JCB boss Lord Bamford might be seen as something of a renegade in many respects. The chairman of the digger manufacturer was one of very few business leaders to back Brexit, putting his money where his mouth was with financial support for the Leave campaign and taking his family firm out of the CBI, whose anti-Brexit stance he opposed.

Then there’s Anthony Bamford’s resolution that a land-speed record should be held by JCB. In 2006, he achieved that, when a car powered by two JCB diesel engines hit 350.092mph at Bonneville Flats in Utah, a record yet to be beaten.

“I wanted to make sure that our engine wasn’t seen as being just a digger engine,” Lord Bamford said . “I wanted to prove it was state-of-the art.” While setting his sights on the speed record, Lord Bamford also took a long, hard look at the future of JCB (despite healthy sales of £2.3bn a year).

It employs 12,000 people globally, with more than half at its headquarters in Rocester, Staffordshire. Bamford recognised the vital, but long ignored, role of manufacturing in Britain’s economy and saw the downgrading of Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills as Britain moved more to service industries.