Return Ticket Home

Magna Carta S C Ltd (publishing) [Published Date: 2014]. Soft cover, 601 pp. Autobiography of Phillip Morrell, whose rags-to-riches story includes an impressive rise through the ranks at Thomson Holidays during the 1970s. At Thomson, Morrell came up with the vision of taking British travelers to China. This led him to form Voyages Jules Verne in 1978, a company which was able breach the bamboo curtain and set up some of the first tours to China. [From back cover] Why is this book called Return Ticket Home? Author Philip Morrell explains: “It was my sixth birthday. I had been taken to the Church Mission, in Hammersmith, because my mother could no longer look after me. She did, however, send me a birthday card. On it, was a big ‘6’, and attached was a balloon; inside its neck a solitary sixpence. It was her way of saying goodbye. For my part, I took this card as a sign that my stay at the Church Mission would be a short one; I kept it for many years, as if it was my return ticket home. In fact, it would be three and a half decades before I saw my mother again. I formed my own pioneering travel company Voyages Jules Verne, travelled the world, staged huge events, opened up borders, and even stood and spoke on the podium of the Great Hall of the People in Peking. Among the ships I built, was the Spirit of Chartwell, the royal barge which carried the Queen and her family along the Thames, in front of millions of onlookers, on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee Pageant. Which took me back to where it all began: the banks of the Thames. It's been a long and circular journey. All net proceeds of this book are, therefore, going to the Barnardo’s charity – without whom, goodness knows where I’d be.”