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Ricard retreated to the wilds of the Camargue region, where he experimented successfully with rice farming. All aniseed-based spirits had been banned in 1915, because they were suspected of undermining the French war effort. None-theless, the young Ricard began to experiment in a laboratory with a more refined version, using, among other things, fennel seeds and Provencal herbs (the exact recipe is a secret, which has never been written down).After test-marketing his product illegally in the bars of Marseilles, Ricard was well-placed when the prohibition on milder forms of aniseed spirits was lifted in 1932. He sold his invention nationwide as the “authentic pastis of Marseilles”, quickly overtaking the older-established companies like Pernod.During the Second World War pastis was again banned by the Vichy regime as “contrary to the values” of the new high-Catholic, high-bourgeois collaborationist France.

His father insisted that he must join the family wine business, which he did at the age of 17. In his autobiography, La Passion de Creer (1983), he told how he was first introduced to home-made pastis, otherwise known as “the thing” or “tiger’s milk”, by an old shepherd. Pernod-Ricard is now the third largest spirits company in the world.The young Paul Ricard, born in 1909 in a Provencal hill village later swallowed up by the suburbs of Marseilles, dreamed of being a painter. In a fit of temper with state controls, he resigned from day-to-day activities in his company in 1968. Under his younger son, Patrick, the firm continued to prosper, merging with Pernod in 1975. In the late 1920s, Paul Ricard concocted an aniseed-based drink in a laboratory and went on to market it, brilliantly, as an old Provencal tradition.

In doing so, he developed another idea, sports sponsorship, and his name became the most ubiquitous in France. Yellow and blue Ricard advertising signs, cycling caps, ashtrays and water jugs became as much a part of the landscape of post-war France as the Citroen Deux Chevaux or the motorised bicycle. One of Ricard’s proudest achievements was to have two Ricard jugs smuggled into the grotto at Lourdes.
Ricard was a classically French figure, famously bad-tempered but also famously generous. In other ways, he was at odds with French tradition: a great entrepreneur and a great salesman, who detested the power of the French state and bureaucracy, which he called the “mediocrate”. “The big companies recognise that it is in their interests to make a contribution to more stable communities.”.

Paul Louis Marius Ricard: born Sainte-Marthe-Marseilles, France 9 July 1909: married 1937 Marie-Therese Thiers (two sons, three daughters); died Signes, France 7 November 1997. Forthcoming legislation also requires local authorities to meet crime reduction targets or face penalties. The Government’s “New Deal” for young unemployed people aims as a by-product to reduce crime.Businesses which get involved will be one of many partners trying to tackle disaffected and criminal youth. “Crime is a corporate concern, not something that can be left to the criminal justice system alone,” says John Hicks, chair of the Association of Chief Officers of Probation.

“But the probation service send very able supervisors and I don’t think the problems they anticipated materialised. It is a very positive partnership that we value greatly.”Reducing crime is a priority for Jack Straw, Home Secretary, who has already made clear that the Government will press home parental responsibility in this area. There were initial concerns from some in the company, Pat Dexter admits.”Our security people weren’t wildly enthusiastic about having the workshop on site, but senior management made a positive decision,” she says. The products would otherwise have been bulldozed into landfill, at considerable cost to the company. “We save money on landfill costs and we become environmentally friendly as a result – something valued by both customers and staff,” says Alastair Eperon, director of group corporate affairs.In the five years Boots has been working with the probation service, m ore than 2,500 people on community service orders have worked alongside paid company staff on the recycling scheme. “They love the idea that what they’re doing is going to go directly to needy families.