"My father had the best turn of phrase I've ever heard. One of the things I do now and again is get out a folder of business letters he wrote when he was chief executive of the Canadian Pacific Steamship. I have tears rolling down my face," he says.  Having delivered his sermon at Gow's, Buik senior packed his son off to Philip Hill Higginson Erlangers, a merchant bank that later became Hill Samuel.  It was a time when self-expression was distinctly frowned upon. "You had to turn up in a striped shirt with a stiff collar and a plain blue tie. The office was policed by a very fierce manager called Williams, a Scotsman who'd lost his leg in the war. I was quite a cocky lad and in the second week I wore a pale blue shirt, rather than the striped one. He came up to me and said: 'We don't wear pyjamas here sonny. Go home'."  Life was heavily regimented in what were embryonic days for the City. "We started at 9.15am, had an hour for lunch with a three bob luncheon voucher. We used to go to the Stirling Castle – steak and kidney pie, steamed jam roll and custard, half a pint of beer and sixpence for the tip."  Half a century on, the lunch bills aren't the only things to have changed.  "What I miss in the City today is good manners," says Buik, his mouth cast down in characteristic frown, despite his upbeat tone. "Today, you're lucky to get a grunt out of anyone." Which brings us to the Buik conundrum. To the casual onlooker, any City type being clapped out of the Square Mile by 250 well-wishers would normally be expected to have a huge City dowry to take with him. Not so Buik.  "Manners have disappeared, but the other side of that is if you've got good manners, warmth and kindness, you'll never make it. You've got to eat nails for breakfast and spit rust out to really make it," he says.  "I was extremely good at building a business, but in managing it I left a lot to be desired."  Which is not to say that Buik doesn't upset people. Part of his wide appeal is in his disregard for modern political correctness. He cites his success on the BBC as down to not having an axe to grind. Others might suggest it's because he calls a spade a spade.  Fiercely Tory, unashamedly royalist, a City apologist and a man who recently wrote that he loves "curvaceous and buxom wenches of the highest quality", he's the polar opposite of the left-leaning BBC.  But he also represents the human side of the City in an environment often seen by outsiders as grey and faceless.  It's a role he clearly takes pride in. "There's been no balanced appraisal of what the City is. People don't want to listen.  "I'm not part of the [Sir] Fred Goodwin thing and neither are 99.9pc of us. We are good guys, we just can't get it across."  So what now? At BGC, Buik's routine has seen him up at 4.15am each morning to send off the first of his emailed reports on the stock markets. Sometimes rightly accused of eschewing accuracy for speed, his output is prolific.  He's made plans to make sure the tap doesn't get turned off too quickly. There'll be three days a month of consultancy at BGC, a spot of PR, a blog and weekly business email and thus far unfunded plans to launch a media venture "crossed between McKinsey and Bloomberg".  Then there's the gee-gees. Buik is planning frequent visits to Plumpton, Fontwell Park and Towcester racecourses, a long-standing obsession since he gave up cricket and football in his early forties.  What he won't be doing is gambling away his pension. That lesson was learned a long time ago.  "When I left school I worked in a Canadian hotel and over six months I amassed 3,000 Canadian dollars in tips which I used to keep in a big thick rubber band," he recalls.  "The last day I was there I got involved in a game of five-card stud with a Hungarian refugee, a Chinese barber and an Austrian waiter.  "The pot was so big that I couldn't see the guy over the other side of the table.  "I got dealt two aces and lost every penny. About £30,000-worth today."  There's a silver lining to every cloud. With stories like that, Buik should be dining out for some time to come.  Age 67 Lives Fulham, London Family Married with three children, one from an earlier marriage Interests Theatre, horse racing, non-fiction and politics Career Philip Hill Higginson Erlangers, RP Martin & Co, Kirkland Whitaker, London Deposit Agencies, Money Market Agencies, MY Marshall, Eurobrokers, City Index, Cantor Index, BGC Partners
BGC Partners' David Buik, TV's surprise hit of the recession, on what's   changed in his 49-year City career.