On the 7th April 1986, Amstrad bought Sinclair.

But this post is to not debate the merits of the deal. Rather, to highlight the frailty of first hand sources.

In the book "What You See Is What You Get", Alan Sugar (or, more probably, his ghost writer), comments about this deal and how he needed to have someone take a cab from London to the river Ouse near Ely, with a bankers draft, to get the Sinclair IP rights signed over to Amstrad, as part of the takeover deal. On a bank holiday.

You can tell from the writing (see: Exhibit A) that he's clearly frustrated with the process, by calling the person who wrote the ZX Spectrum ROM a "bloody hippy" and that this hippy wouldn't travel from Cambridge to London on a bank holiday to sign over the rights.

(This is a few paragraphs after Sir Sugar points out that he flew to Florida to be with his family for a holiday, and how important that is.)

Except it didn't quite happen that way.

Only one of the facts above is correct - the date!

Last night I was doing research on this topic and double checked the facts... by going to the pub with this "bloody hippy" and asking him!

 

Exhibit A: https://www.amshold.com/social_media/the_sinclair_story.htm