Day 150 - 07 Jul 95 - Page 10
1 A. That is right. That is my -----
2
3 Q. Which stores were you responsible for?
4 A. That is when I went down to Colchester and Clacton.
5
6 Q. That I will come back to because that will be an important
7 part of your evidence. If you will forgive me, I will just
8 move on and complete your life, as it were. August 1987,
9 what were you doing then?
10 A. In August 1987, I was promoted to the then position of
11 Senior Supervisor, which meant I had responsibility for
12 South Wales and the West Country which in that case
13 was Avon in Somerset in terms of the restaurants that we
14 had in those counties.
15
16 Q. Was that referred to, rather like the Midlands refers to a
17 wider area, as Wales?
18 A. Wales and the West I think we called it.
19
20 Q. Again what did that job involve for you personally?
21 A. Once again, it was field based in terms of I was
22 working in the restaurants. I think I had probably a dozen
23 or so, maybe 15, restaurants in that particular area.
24 Although I had three or four Supervisors working with me,
25 once again it just meant me visiting with restaurants with
26 Supervisors and Restaurant Managers, so I was once again
27 still based in the restaurants rather than in any sort of
28 office job.
29
30 Q. So you were able to interact with the crew, nonetheless,
31 despite your promotion?
32 A. Oh, absolutely.
33
34 Q. Then February 1990, where did that find you in terms of a
35 position?
36 A. In 1990 I was promoted to Operations Manager which
37 really expanded my area, geographical area, of
38 responsibility to take up the West Midlands as well as
39 Wales and the West.
40
41 Q. Was there any change in the nature of what you were doing
42 beyond having the West Midlands added to your -----
43 A. No, essentially, the job was the same, was that I was
44 still -- I still needed to visit restaurants, although in
45 this case I probably had, I think, two Senior Supervisors
46 and they probably had three or four Supervisors themselves,
47 but I still myself was field based in the restaurants or
48 responsible for restaurant operations.
49
50 Q. So can I ask you -- I may know the answer but it is for me
51 to ask you -- did you ever feel that you were losing touch
52 with what was going on on the ground as you went up the
53 tree?
54 A. No, I thought, if anything, it brings you more in touch
55 because you need to ask more questions, talk to staff, talk
56 to managers, in order to stay abreast of everything because
57 I was visiting the restaurants -- I may have done, as
58 I mentioned earlier on about sort of break up of week, may
59 be one day as an Operations Manager in the office, but
60 those remaining four of that five-day week would be based
