Alfred Jam( ettigrew Wright
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IT will not be long before all the scattered staff of British Road Services' South Eastern Division are gathered together under one roof at 238 City Road, London. The day when that is achieved will be one of the more ,satisfying in the career of Alfred James Pettigrew Wright. For this cheerful, straight-talking Essex man, who admits to 60 but looks about 50, is an organizer and administrator born, though an engineer by predilection, training and experience. The thought of man-hours consumed in travelling through London streets instead of from floor to floor irks him just as much as the sight of a badly maintained lorry.
Whether it is a matter of the administrative machine or any one of those 4,000 vehicles for which he is responsible as divisional manager, it must run smoothly. And, as he emphasized tome again and again, when interlocked departments are physically separated in congested London, good administration is very difficult indeed. I hope to be there a day or two after all are safely gathered in if only to see an even broader smile on Mr. Wright's face!
If he had followed family tradition, he would have remained in Burnham-on-Crouch in the yacht-building business. Right from the start,.however, it was commercial motor engineering for him. First he was a trainee, then service with the R.N.A.S. in the 1914-18 war broadened his technical experience, and, when that was all over, a job with Scammell Lorries, Ltd., made it pretty certain where his career would lead him.
"Everybody," he remarked, "can look back to a vital piece of advice or a helping hand which pushed his career on. I look back with gratitude to P. G. Hugh and Alan Scammell, who, in their different fashions, set my feet on the right ladder."
This was how it was: Alan Scammell had to break away from Scammell Lorries, Ltd., because of ill health, but not before he had kept an eye on Mr. Wright and sized Jim up as an able, ambitious, loyal young fellow. . So when Mr. Scammell launched Southern Roadways, Ltd., he invited Mr. Wright to join as chief engineer. Thirteen . years later he was managing director of a new company, Southern Roadways (1936), Ltd.
This organization constituted the heart of a new association of companies which included Poole Wharves, Ltd., Coastal Roadways, Ltd., and Southern Commereial 1 Motors, Ltd. The interests of all these businesses were interrelated in one way or another and the managing director was now able to exercise his gifts as co-ordinator and manager in a wider, more satisfying sphere than ever ,
before. .
Alfred Wright, the organizer, rather than the engineer, , was the man in demand during the 1939-45 war. As disrtrict manager under the War Transport Emergency Scheme .he was immersed in complicated, urgent problems of fuel idistribution, allocation of vehicles, evacuations, Service 'movements—indeed, in almost every operation involving ';civilian motor vehicles. Many men who held down responsible jobs during the war—albeit jobs not directly cont nected with their own companies—tend to look back on Itheir enforced service as an arid desert so far as their own Icareers are concerned. li No so Mr. Wright. His organizer's mind saw beyond
the aridity. Here was something he could get his teeth