Against All Odds. Jorma Ollila
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Название: Against All Odds
Автор: Jorma Ollila
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Биографии и Мемуары
isbn: 9781938548710
isbn:
In the summer of 1967 I awaited with mounting excitement the journey to my new school. In Vaasa strange stories were circulating of what the future held for me. The cause of the greatest amazement was that I would not sit my school-leaving exams at the prestigious Vaasa High School, but would move to somewhere in Wales, wherever that was. This seemed to upset everyone’s deepest feelings. My mother, too, was in her heart sad that her eldest child would not graduate from high school in his home town.
After a flight on a Finnair Caravelle I arrived in London, where I took the train to the industrial town of Bridgend in Wales and then went by bus to Atlantic College. The school had chosen for its location a gray mediaeval haunted castle that had stood guard for centuries. Around the ramshackle castle there was a sprinkling of new buildings where the students lived and worked. The area was surrounded by fields where sheep grazed. Around the castle was a garden with well-tended slopes sweeping down to the sea. The Atlantic’s endless horizon floated above the bright green meadows and dark green trees. Fog rose from the sea and a cold wind blew, though there was nothing new about that for anyone from Finland. The new landscape blew my mind. This was a different world, bigger than Finland. The sea was sea here, too, but it was bigger than the Gulf of Bothnia, which I knew had only Sweden on its other side. Here whole new continents awaited conquest from this strip of shore. Here I could see as far as my eyes would let me.
The library in the arched vaults of the castle took my breath away. So many interesting books, so much to study. My curiosity was already boiling over with the thought that I would get my hands on all this new knowledge because of the great opportunity that by chance – in the form of a newspaper announcement – had come my way.
We Finns were an ambitious crew who had started coming here only the previous year. So we had to show the others that we could handle it. In previous years the Germans had been the best-performing nationality in terms of academic grades. We decided it was now the Finns’ turn. The brightest star in our group was Pentti Kouri. Pentti was two meters tall and brimmed over with self-confidence and a broad general knowledge – his results were the best in Atlantic College’s entire history. I saw a good deal of him over the years. He became a brilliant macroeconomics expert, and also a venture capitalist who had varying success. His self-assurance and genius brought him not only friendship but also envy and enmity. Pentti got me ever more interested in macroeconomics. Other students included Martti Salomaa, who became a gifted physicist and mathematician and later professor of theoretical physics at Helsinki University of Technology. And Seppo Honkapohja went on to hold the chair of macroeconomics at Cambridge University and sit on the board of the Bank of Finland.
The Finns at Atlantic College in 1968 (from left) Pentti Kouri, Martti Salomaa, Mika Reinikainen, Eero Nurminen and me.
At Atlantic College no one spoke of a profession they might follow or what the future might hold; but it was clear to all that our future would in some way be academic. Hardly any of us imagined we would become captains of industry, bankers, or leaders of political parties. We were simply enjoying our exploration of the Milky Way of knowledge.
Four boys slept in our dormitory. The metal-framed beds practically touched each other, so we had to learn to put up with the odors and customs of different cultures. I quickly learned who washed their feet and who didn’t. I myself was the same conscientious boy I was growing up in Finland. I wanted the room to be kept straight. When I was sent a food parcel from home, I made sure all my roommates received a share. Some of my new friends came from a similar background to mine, such as my Norwegian roommate. Others came from so far away that I really had to come to grips with a new culture. For example, Lu Pat Ng came from Malaysia, where he belonged to the Chinese minority. If I had not met him when I was young, I would certainly not have gained the understanding I needed later of how things worked in Southeast Asia.
Atlantic College made its students study hard right from the beginning. Every student had to specialize in three subjects: I chose economics, physics, and mathematics. In all three subjects I would be able to use my mathematical gifts. Economics had begun to interest me back in Vaasa – my brilliant teacher Raimo Teppo had made the subject seem fascinating. At Atlantic College it became my passion because there too we had an outstanding teacher, Andrew Maclehose. He made me look at the links between economics and economic policy. He made us put ourselves in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s place. We had to decide: was this the right time to devalue or not? I enjoyed this enormously. My self-confidence grew: I learned that with every piece of knowledge one might influence the world. Knowledge was power.
MY NEW SCHOOL COMPELLED EVEN ME, a shy country boy, to take a stand on the great issues facing the world. We had to defend our views every day in class, and once a week we had a debate on current events. There you had to be ready to put your arguments forward and give good reasons for them. I remember the heated discussions that events in 1967–68 provoked.
Czechoslovakia was one flashpoint. The Prague Spring in 1968 gave its people greater freedom to express their opinions and greater control over their own lives. In August a surge of Soviet tanks crushed the country’s embryonic democracy. There were a couple of boys from Czechoslovakia at Atlantic College, one of whom went on to Harvard. In the school debate we were divided into two camps: those who defended the occupation and those who opposed it. The division was of course artificial: I am sure that none of us really supported the trampling of democracy. But everyone was expected to have a view, and it made for an intense atmosphere.
For my first six months I was the same reserved and rather shy boy who had left Vaasa in Finland on his first foreign trip in order to spend two years here. But then my shyness disappeared and I began to be more assertive. Discipline at Atlantic College was not as strict as in ordinary British boarding schools. It says something of the spirit of the age and the prevailing open-mindedness that we didn’t have to wear school uniforms. Jeans were perfectly acceptable as long as they were clean, as was a clean shirt without a tie. For dinner we were expected to don a blazer, tie, and straight trousers.
Atlantic College tried its best to inure us to regular habits. The morning swim took place at a quarter past seven every day until November. The heavy British breakfast came only after that. The swimming season resumed somewhere around April. You certainly knew you were awake after that morning ritual. The school’s other recreations also toughened me up. My studies included life-saving, sculling, and other healthy activities. In my first few months I and another pupil built our own seaworthy boat out of rubber and wood. Apart from a little help from a carpenter the boat was entirely our own work. We also made our own wetsuits from rubber. When I lugged the heavy outfit back to Finland it really gave my brothers and sisters something to marvel at. There was however rather less use for it in Vaasa than on Wales’s stormy Atlantic coast.
I put a great deal of energy into my schoolwork. In addition to economics I was keen on physics, which was taught by Miss Adams. She was young and beautiful and I always took the seat in class where I could see her figure to best advantage. Despite my rather wandering attention I got top grades in physics, too.
One of the most important activities throughout my life has been tennis. I’m seen here at Atlantic СКАЧАТЬ