Electronic Pointer
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I F ever an organization reflected the character of the man
at the top it is the Pointer group, of Norwich, whose latest achievement has been the building of a 305,000-cu.-ft. storage depot at South Lynn in what must be record time. Mr. Peter Pointer is a remarkable man, as Alan Smith discovered wheh he interviewed him to gather material for the articles which appeared in The Commercial Motor dated May 8 and May 15.
There seemed to be no detail in the whole of his complex business which Mr. Pointer did ndt have at his fingertips, and his capacity for giving quick decisions was electronic. Although he directs his companies so energetically, he retains the affectionate respect of everybody in it. Mr. Pointer is the kind of guv'nor who goes everywhere in an enormous Rolls-Royce, chauffeured by an ex-Guardsman, but thinks nothing of getting his hands dirty in the workshops.
At a time when one or two dubious financial operators are getting private enterprise a bad name, the work of men of the calibre of Peter Pointer, which is very much to its credit, should be remembered.
Perfection
IMPROVEMENTS in rail, dock and I waterway services have earned the British Transport Commission the "Come to Britain" trophy awarded annually by the British Travel and Holidays Association for the most outstanding tourist enterprise of the year. Does this mean
A26 that the long-distance tours run by bus companies owned by the Commission are beyond improvement, or that the Commission have not yet discovered the existence of a valuable asset?
Anyone's Child
AS chairman of the National Research and Development Corporation, one of whose recent and notable achievements was the Hovercraft, Sir William Black might perhaps answer a question that irks everyone. What is the Hovercraft? It isn't an aeroplane, that's quite certain. It isn't a helicopter or a rotodyne. It looks like the original "flying bedstead," but it isn't that either. A wheelless truck, then? A sort of carrrier's magic carpet for transporting loads over deserts and along rivers?
We once heard of the horseless carriage, so (unless Sir William repudiates the name as irreverent), what about wheelless truck?
Slap Happy
IF a consignee in Southampton last week I received from London a load of pulped produce labelled "Perishable Goods," I hope he will not take the usual line of least resistance and blame the unhappy carrier. I watched the fruit being loaded into a British Road Services van by an employee of the wholesaler.
The goods were contained in cardboard
• ns the size of tailors' boxes and were loaded by the simple css of throwing them three at a time a distance of about into the back of the van. I recalled a recent Government rt on the enormous loss of fruit and vegetables through ess handling.
)SS and Double-cross
AVE it on the authority of Sir Harold Smith, chairman the Gas Council, that because of the exorbitant cost of apart from a shortage of suitable grades, the gas industry leen compelled to develop ways of making gas without In 10 years' time there will be a national gas grid, which be fed with gas from carbonization plants and various highly technical sources beyond my comprehension. Gas be made at port and pithead, and not a single railway will be needed.
e nationalized coal industry has let down the nationalized ndustry, which, in its turn, is being forced to trump the nalizcd railways' ace. Perhaps that is why the Socialists during the Election campaign, been so quiet about nalization.
nsport of Delight
TENING to Yehudi Menuhin at the Royal Festival Hall. noticed Sir Gilmour Jenkins nearby. Now free from ares of the Ministry of Transport, he has accepted new nsibilities as chairman of the recently formed London armonic Society. But these fresh pastures already seem acquiring a familiar look. Reporting on the Society's .fforts, he claims that they cannot afford to sell too many at reduced series prices.
son-ticket economics seemed particularly incongruous in hereal setting of the Mendelssohn violin concerto which follow.