BIRD'S EYE VIEW BY THE HAWK
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• Anyone who has ever met the colourful head of the Transport and General Workers' Union's road transport division Jack Ashwell cannot have missed his prominent Hull accent. Obviously the translators at the International Transport Workers' Federation conference at Florence last week were having a few problems with his regional twangs. So when he announced that this would be his last conference because of his impending retirement all the translators immediately cheered loudly down hundreds of delegates' headphones.
Talking of translators, there was a little confusion at the conference when a Turkish delegate got up to address the meeting. "Don't worry if the translation is a little out of synch," said one [IF official, "nobody here speaks Turkish."
• We'd be the last to suggest that the scribes who compile the Transport and General Workers' Union's journal, the T&G Record, are sychophantic to their general secretary. But when this month's newspaper landed on the Hawk's desk, he couldn't help but notice there were five pictures of a beaming Ron Todd gracing the centrespread alone, and two other shots elsewhere in the newspaper.
To be fair though, the pictures did show the great man meeting grassroots members and shop stewards. • The Hawk has often pondered how up-to-date publicity shots of spanking new H-reg trucks, delivered to and liveried in the colours of customers, hit his colleagues' desks within days of the new registrations taking effect? A truck manufacturer's marketing man has confessed all. It seems one snap we received of an H-reg was taken more than a month ago, with, whisper it, a fake H-plate on it. I won't mention the maker, but, suffice to say, it's a common trick. "It means we get a year's use out of the pie," he says. • Did you hear the one about the Glasgow tram conductress whose firm command to the drunk passenger was: "Come on, get off"? Strathclyde Buses boss John Churchill has asked
the travelling public to contribute jokes and anecdotes about their experiences on public transport for a book he is writing. The best one wigs a trip to Florida.
• Nowadays, millionaire founder of Intedink Richard Gabriel prefers playing with his helicopter and riding in his 100,000 chauffeur-driven Bentley to manning delivery vans by night and fending off bank managers by day.
Gabriel, 36, has been telling the Hawk a tale or two of these heady days less than 10 years ago when he was des perately trying to establish a franchise parcels network with a huge loan and a handful of novice van operators.
At early franchisee dinners. held by Gabriel to say thanks for all the hard work, he says you could always tell where the function was to be held, because outside would be a stack of liveried Interlink vans. Many franchisees had remortgaged
houses and sold their own cars to finance their operation, the company Mere 308 or Ford Transit doubled as the managing director's wheels.
Now, such has been the success of the firm for both Gabriel and his franchisees, that for social events the Mercedes 308s have been replaced with Mercedes 300E saloons, BMWs and Jaguars.