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Has the Dff finally lost the plot over female recruits?
Page 28
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MIGHT 1 congratulate CM on its late April Fool's Day spoof article on the government scheme to attract women into the haulage industry (CM 10 May).
Not that I think the scheme is without merit— but it is too much to believe that the government a) actually cares and b) thinks it will attract women into our way of life. Especially when its highways arm, the Highways Agency, is evidently doing its best to close every truck facility it can.
Perhaps the HA, along with the rest of the DM believes that the 21st century ideal of basic facilities for women is the other tree behind the roadside snack van. Or maybe the reality is that the government's contempt for the haulage industry is so entrenched that it has simply lost the plot.
Given the difficulties faced in getting anybody into the jobs that the industry offers, how does this bunch of Marx Brothers plan to attract somebody like my daughter, who absolutely refuses to step outside the house unless she has had three showers a day and her hair has been washed at least 20 times? The basic facilities for a modern driver represent the sort of ablutions that even Stone Age Britons would have refused to use —incidentally, there is no women's toilet for truck drivers along the entire length of the A14.
I can remember when! was a soldier digging a hole in the ground for my daily needs. Perhaps as part of this funding there are also plans to provide every new driver with their own shovel?
Robert Roweth by e-mail