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At the next branch elections I was voted in as chairman which also meant a seat on the Office Whitley committee. One of the first things I wanted to do after taking over as branch chairman was to call a meeting of the branch committee which consisted of Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer, Traffic handler representative and four watch representatives. I asked Alec Runciman what was the normal procedure for getting the committee members off duty for the meetings and he replied that they didn’t normally get off duty. When we had agreed a date for our first meeting, which was going to be held one evening, I wrote a formal letter to the O i/c requesting permission for the committee members to be relieved of duty for the meeting and received a formal reply stating that this would be done. This continued for a few meetings (Branch and Committee) without any problems.
Meanwhile, we had a number of Office Whitley Committee meetings until, at the end of one of the meetings Mr McLennan said, “I’d like to have a word with you about releasing your committee members for meetings.”
I immediately thought, “Ah, now it comes to the crunch”, but no, he said, “Would you mind keeping your requests to phone calls instead of making them in writing because if you write to me, it means I’ve got to answer in writing.”
From then on it was just a matter of picking up the phone and the request was never refused. Union wise I never had any disagreements that I wouldn't have had with any other officer in charge.
On the home front we got settled in at Masefield Close and Nick and Lindsay their respective schools, Nick to St. Giles and Lindsay The Painsley. Came the school holidays and Lindsay went on a holiday abroad with her classmates so we decided to take Nick on a holiday to Butlins at Pwllheli in Wales. One of the reasons we chose Pwllheli instead of any of the other Butlins camps was the fact that water skiing was an attraction. When we arrived at the camp we booked in and were quite happy with the accommodation and food on the first day.