Day 150 - 07 Jul 95 - Page 14
1
2 Q. The Clacton store, tell us a little bit about that.
3 A. Clacton, for most of the time, was a relatively quiet
4 restaurant apart from really July through to September
5 when, for obvious reasons, the summer season took off; it
6 would become busier, but in some cases probably twice as
7 busy as a normal sort of wet November week. So, in
8 respect, it did not take up more of my time than
9 Colchester, given the fact that Colchester was relatively
10 busier, I would spend more time there.
11
12 But Clacton for nine out of the 12 months was generally
13 very quiet and just rolled along on its own really, but
14 I would still do the same sorts of checks with the Manager
15 there. They did not get less quality time, so to speak,
16 but there was, perhaps, no need to be aware of it unless
17 running up to the summer time period when we would have to
18 make sure that we took on people at a nice comfortable rate
19 to make sure in terms of that advice to the Restaurant
20 Manager that they did not burden the restaurant with a
21 dozen or so new employees in one week.
22
23 So, the system that I helped them set up was just to
24 recruit one, maybe two or three, perhaps, at the most,
25 people per week as they built up to their summer time
26 levels which, in some cases, may well have doubled their
27 actual numbers on the payroll. So that helped the
28 Restaurant Manager and probably, I suppose, the crew and
29 the assistance in the training as well as probably the
30 personnel aspects of not having to do all the paper work at
31 one go. That was really the only thing that really got me
32 heavily involved in Clacton more than normal.
33
34 Q. Did that adversely affect your ability to look after
35 Colchester, those periods in Clacton?
36 A. No. As you have already mentioned really, when most
37 people had probably four restaurants, geographically there
38 are only two restaurants down there. So I had, relatively
39 speaking, amongst the sort of contemporaries at the time,
40 relatively a few number of restaurants.
41
42 Q. So can I put it this way, that there was still a fair
43 amount of interaction with the crew and would you say that
44 it was still an on the ground job?
45 A. Oh, it was, absolutely. I probably spent three days a
46 week in Colchester and maybe one in Clacton but, as
47 I mentioned, in those daily visits an hour or so on the
48 administration and equipment and sort of behind the scenes
49 stuff; but primarily six hours probably out of that eight,
50 five or six hours, was spent working with Assistant
51 Managers, crew, everybody, to make sure that things were
52 going OK.
53
54 Q. You have said that you were between the Store Manager and
55 the Senior Supervisor at that time. Did you ever feel
56 pressure from below, from the Store Manager, or from above,
57 whether it was the Senior Supervisor or anybody above you,
58 to compromise on standards? When I say that, I mean
59 hygiene, safety, the general welfare of the crew --
60 anything of that sort?
