Goodbye red tape, hello video tape
Page 48
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
A HIGHLIGHT of the transport calendar is the Freight Transport Association's annual Scottish dinner, an attraction which packs the banqueting facilities at a major Glasgow hotel to capacity, and which has no equal elsewhere in the FTA.
It's an event to which FTA director-general Hugh Featherstone has been a faithful visitor, always glad to lend his support at the pre-dinner press conferences held principally to brief Scottish journalists on current transport topics, but also happy to sit back and listen to the wit and wisdom of the highcalibre speakers.
This year's event had to be different for Hugh, in view of his impending retirement. It was to be his last official visit as director-general, and the Scottish region wanted to make his visit a special one.
They turned the tables on him, inviting him to be the principal speaker, a role for which he is admirably suited, and his fund of jokes helped add spice to a paper which concentrated on the FTA's triumphs over the past year.
But even Hugh seemed momentarily lost for words when, from under the top table, his Scottish hosts pulled out a video recorder, paid for by generous contributions from members throughout Scotland. It is something that will transform his leisure hours when he retires next spring, but even the gift of an empty whisky bottle would have been given a special corner on the Featherstone mantelpiece, he said.