Down the hatch
Page 35
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
I read with interest Mr Freers letter (CM April 18) regarding your report (March 28) on the Brewery Transport Advisory Committee.
What Mr Freer says is very much to the point and reflects the atmosphere and attitudes of the brewery companies in earlier days. I was one of the transport managers to which Mr Freer refers, in fact, on behalf of the brewery company for which I was then transport manager and engineer I had the opportunity of doing work with Mr Freer and the company he then represented. Great days of development. He will remember with interest, I am sure, the successful "tubular steel high. sided dray body" produced for one brewery company and used by many, and from which has followed alloy and aluminium latterday types.
Well do I also remember, as will my opposite numbers of that time (1948/49) the setting-up of the first committee (then called the London and Home Counties Transport Committee) as a means of getting brewery managers together to co-ordinate transport and distribution matters.
In the first instance it was a little frustrating, as permission had to be sought by each transport manager from his board, and in all cases approval was not immediately given, as a conservative attitude very much prevailed. However, that committee did make a successful impact and covered some useful work.
So many of the brewery companies represented on the early London and Home Counties Transport Committee have now gone and all but one have surrendered their individuality.
B. A. THOMPSON, Barnet, Herts.