Room for improvement
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It appeared that only the RHA was not officially represented at the CIT anniversary lunch last week. Did they know something the 400 guests didn't? Had Bill Rodgers — who left early — had a leaked version of his cabinet colleague, Edmund Dell's speech? Both he and RHA were fortunate to miss the Industry Secretary's post lunch indigestible diatribe on air and sea transport.
He should have known that most of his fellow guetts were to be road and rail m n to whom "Bermuda 1 and 4" were foreign phrases. e
should have pitched his speech down the middle of the road. It came as a blessed relief to be able to chat to Ken Cook of NFC recently returned from Iran and Glyn Samuels recently 'emigrated' to West Yorks and Eddie Price's men of Harlech. Senior chaps like James Duncan of TDG, Peter Thomson of NFC, Brian Hayward, NCL, Denis Quin, CPT, Hugh Featherstone, FTA, Ralph Bennett, LIE and many many others surely must be wondering as I did how we can afford the time for such trivia.
The speech was seeds on stoney ground. Yet like the gentlemen they are, the guests offered Edmund Dell courteous but not sustained applause. Mr Dell, incidentally, resigned his ministerial post on Saturday.
Next year is CIT's 60th anniversary — it can only get better. No one would want to submerge the air and sea transport men in road and rail papers and vice versa perhaps C1T will consider stronger more identifiable sectors as an innovation for its diamond jubilee. The Institute, and the industry, is big enough to be sectionalised.