Oil’s well that ends well in the North Sea?

Published: 02 July, 2010
by JOHN GULLIVER

I WAS taken aback a  bit when, at the Canonbury Society annual garden party, host Gordon Mackintosh mentioned the Gulf oil spill as I sipped lemonade on Sunday. A blue sky, a glorious sunny afternoon, where did the oil spew fit in?

But Mr Mackintosh – described to me earlier by guests as a successful entrepreneur – introduced the subject. 

As a man from Inverness, not too far from the North Sea oilfields, he explained how difficult it would have been to hit the right spot for drilling on the Gulf ocean floor.

As for the North Sea oilfield, he said, its life  is nearing an end. In the 1980s its revenue helped Mrs Thatcher pay for  the army of the unemployed, I remembered.

“But there’ll be plenty of demolition work on the rigs,” Mr Mackintosh explained as we chatted outside his Victorian house in Alwyne Road, Canonbury. “Imagine,” he said “the rigs are the size of the Eiffel Tower – it will take 20 years to demolish them.”

Mr Mackintosh, born into a farming family, studied at Edinburgh University, then spent two years at a Dagenham plant linked to Fords.

Then he struck out on his own and now runs several businesses. 

This week he is due be part of a government trade mission looking for orders in China.

I wonder whether he will promote a flourishing business his nephew runs in Inverness – the manufacture of oil from fields of rapeseed. I gather the product, called Mackintosh of Glendav­eny, sells well in super­markets, possibly in Camden and Islington. Mr Mackintosh, who has lived in Alwyne Road for eight years, is a keen member of the Canonbury Society. It was founded in the 1970s when the famous architect Sir Basil Spence and developers wanted to demolish Alwyne Road for one of his spectacular creations. But the residents resisted, and the society, one of the most influential  amenity bodies in north London, was born.

The party may have gone on until late after­noon but I noticed guests drifting away after 3pm – to watch the England-Germany match. 

I dropped in at the crowded local pub to see the match but left at half-time – England were clearly going down. The oil spill seemed far away.