Oral history interview with Dr. Paul King, conducted and recorded by Frank Paterson at the interviewee's home in London on 29 August 2019. Duration: 2 hr. 2 min. 26 sec. Early career; Tube Investments; British Shoe Corporation; headhunted by British Rail 1991; Gordon Pettitt (Managing Director Regional Railways); investment submissions; Class 323; Strategy Review analysis; quantifying social benefits; privatisation; Railtrack; contractual relationships; ticket sales allocations; Managing Director Regional Railways; shadow train operating companies (TOCs); John Welsby track access agreements; station access agreements; Chairman North & West; management buyouts (MBOs); Mark Causebrook; Paul Watkinson; performance regimes; information memorandum; passenger transport executives (PTEs); Theo Steel; Gareth Hadley; Chris Green; John Ellis; MBOs; franchising process; Ivor Warburton; Scotrail; National Express; reflections on privatisation

One of over 150 oral history recordings made as part of the Britain’s Railways All Change (BRAC) archive project. BRAC was set-up to cover gaps in documenting the railway privatisation process in the United Kingdom, between 1994 and 1997, when the government-owned British Rail was dismantled into over 100 privately-owned companies. The interviews capture the recollections of people involved in the planning and implementation of the privatisation process, the management of change and running the railway during privatisation.