising that those systems were far removed from those he had been in, in sport and industry and those used to transform Japan, he was inspired to act and give teachers the 'language' they needed to change the system they were working in.

He wrote an article called 'The Secret of the Bell and Cell' and sent a copy to an organisation promoting the work of Dr W Edwards Deming the great American industrial coach who helped to transform Japanese industry after the devastation of war. As a result, he met Dr Deming and Professor Myron Tribus, a friend of Dr Deming, who was trying to introduce Dr Demings work, which had evolved from the work of Dr Walter Shewhart, into the educational system of the United States. Myron asked David to get the message to the United States.

To get any message to the United States is a formidable task, with huge competition. The amount spent on advertising products and services in the United States exceeds that spent on secondary education! However, David knew how the Hong Kong Tourist Board had tried to get its message to the world, by sending three Dragon Boats to London, holding a regatta on the Serpentine and then inviting the winners to the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival.

Because of the London regatta David also found out about the story of the origins of Dragon Boat Racing, 2,500 years ago, when they were created to celebrate the life of Chu Yuan, a well loved poet and freedom campaigner who was banned to the provinces and committed suicide by drowning. David realised that there might be a way to compete with the power of advertising. He invented the Bell Boat to reflect the ideas, created events and wrote children s stories for people of all ages '. The central character is a slow coach tortoise called Walter.

In 1999 German friends took a soft toy 'Walter' and the stories to Coburg, in the heart of Germany. In 2000 two Bell Boats were taken to Coburg and launched by Princess Stephanie of Saxe Coburg Gotha and in 2001 used in a regatta in Bamberg. On September 11th David flew out to Germany to take part and in the following week an idea emerged of a voyage from Coburg the following yea/C In May 2002 David took part in a ten day voyage, together with hundreds of Germans and spoke to the mayors of 22 German towns about the idea of the MAIN Festival for Earth. It was suggested that they use them to enhance their Olympic bid.

Britain has a history of invention and then others taking the ideas and putting them into practice. They include penicillin, computers, the jet engine, television, radar and the Olympic Games. The MAIN Ideas were first put forward as a Millennium project but failed to get funding despite support from hundreds of Members of Parliament - some said they were the greatest ideas likely to be submitted. The London Olympic bid gave David another opportunity for the United Kingdom to use the ideas for the benefit of all its people and he wrote to the Mayor of London and rewrote the final chapter of this book.

Extract from Walter's Festivals 2003.