Michael David Scott (Mike) Evans, 13 June 1945 – 21 October 2023
Mike Evans was an almost legendary figure in the UK agricultural communications world, founding Agrafax and Mistral, where too many public relations careers to mention were founded and blossomed.
Michael David Scott Evans was born in a Loughborough nursing home on 13 June 1945. His mother, Joan Matlock, grew up relatively locally in Shepshed while his father Ron, originally from Co. Antrim, had moved to Great Crosby in Liverpool as a child. Mike had one sibling, his sister Jane born in 1951. According to Jane, Mike looked after her throughout his life “…in many different ways”.
Mike’s grandfather Albert Matlock owned a feedmill in Shepshed. Joan ran his office and knew the business inside out. Soon after she married Ron during the Second World War, he was posted to India as a captain in the British Army. Michael – or Mike as he became – was born while Ron was still in India, so he was 18 months old by the time he first met his father.
Upon leaving the army, Ron joined the Matlock family business then took over AV Matlock feedmills when Albert retired to Devon. Mike and Jane were away at school for much of their childhoods, with Mike attending Oakham School in Rutland, and Jane, Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire.
Ron eventually sold AV Matlock and became managing director then chairman of animal feed and supplement specialist, Rumenco. When he finished school Mike joined the business, where he proved adept at the finer arts of public relations. Jane remembers Mike as good fun during those years, having quite a few girlfriends, playing hockey, and turning his sports car upside down in a ditch!
Mike married his first wife Maggie when they were both 22, and the couple lived in Newborough near Burton-on-Trent. Mike continued working for Rumenco until 1976, but then left the business when he and Maggie and their two young children, Jonty and Hannah, relocated to the North Wales countryside. They bought a cottage on a smallholding next to a rushing stream; Maggie still lives there now with her partner Arthur.
Although it was beautiful and idyllic, Mike – always one for people and bustle – felt too isolated and got back into the ‘fast lane’ of public relations, initially as Mike Evans PR. When he and Maggie split up, he rented a flat in Shrewsbury to be closer to key clients like Fullwood and Dalgety. Starting Agrafax in 1984, he developed the business rapidly from the mid-80s onwards with fellow directors Jeremy Hawkey, Mike Midgley, George Chancellor and accountant Nick Graham.
Many prominent practitioners in agricultural communications, most of whom remain Guild members to this day, became part of the business as it grew – such as Jonathan Wheeler, Mike Saull, Phil Hainey, Matt Mellor, Pippa Sellwood, Phil Christopher, Steve Wellbeloved, Louise Impey, Martin Rickatson, Phil Eades, Mike Gooding, Angus McKirdy, Geoff Ashcroft, Jane Brodie, Dave Butler, Hugh Symington, John Swire, Julie Mate, Heather Briggs and Amy Jackson.
Many would recall Agrafax as an exciting and rewarding place to work, with a healthy, ‘work-hard’ culture based on Mike’s personal drive to succeed, alongside technical farming industry knowledge and resource second to none in a firmly business-to-business agency. One of Mike’s favourite sayings when weighing up a prospective employee’s credentials was: “But do they know their heifers from their gilts…?”
In the early 90s, Mike created a new design ‘arm’ called Benbow and a non-agricultural PR brand called Abacus, and brought these and Agrafax under the single umbrella of The Mistral Group in 1993, drawing in a wider range of clients and opening a second office close to Oxford. He chose ‘Mistral’ because it signified a strong wind that brought change.
His sister Jane – at the time based in Dorset – joined the business to help Mike set up the Oxford office, while George managed the core Agrafax business from Shrewsbury. Mike rented a cottage in Witney, where Jane also stayed during the week, driving back to Bridport every weekend to be with her husband and children. Mike eventually settled in Standlake, with Jane and her family then relocating there as well.
Jane remembers Mike as particularly dynamic and enthusiastic during that period. “I did all the administration and worked as his PA,” she said. “He was quite a hard taskmaster, putting in a lot of hours himself and working most weekends.”
At its peak, Mistral had over 40 practitioners and support staff, and was the clear market leader in UK agricultural communications. It was also one of the very first PR agencies in the country to gain ISO9000 quality accreditation.
Always restless to do more, Mike was especially keen to develop the business into equine and rural aspirational goods (he always cited Barbour and Aga as brands with which he wanted to work). His pursuit of this from the Oxford base led to various appointments, mergers and takeovers, including the Bridget Jenning Partnership in 1997, a consultancy which counted the Verve Clicquot Gold Cup among its clients.
Over the years, various members of the Agrafax and Mistral teams moved on to pursue their own dreams – working directly with supply businesses, or as new agencies or freelancers. When George departed to do his own thing in 1999, the Shrewsbury office was closed and Mike continued to run a smaller agricultural client base from Oxford with the support of Tom Allen-Sevens, among others. Having sold the business, he retained a couple of key clients – mainly because he simply couldn’t resist it.
Throughout his life, Mike was very focused on hard work and growth – sometimes fanatically so. Memories from those who worked with him are vivid: “an extremely likeable and dynamic man”, “a restless entrepreneur”, “a force of nature – intensely human”, and “driven, but fallible”. Jill Jones, who worked alongside Mike for 17 years in the early days of Agrafax, remembers him “…living life at 90 miles an hour – with the obligatory cigar!” But he was also someone who always cared for his staff, celebrating wins, throwing work parties, and impulsively taking the whole team out for lunch; The Boot at Barnard Gate in Oxfordshire was one of his favourite haunts.
Mike was scrupulous over the finer points of client management, always wanting his team to look and act the part as well as delivering results that mattered. He was known to personally reimburse a team member who had invested in a new suit for an important pitch, and whenever a new account was won – which was often – he was invariably fulsome in his praise.
Working with Mike was life-changing for most. Some who relocated to Shropshire or Oxfordshire to work with Mistral went on to make those counties their long term homes. Almost all will carry some remnants of the determination, professionalism and love of farming and the countryside that Mike valued so much, and captured in a manual he called ‘The Mistral Way’. Some have a copy, even now.
Mike was 78 when he died last October of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Despite his ill-health he remained a PR man and entrepreneur, always looking for the next challenge. Over the last few years, this was channelled into promotional work for the local Conservatives and saving a much-loved Cedar of Lebanon near where he lived in Cheltenham with his partner later in life, Bettina. Mike was charming and charismatic, and most who knew him will remember him with intense fondness.
The inaugural Mike Evans Award for PR Communications, formerly the Guild’s PR Writer of the Year Award, has been created in memory of Mike Evans.
The PR award, now in its fourth year and again kindly sponsored by Oxtale PR‘s Amy Jackson, who was a work colleague and friend of Mike, celebrates agricultural communicators who demonstrate a clear and strategic aim for their clients.
Amy Jackson has set up a fundraiser to support the purchase of a set of trophies for the new Mike Evans Award, to be awarded annually at the British Guild of Agricultural Journalists’ Harvest Lunch in October.
You can donate here: The Mike Evans Award for PR Communications Trophies.
