I received a call from Itakura of Orion. We had not done any business with them for a long time, but they had noticed the phenomenal growth of Amstrad in the UK audio market. Itakura, obviously prompted by Otake, called to say that they were very interested in supplying us with audio chassis and, if we agreed to this, they might supply us with the colour TV they were now making. He also mentioned that they planned to start VCR production and that when they did, we might be able to buy these also. I didn’t need to kiss Otake’s arse any longer, so I was quite dismissive. I fired some prices at him which were ridiculously lower than those we were paying Hawson, thinking that he’d simply go away.

To my surprise, a couple of days later, he told me that they would be eager to produce at those prices. I sent Bob Watkins to Korea to check it out. Bob called me from Korea and told me that their factory was virtually idle. Orion’s audio business with Michael Raymond had gone down the pan – my tower systems had taken over and wiped out the music-centre market completely. It was clear that Otake was desperate for work to fill his Korean factory and, typical of him, he used the carrot of selling colour TVs and the promise of supplying VCRs to tempt me to transfer production of my tower system chassis to him. It was nice to have Otake in a position I was comfortable with for once and I took the decision to switch production of the tower system chassis to Orion in Korea on the proviso that he would sell us fourteen-inch colour TVs immediately and VCRs when they started production.

From an engineering point of view, Orion was a far more professionally run organisation than Hawson or Morse. The speed of reaction into production was brilliant and the quality of the tower system chassis was a cut above what we’d been used to. Our after-sales service department had been suffering due to the poor quality of some batches of Hawson chassis, as had our reputation as a result. This reputation for poor quality had to be nipped in the bud quickly, as it was the only argument our competitors could raise against us, so we took the opportunity of sorting this out while we were changing manufacturers.

You have to take your hat off to Otake – he had a nose for the market. He wanted to move away from the audio business and had spotted that the VCR market – monopolised by JVC with their VHS system – was starting to boom. By the early eighties, JVC had won the video war against Philips, who originally introduced the Video Home Recording system, and Sony, who were next to market with their Betamax system.

Otake duly started a VCR production line, but for some strange reason he was desperate to get his first orders, so desperate that he made an unexpected visit to England, during which he was uncharacteristically pleasant and schmoozy. This wily old fox was up to something and I couldn’t quite work out what. Here he was with his new charming persona, begging me to buy VCRs. He didn’t need to beg Amstrad to enter the VCR business – it would be a great boost for us – so while I was confused over his strange change of nature, I didn’t care about the reasons; I was delighted to get into the VCR business.

Our VCR had a retail price of £399, the highest-priced Amstrad product ever, but one had to consider that JVC’s and Ferguson’s VCRs were at least £200 more. Knowing that the market was desperate for VCRs, I made an appointment with the buyer at Currys, Ian Radley, the same guy who had bought CB radios from us a couple of years earlier. He placed an order for 10,000 units, exactly the amount I’d bought from Orion.

Stanley Kalms, the chairman of Dixons, had always had a pretty negative mentality towards Amstrad. He didn’t want to buy from me if he thought I was buying from someone else – he wanted to buy direct. Dixons’ buyer, Terry Fitt, used to buy a few tower systems from us simply to maintain the credibility of their stores, as they couldn’t be seen to be without the best-selling kit. I would go so far as to say that all my business with Dixons in years to come would be on that basis – I would generate the demand through my ground-breaking products and advertising. There were never any favours coming from Dixons. They bought what they had to buy because the market demanded it.

In this case, Stanley knew who my supplier of VCRs was and went directly to Orion. Otake struck up a relationship with Dixons and cut me out. I complained bitterly to Otake that this was not ethical. Dixons knew that I’d pulled off a coup in getting low-cost VCRs, so they went to Otake who did a deal behind my back. However, we were buying audio chassis from Orion in large volume and I would be cutting off my nose to spite my face by moving that business elsewhere, so I reluctantly swallowed this dirty double-dealing. I would constantly jibe at Otake, telling him how disappointed I was that he’d gone against what I understood to be the honourable Japanese ethos. This would wind him up no end, which was my only consolation.