David Lewis

"But it was the small things which hurt most. With his usual eye for detail, Weinstock carried a cost-cutting regime to extremes, cancelling the orders for the directors’ newspapers and magazines — in Lindley’s case, the Financial Times and Yachting and Motor Boat Weekly. Curiously, this was the one move which really rankled with Lindley, who accosted Weinstock one morning, saying: ‘You stopped me getting them.’ Weinstock said: ‘No, I stopped the company paying for it.’ That was the end of Lindley. In November 1963 Weinstock cemented his position by bringing in David Lewis, Sobell’s lawyer, who had advised on both family and commercial matters. Lewis was just as bright and hard as Weinstock, several years his senior, and, as a colleague put it, ‘101 per cent straight’."

"Deadlines for closing the Magnet House distribution centres were repeatedly missed. In the end Weinstock was forced to tell those in charge that at the end of the year he would lock the doors and throw any stock which was left into the sea. The lawyer David Lewis recalled: ‘Early on he found many people were ignoring his instructions. He would say: ‘Either you do it my way or you go.""*"