Long, long ago, in a preflight age, diplomats and expatriate businessmen in Japan expected their lives to be leisured until the arrival of the next ship with its communications from home offices. Phil Richardson does not belong to such a remote past, but his timing places him at the end of another era before heightened electronics took over. In the 1960s, expatriate businessmen, responsible and effective in their work, still had time and enthusiasm for full-scale fun in local social gatherings and sport. On his first day in unknown Tokyo, Phil was introduced immediately to a rollicking group of compatriots. He likes to say that also on his first day here he met his wife. She was his secretary.

Reiko was born into a family who lived in Manchuria during the 1940s, and returned to Japan after the war. Reiko went to school in Tokyo, and in time decided to learn English and become a typist. "I wanted a long-lasting career, so I began studying shorthand too," she said. "I went to work for Dodwell's." By the time Phil arrived, Reiko was well advanced in British English and accustomed to British behavior, at least of the high-spirited expat kind.

Phil from Liverpool, happy-go-lucky and always ready for a lark, after schooling joined the Blue Funnel Line. "I began at the bottom," he said. "I was away for two years doing my national service with the Royal Marines, mainly in Malta and Aden. Then I went back to the shipping company, the Blue Funnel. They sent me to Indonesia and Singapore. It took six weeks by ship to get to Indonesia from England. I did return to Liverpool, but I had learned to like the idea of the Far East. I joined Dodwell's."