Anker & Marsh

Author Bio ▼

Dr Tim Marsh PhD, MSc, CFIOSH, CPsychol, SFIIRSM is MD of Anker and Marsh. Visiting Professor at Plymouth University he is considered a world authority on the subject of behavioural safety, safety leadership and organisational culture. As well as many of the world's most recognisable industrial names Tim has worked with diverse organisations such as the European Space Agency, the BBC, Sky TV, the RNLI and the National Theatre in his 25 year plus consultancy career. He has key noted and chaired dozens of conferences around the world including the closing key note at the Campbell Institutes inaugural International Thoughts Leaders event in 2014. He has written several best-selling books including Affective Safety Management, Talking Safety, Total Safety Culture, the Definitive Guide to Behavioural Safety and Organised Wellbeing. Previously he led Manchester Universities ground-breaking research team into behavioural safety methodologies in the 1990s.
December 19, 2016

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James Tye

James Tye: Ahead of his time – the superhero of safety

The pope and condoms, elephants in Parliament and wellbeing in the 80s – James Tye the leader in health and safety.

By Tim Marsh

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James Tye’s campaign for road safety involved painting white crosses on damaged cars. In Birmingham the police attempted to stop it.

In 1987, a man called James Tye from London was named ‘World Safety Person of the Year’ by the World Safety Organisation and, in 2015, he became one of the first Europeans included in the American ‘Safety and Health Hall of Fame International’.

It’s quite possible that you’re sitting there asking: “James who?!” As while his legacy certainly lives on, his name is being slowly forgotten.

It shouldn’t be though. If ever the overused expression ‘visionary leader’ should be used – it’s for this remarkable man.

Flammable nightwear, seat-belts and World War 2

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James Tye with Esther Rantzen

James Tye formed the British Safety Council in 1957 at a time when creative and impactful campaigning around safety was most certainly needed as fatality rates were in the thousands  – around 15 times the level they are now.

Perhaps his most famous stunt though was to lead an Elephant to the Houses of Parliament.

Early campaigns focused on seat belts for car passengers as well as flammable children’s nightwear, oil heaters, PPE and of inadequate life jackets and buoyancy aids. James served in the RAF in World War 2 so it’s likely that his experience of watching ditched comrades drown because of faulty lifejackets influenced his passion for safety.

His work in advertising after the war certainly shaped his approach to running safety campaigns as he knew how to generate a column inch or two.

He regularly involved celebrities like Barbara Windsor, Stirling Moss and Cliff Richard in his stunts with all of his campaigns aimed squarely at capturing headlines.

Painting white crosses on cars with lots of dents (i.e. evidence of careless driving) was pretty provocative. Painting a cross on the police car that turned up to investigate was most definitely pushing his luck!

By berating the Queen for not wearing a helmet while riding horses, as well as reprimanding Princess Anne and Prince Charles for having their children in cars without wearing seatbelts showed he was driven by risk rather than reputation and perhaps his most famous stunt though was to lead an Elephant to the Houses of Parliament, to make the point that we should never forget accidents.

You won’t be surprised to hear that he had little patience for slow moving, overly cautious bureaucrats – it took 25 years from his initial work to seat belts becoming mandatory. His 1995 campaign featuring the Pope and condoms is still high up the list of all time complained about campaigns.

Tye was often accused of being a ‘gimmicky attention seeker’ but would retort that you had to consider who it was that accused him ! Indeed, with who it was he was annoying in mind, it was actually a compliment. He added that when they stopped accusing him he’d know he wasn’t doing his job properly!

Triumphs and successes

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Cliff Richard and James Tye

Although he campaigned in any area of personal risk, perhaps his greatest success, came through legislation for industrial safety from simple persistence and – with huge irony given his creative efforts and controversies – a simple admin error.

Every year he’d telegram the PM with the number of workers killed the previous year and every year he’d get a simple dismissive reply from a protective civil servant confirming that his views ‘had been noted’.

To James this will of course have read, as no doubt intended, as an invitation to do go off and do something sexual… alone… that’s physically impossible.

He persisted however and in 1968 an admin mistake was made and  his letter wasn’t intercepted by a pen pushing civil servant, but actually reached the relevant minister – Charles Sisson – who found that actually he agreed with Tye and that something should indeed be done.

What he did was to set up an inquiry that month (under Lord Robens) that led directly to the hugely influential Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) that is estimated to have saved tens of thousands of lives since.

He was ahead of his time when it came to wellbeing and stress too, setting up the British Wellness Council in the 1980s to produce messages on how to stay physically and mentally healthy.

With these themes in mind if he were with us today he’d be busy still. He’d be working with ‘Mates in Mind’ and other initiatives addressing the fact that we’re 35 times more likely to attend the funeral of a colleague that has committed suicide than that of someone who has been killed in a workplace accident.

He’d certainly have plenty to campaign about regarding the 13,000 people a year – minimum – killed by occupational health issues. These are ‘elephants in the room’ that need addressing for certain.

A couple of years ago there was actually talk of recreating the ‘elephant stunt’ to celebrate the anniversary of the HSWA to raise awareness of the figures above and the huge amount of work that needs doing now.

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James Tye (right) with an issue of Safety Sue

One senior figure from each major safety institution per elephant – but, for a variety of eminently sensible reasons, it didn’t happen.

I’d argue that it was a missed opportunity but then that’s easy for me to say as a psychologist with little involvement in the realities of politics!

If nothing else, we need a statue to this man – ideally outside a Museum of Occupational Safety – to celebrate past successes and events and to remind us of the huge amount of work that still needs doing.

We can all of us take inspiration from the sheer energy and chutzpah of the man as we address the need to pro-actively set the agenda and generate positive column inches about key matters.

Too often these columns are filled with neo-liberal sneering about ‘naïve bleeding hearts’ and exaggerated ‘elf and safety’ stories.

I don’t want to sound ‘all political’ – just pointing out that Tye was simply fighting fire with fire.

Myth busters is a great initiative but it’s easy to imagine James taking it one stage further and running around London dressed as a ‘myth buster’ ‘gooing’ police cars and chanting: “Who ya gonna call?!’

We certainly need to continue to challenge institutions and authority about their on-going complacency. The “Your concerns have been noted… (but we’re not going to do anything about it” quotient is still rather high is it not?

Actually, when you think about it – ***k it! We DO need some elephants!

 


James Tye was born in London on 21 December 1921. Educated at Upper Hornsey LCC School, he served in the RAF from 1940 to 1946, before becoming an advertising agent and contractor. He created the British Safety Council in 1957, was its Executive Director from 1962-1968 and Director-General from 1968-1996. He married Rosalie Hooker in 1950 and had one son and one daughter. He died in July 1996.

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John Kersey
John Kersey
7 years ago

Agreed – I had the pleasure to meet James a couple of times and always found him great company. As mentioned James coming from an advertising background knew the value of good positive communication and in contrast to today set the agenda such that people were crusading for more health and safety rather than crusading against.

Tony Hill
Tony Hill
7 years ago

Greetings; Well done Tim for raising and praising the work of James Tye. I met him several times during the early 80s during training and at presentations and awards. I admired and was inspired by his “get stuck into the stuffed shirts and ivory towers” approach and indeed I have, in my own modest way, emulated his ebullient style which brought some success but also many knock-backs by those who would prefer to cosy up with “safety establishment” and self interested organisations rather than get to the root cause and make things better without creating overbearing paperwork. The UK Safety… Read more »

Lawrence Bamber
Lawrence Bamber
7 years ago

I crossed swords with James on several occasions in public, especially when I was IOSH President!
But in private, he always spoke sense, and in the words of Bill Simpson 1st HSC Chairman, James was like the cross eyed javelin thrower!?
Never won any prizes, but kept the crowd on their toes!
We should make him an Hon Fellow of IOSH.
He would have loved that, because he could never be anything other than an Affiliate member at that time. He was however a member of London branch, which he would proudly announce at IOSH AGM s and Conferences

Tim
Tim
7 years ago

Yes Lawrence – I must again accept that it’s easy for me to cheer the sheer devil of the man when not having to deal with the day to day politics!

Ray Rapp
Ray Rapp
7 years ago

Never met the man but he sounds like a very intersting character. Echoing Tony’s comments, we do need a ‘Champion’ if that is the right term, to promote sensible safety and to take on the establsihment where they seek to ‘reduce the burden’ of health and safety or dumb it down for the masses.

Unfortunately it seems that IOSH are toothless when it comes to a voice in our industry. Just looked at the Home page of IOSH website where three articles feature, two about IOSH abroad and one promoting a book about h&s topics – says it all really.

Chris Packham
Chris Packham
7 years ago

It was James who ‘persuaded’ (as only James could) to join the IIRSM, even though I possessed none of the formal qualifications required. When I pointed out the latter James’ comment was simply: “What you are doing is what we need, so fill this form in and give it back to me.” I think that this was in the early to mid 1980s. We need someone like James again now to take on the task of raising the profile of occupational health and getting some action in the same way that he pushed the agenda on accident prevention.
Chris

Tim Marsh
Tim Marsh
7 years ago
Reply to  Chris Packham

You might be interested in the story behind me being the IIRSMs first ever ‘Specialist’ Fellow Chris. Offered a Fellowship informally as a thank you for writing the book ASM, the committee took one look at an honest answer to a question about safety responsibilities ‘none, I am a psychologist’ and turned me down flat. The chap who led that decision shall remain nameless but continues to take delight in reminding about it! I like to think that if James could see us chuckling about it at conferences (i took no offense) he’d be amused.

Gerwyn Thomas
Gerwyn Thomas
6 years ago

Interesting to read this article about someone so positive about reducing/eliminating risk. Maybe it’s a sign of the times as to when he was most prominent, otherwise why would he be prepared to allow a photograph to be taken of himself with a cigarette in hand? It wouldn’t happen today… I hope.

Francois Garcia
Francois Garcia
3 years ago

Just read this article. I worked for the British Safety Council as a safety rep for approx 8 years starting 79. Met James many times and he was such a charismatic albeit colourful figure who was passionate about safety. Really enjoyed my work there and used to come to London probably twice or three times a year on safety courses or our annual safety dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel. He was ahead of his time, as he was always banging on about wellbeing and how if a company looked after their employees they were less likely to have accidents and… Read more »