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bird's eye view

1st May 1970, Page 66
1st May 1970
Page 66
Page 66, 1st May 1970 — bird's eye view
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

by the Hawk

• Marsh mellow

"The first job they gave me when I joined the board of the National Carbonising Company was to look after operators' licensing, special authorizations, plating and testing and drivers' hours."

A gale of laughter from the 270 members and guests of the ETA London and Home Counties Division greeted this aside, dropped among many others, by ex Transport Minister Richard Marsh when he made the guest-of-honour speech at the division's annual Cafe Royal lunch last week.

The self-styled "youngest Cabinet Minister ever to be sacked in this or any other century" must have been gratified to hear the genuinely warm applause that followed two separate tributes to his remarkable understanding of the complexities of road transport problems. Both the divisional chairman, L.A. Castleton, and the vice-chairman, A.L. Lambert, recalled the Association's Hilton Hotel meeting, just about two years ago, when Mr Marsh faced a barrage of questions on the then new Transport Bill— and answered them all with hardly any help from his civil servant supporters, although he had been in office barely a fortnight.

• Political football

The present-day dangers of shifting Ministers and their advisors so quickly that they never had time to acclimatize themselves was, in fact, the main burden of Dick Marsh's speech. At the Defence Ministry, he said, they were building a new wall to accommodate all the photos of past Ministers.

A plastic pin could have dropped unheard when the Privy Councillor gave his deadpan forecast for the General Election date. "Take no notice of the pollsters," he said. "Though no longer in the Cabinet, I have it on the highest authority that it is inextricably bound up with the outcome of the World Cup!"

• On the level

Scotland may be mountainous but it doesn't do to jump to conclusions about what that means to traffic. Travelling back from the very enjoyable SRPTA conference in Aviemore, in the Cairngorm country, last week, I suddenly realized that I had driven the entire 75 miles to Dunkeld in Perthshire without stopping and without once dropping out of top gear. And it was no over-engined behemoth that I was driving but a massproduced 1300cc car whose best days had been enjoyed by earlier renters than me.

Certainly there was mountain scenery all the way, but the roads stayed in the glens, or were more gently graded than one would find in Southern England. Local operators can say better than I what this means in terms of axle ratios and fuel consumption—though I dare say that what they gain by relatively empty roads and easy gradients they lose by the winding, mountain-dodging routes.

The only reason that I had to start changing gear from Dunkdd southwards was the onset of dense traffic—you know, about three vehicles a mile.

• Scotch missed

Even though my return from Aviemore down A9 was in torrential rain, it was a heartwarming journey. Apart from the prolific tippers of Robertsons of Dunfermline, Hutchinsons, and Walker Bros of Cowdenbeath, most of the traffic on the AviemoreDunkeld stretch seemed to be Russell of Bathgate's big grey bulk wagons taking grain to the distilleries and distillery vehicles bringing the precious fluid out.

• Articulate

We had, incidentally, been treated to a novel dissertation on vehicle types at the SRPTA conference dinner the previous night. Sherriff Irvine Smith was maintaining this function's tradition of producing an outstanding speaker, and provided 20 minutes of nonstop hilarity. Strong Scottish lairds were to be seen crying into their whisky—with laughter.

."You are," he said sternly, "the only people I know who work in articulated combinations—and who are capable of becoming involved in illegal combinations. Mind you, I find this hard to believe. If there are alleged to be any illegal combinations which we have not encountered in Glasgow, then they simply do not exist."

• Up for air

The new factory of Taskers and Cravens Homalloy, opened officially last week in Woodville, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, is In an area where coal mine closures have left employment problems. As with all new projects, there is a settling-in period to be endured and it was during these early days that a local trade union official came knocking on the door of the Cravens' managing director, D. Hooper. The opening gambits went something like this :- "Mr. Hooper, my union would like to represent your employees."

"Well, that's all very fine, but what are your qualifications for undertaking such a task?"

Stunned silence; and then with the resilience of his kind, the visitor (who recalled the pond in the brickworks which formerly occupied the site) came back with: "Well, fora start, I learned to swim in your pond!"

• Victory!

Whatever the Decimal Currency Board might have to say about retaining the sixpenny piece after the introduction of decimals next year, the decision by the Chancellor to reprieve the sixpence is a matter of common sense. It seems incredible that such a fight had to be made to gain this concession, but it is also worth noting that the campaign has been a long one. CM, for example, published a major feature story built around the wisdom of retaining the sixpence, and the problem its scrapping would pose upon the psv industry, as far back as June 6 1969.


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