FM Conway - Going the Extra Mile

Going the Extra Mile

which has turned out to be a rich recruiting ground for us. (Dave Cunningham, who used to work for Peter at Bromley, now works for Peter here with us. And Tom McConnoll, who used to be the Borough Engineer at Bromley, is now a senior figure in the company.) Peter is a great supervisor and, I think everyone will agree, a colourful character. Sharon remembers, soon after she joined, hearing a lot of noise going on in the office. She went out to see what was going on: it was Peter’s birthday party, and they had got a Swedish stripper in. That’s another sight that you won’t see in the office any more. I wasn’t at that particular party, but there was another party that I won’t forget in a hurry. Every year, for some years now, we’ve had a Pavers and Masons Dinner, generally in October. At the time I’m thinking of, it was held at the Ramada at Heathrow – a good place to stay overnight if you need to, which we all do. There’s always a lot to drink, and the menu has been the same for years: it’s always steak and kidney pudding, and very good it is, too. One of our regular guests is an old client, Terry Bartlett, an Engineer from Sutton. Terry always gets to the hotel early; he likes to make full use of the facilities. On this occasion, we’d all arrived from work, changed and freshened up, and got to the bar. Well, we were all there except Terry, which was surprising because we knew he had arrived early. Suddenly, the door to the bar was flung open, and there was Terry. He was wearing his usual blue velvet jacket, and everything was perfectly normal except for his face, which was bright red and shining like a beacon in the night. Before we could say anything, he held up his hand and said: ‘Don’t ask! I fell asleep on the sun bed. All right? I don’t want to hear another word about it.’

While doing re-surfacing works in Richmond in 1999, the planer hit the gas main and caught fire. The flames were so fierce that Adrian Obie, the driver, had to abandon the vehicle. The fire brigade had to let the planer burn: they couldn’t put the fire out until the gas main had been capped.

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