Joseph Bamford could shoot, fish, swim, and sail. Bamford paid more than fair wages, which rose regularly, and annual bonuses based on reports of individual worth. In 1967 Bamford stood on a farm cart and handed out personal cheques totalling £250,000. This extraordinary focus in return gave unprecedented levels of workforce flexibility, with the average JCB employee through the strike-dominated 1970s and early 1980s being seven times more productive than the average British manufacturing worker. In 1975 Bamford and his wife Marjorie (née Griffin – married 1941) handed over the business to their two sons, and retired to Switzerland as tax exiles.
Cyril Ritchard on 25 November 1977, aged 78, while appearing as the narrator in the Chicago touring company of "Side by Side by Sondheim". He died nearly a month later in Chicago, aged 79, and was buried at Saint Mary's Cemetery in Ridgefield, Connecticut, where he had long resided in his rural home. His funeral mass was celebrated by Archbishop Fulton Sheen. His wife predeceased him in 1955 as did a baby boy who died in infancy in 1939. Cyril Ritchard Cyril Joseph Trimnell-Ritchard (1 December 1898 – 18 December 1977), known professionally as Cyril Ritchard, was an Australian stage, screen and