The loss of Harrison & Sons to De La Rue in 1979 was something that in all honesty, my grandfather Ernest never quite overcame emotionally, being as he
was among the generation that was in charge of the company at the time that it  changed hands to De La Rue. In retrospect of course the firm should have
leveraged its assets via taking on debt and reinvested in its core operations which would have yielded a tremendous financial windfall by 1990, and the fact
that instead they sold to their biggest rival and lost all the prestige that went with owning such a beacon of the British establishment commercially speaking wore hard. 
I think this feeling was more widely reflected among those of his brothers too though undoubtedly most acutely by him. 
He would in quieter moments speak of the days of working at Harrison & Sons, and the pride in his eyes was always noticeable, as was the regret of the course that events transpired. 
Those days that you worked there were my grandmother’s fondest of all, for sure. 

Thus, despite pursuing a career in print art sales and various other things, in 1997 when he was only 72 years old he suffered a second stroke which he did not survive. 
His wife, my grandmother Christine, is however one of the most remarkably healthy and active 85 year-old you are likely to meet, and is still going very strong!

 Despite the financial difficulties the family suffered in the aftermath of losing the family firm, my father Mark went on to become a very successful investment banker, and thus my own 
upbringing has been one of rather more privilege than my father’s, who literally could not afford to rent his university gown on graduation in Leeds and thus did not attend the ceremony
before going to work at Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai, where I was born, and then Japan, where my brother Ben was born.

 The emotional impression of a family wealth in decline did however affect my father in the most enduring of ways, and this in turn definitely had an impact on my brother and I. 
Specifically, watching his parents move from a position of wealth to one of barely having enough to manage, and constantly having to move into smaller houses until his death in 1997 
(his last move was 1995 I believe) and the toll it took on his pride was something that instilled a great fear of financial loss in my father. Thus, while my brother and I have attended private
schools and been accustomed to some privilege, Dad brought us up to always value what we receive and to work extremely hard for it, and was careful never to spoil us even if such was 
par for the course among our social peers. Like all of the Harrisons, my parents was a very happy and supportive marriage until my mother died this summer of breast cancer, which has 
obviously thus far been the greatest challenge for Dad. However, we are a close and very loving family and I have no doubt that we will see him through this very tough period.

 I myself went to Oxford University - the first Harrison yet I believe to do so- and then to business school in Norway to study an MBA, and subsequently to New York 
where I studied a Master’s in Business & Economic Reporting at NYU. I went into financial journalism, where I have worked as a writer for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, 
Forbes and others. In this sense perhaps I have in some sense kept that connection to the original business of the printers, as many of the challenges and in particular the commercial
opportunities related to this line of work have to do obviously with getting away from the printed press and moving towards the online spectre, something I embraced very early on. 
I have lived in South East Asia for the past few years and I am getting married next month to a Thai-Indian girl. I enclose a photograph of myself and my fiancee
for your general amusement. 
My bother is a music producer and lives in New York, where he writes songs for many top artists today in  the pop music industry. You can see more about me on my website:
www.danielmarkharrison.com

 I felt that reading your account of Harrison & Sons that you had done a considerable kindness to the family in that you had left a piece of its living history in archive from the point of view
of someone who counts - namely, an employee, and in this respect I feel in some way bound to thank you for your work for the firm during its better and not-so-bright days, as the period in
which you worked there counted towards many of my grandfather’s happiest memories. For that indeed, you ought to feel very good.

 Perhaps in the accompanying picture you will notice a little of our family
genetics shining through in the features, although I also take after my mother
a lot too. 

Sincerely Yours,
Daniel Harrison