So the creation of LIFFE carried on…One of my jobs was to don a hard hat and take a group of dignitaries around the buildig site that was to be LIFFE pointing out where the varios pits would be…The booths….and beleive it or not the heart ressuitation unit…Apparently on the CBOT one poor soul had a heart attack in the S&P pit ( working there for 2 months much later I understood ) however at the time having a heart ressuition unit seem to me a bit scary….
Then the next week Id do the same again, this point as plans changed, having to re tell the same dignitaries that the pit was not going to be there, but over by that pile of rubble…I seriously thought we were never going to be ready for the Sept opening….
It was such fun working for LIFFE…we knew the job was going to be a hard one…and only really a certain type of woman could work for LIFFE…shrinking, shy voilets would never cut it…I was never the shrinking voilet type, which is prob why I got the job to start with….but we knew it would be hard and full on….As time progressed, we were in virtually all the papers…To this day I still have a lot of the FT clipps…
Also the LIFFE pre opening parties….I could go to 3 in one day…well we did…we made the most of it…Luckily I had a live in Nanny as my children were only 2 and 4….and this most def was not a 9 to 5 job….so being a single Mum was tough back then…childcare was my main outlay….but I knew working for LIFFE was going to be fun, exciting, and new…
We had a group from Smith brothers from Chicago…and they were aggressive in the training sessions…but it made us realise what we were letting ourselves in for…so we worked hard, and the date of the opeing loomed closer….By that time LIFFE has increased its floor staff…and LIFFE was actually taking shape at a great rate of knots…The contractors worked round the clock, weekends as well…and finally it was time to leave the Old Jewry and move to the Royal Exchange…
Larger trading sessions took place….where the Matching section could actually match the trades for ICCH to clear…It was becoming real by the day…I wasnt scared…I was really excited…LIFFE was now beginning to look like LIFFE and then the Feranti board came, giveing us another reason to head to Greens to celebrate….Thats all we seemed to do was celebrate everything…Great…I loved it….
The LIFFE staff got fitted for jackets….we had 2 each….so there we was parading about in our jackets…The individual banks and institutions were designing their jackets for the varions floor teams…and then it was Sept 29th….We all went out…Had our last talk with Ken Heymer…..Knew what we had to do the next day, and we were all prepared….or so we thought…
Sept 30th came….and I could not beleive the amount of people on the floor…there were 100s and 100s…where the hell did they all come from….I have to say my legs wobbled a bit then…There was the BOE govenor ready to ring the opening bell….He did and all hell broke loose….Luckily Ken Heymer was the best…He was the calming influence on the pit…hands on our shoulders as we frantically posted all trades, volume….price….It was chaos….and then I had to make sure the quote vendors got their allocated time …we had 4 ports and 8 quote vendors…most of who spent the day screaming at me….
It was alive, buzzing, and we were part of History….I felt it in my bones….Finally the final bell tolled and it was a case of just matching the trades, and getting them to ICCH to clear…I was sitting outside the matching centre when our wonderful Timmy Ockendon came outside…put his feet on the desk, clipped the keyboard and crashed the whole entire system….Carnage reigned, as Don from the Winnepeg exchange, and Gerry tried to rewrite the programe and get us up and running again…Finally after 2 hrs we were live once more, and the errant Timmy was banned from putting his feet on anything ever again…
We had lived through the first day of LIFFE…All trades matched, eventually, and I can tell you we were all shattered…so headed for Greens once again….We made it…all that training, all those months of watching the building site grow into LIFFE was worth it…The adrenelin was flowing….and we went to Greens knowing LIFFE was going to be great…and that tomorrow we would do it all over again….
