Page 42 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story
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CHAPTER 3 - JOHANNESBURG TO DURBAN TO CAPE TOWN TO PORT ELIZABETH AND BACK TO JOHANNESBURG
Port Elizabeth or PE as we all called it. I took the famous caravan with me. Daphne and I spent eight years there in the 1960’s and it was a magnificent part of our life. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It was a great place to bring up the family and while we were there, in 1964, our daughter Debbie was born.
As I have alluded to elsewhere, I got to know all the traders and also started to write Life Insurance. I did quite well because I used the leads from the General Insurance business to create Life Insurance leads. I was soon making good money from Life Insurance commissions, which sometimes exceeded my monthly salary. I even wrote group superannuation schemes and quite a few pension schemes and started to become a real expert on life insurance and superannuation.
I also played cricket for Maristonians in PE though in my first three innings I managed to score three ducks! I did get better.
I was heavily involved with the Chinese community where on one occasion I was asked to judge the Miss May Queen. In addition I had the privilege of speaking about the history of insurance at the Grahamstown Memorial to the English Language during its opening.
While I was in PE I looked after the East London office. This was where I met the Greig Family; Tony and his father Sandy and his mother Joyce. Sandy Greig worked for us in East London while Tony was playing cricket for Eastern Province, making heaps of runs. It was the beginning of a fantastic relationship with Tony and led to even greater things when I was transferred to Australia and our joint venture with Kerry Packer and “Get the Lion on the Line”.
During the period I was in PE we tripled the premium income and at times we were outperforming Head Office. One day the General Manager came down to visit us from Johannesburg. While he was having dinner with the family he said that he was not forcing me
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