“A TIME for living, a time for believing, a time for trusting, no deceiving”. Thus crooned Sir Cliff Richard, whose breaking Christmas No 1 single, Mistletoe & Wine, was a popular request at Morgan Grenfell’s annual bash in December 1988.

However, the do was to prove memorable not for the bank’s hospitality, but for the sobering bombshell that Sir John Craven, the then chief executive, dropped on green-gilled staff the following day.

The Last Waltz, it turned out, might have been a better choice for revellers. In a shock announcement, Sir John, who weeks earlier had again avowed his commitment to market-making, unveiled the closure of the bank’s gilt-edged and equity trading operations.

It was a stomach-churning move for 450 staff who lost their jobs in the restructuring. Many learned of their fate as they read their morning newspaper on the train to work; others were rung by rival dealers.

Realising the immensity of the PR gaffe unfolding before them, the banks’s officials tried to impose a vow of silence on staff running the gauntlet of television cameras outside its Finsbury Circus head office.

Workers in the IT department, whose continuing co-operation was required to shut down dealing systems, suffered a more ignominious fate, being shadowed by security personnel lest they exact their revenge by installing a virus on the bank’s network.

The shake-out, quickly mirrored by other banks, proved to be the beginning of the end for Morgan Grenfell and a year later Sir John sold out to Deutsche Bank in a £800 million deal.

2nd IN THE DOG HOUSE

A fracas between a talking dalmatian and a Burberry-clad banker might not be out of place in the pages of a CS Lewis blockbuster. Sadly for Goldman Sachs, the pompous City bank, the incident was not an idle flight of fantasy, but an all too real skirmish at last year’s lavish Christmas party. The chequered chav, a specialist analyst, tried to knock spots off a colleague dressed as one of the lovable pups from the Walt Disney film 101 Dalmatians after a row in the gents over a missed promotion. The scuffle spilt out into the main hall, where it was witnessed by no fewer than four of the bank’s most senior managers. There was a subsequent parting of company between the errant employee and Goldman, whose opulent Christmas do’s are the stuff of City legend (in 2003 the bank hired a private room at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where 400 star performers dressed in carnival costumes and staff were offered free salsa dance lessons and unlimited liquid refreshment from a vodka luge). This year the bank has ordered that all fancy dress be pre-approved by a costumes committee.

3rd A TITANIC RESTAURANT BILL

Just a week after Credit Suisse First Boston tucked pink job-loss slips into the Christmas cards of up to 300 bankers last December, a second missive from the bank went out, inviting remaining staff to a festive bash at the aptly named Titanic restaurant. There was a sting in the tail — those at managing director level or above were asked to cough up £820 to help to fund the fun, prompting some scrooges to, ahem, jump ship.

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