1,800 NFC shareholders
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HAD I (perish the thought) strayed into the melee at Cardiff's Arms Park for the England v Wales match? No, I was one of some 1,800 civilised people making my way towards the Metropole Hotel at the National Exhibition Centre at Birmingham for the first annual general meeting of the National Freight Consortium, hailed as Britain's biggest family business.
The corps of international television, radio and newspaper reporters present was nearly as large as the turnout of shareholders at some annual general meetings.
It was possibly the biggest event of its kind ever held and transport, accommodation, communication and feeding presented logistic problems of almost Falklands proportions. Need I say, they were solved with unerring precision.
NFC stewards helped police to control traffic approaching from all directions, and 40 minutes before the meeting was due to start three of the four hotel car parks were full. A non-stop coach shuttle operated all day between the railway station and the hotel.
The main hall was crammed with 1,450 people, with another 300 or so in the hotel cinema, where they followed the proceedings on video film. By way of an overture, the video film made at the inaugural ceremony a year ago was shown.
The curtain rose with Peter Thompson, chairman and chief executive, confessing that his only previous experience of conducting an annual general meeting was as president of a tennis club. "And my wife will tell you what a right mess I made of that," he added. He could have fooled me.