When I moved up to Ashby-de-la-Zouch from Acton (west
London) I had three months living in a horrible bedsit while Claire and I waited
for our house purchase to be completed - all the time hoping it would happen
before our wedding in April. Claire was still living at Springhouse Farm, of
Kegworth air crash fame, so she was fairly comfortable and she also had our
mutual friend Ruth for company. I, on the other hand, was living in attic room
with no proper heating in a massive house run by a dragon.
There was snow lying when I arrived just after Christmas and
I can remember catching the bus over to Loughborough to collect my motor bike
from the railway station only to find that the office was shut. I then had to
repeat the journey the next day. Much the same thing happened the first day I
arrived at the United Biscuits factory. The Convenience Foods section was still
closed for the Christmas break and I had been hanging around for quite a while
before anybody bothered to tell me. The letter I had been sent was quite clear
that I should have been starting that day – I was paid for that day and it wasn’t
taken from my meagre holiday allocation so it was all a bit of a mystery.
David Williams was my boss. He suffered from “small man
syndrome” more than anybody I had met before or since. He didn’t ever seem to
do anything and it was a mystery how he managed to fill his day. Bill Tidman
was his lap-dog but at least Bill was always busy being the creative brain
behind some of the projects the department was working on. I cannot recall any
of Bill’s projects becoming a commercial success so perhaps he wasn’t quite as
wonderful as he was always claiming to be!
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