[Varley]

(I fear the time for attending the pedagogue is over for both of us, E-S. The young may sponge up learning, my sponge is now applied to the bottle).

It rather depends on the era. In the early days Sir John and Sir William would interview clients to see if they were up to scratch before accepting their vessels into management. Later perhaps we were not that fussy.

In my day it was clearer that the state of the ship depended on the owner and we would take on 'difficult cases' but rarely hopeless ones. If the agreed budget did not arrive then step one was to stop all but safety expenditure and one or two did fall by the wayside (Alpha Crusader for one). That said I remember only one client who was sacked and that was NITC. TDU, not a believer in the panacea of alcohol, made sure everyone had a glass of fizz to celebrate their departure.

One of the most interesting services we tried to provide was in the repossession of vessels where the owners had fallen foul of their mortgagees (as well, presumably, as their managers).

We did a pretty good job of holding onto the CAST OBOs when they went bust (John, let us not argue over the duck mannerisms) principally in tandem with Fairwind the brains behind the repossession business. Fairwind would run the good prospects commercially after their arrest/judicial sale until they could be sold on favourably. We were not then the exclusive choice of managers for Fairwind but that is the first I recollect of this liaison. It is one that continued until Mr. Fairhurst joined Denholm.

A 'phone call from him always meant fun.

I never thought the term Glasgow Greek was the derogatory one our detractors meant it to be. Being able to run the bangers is a corporate talent that not all possess. It is also far more fun. Any fool can watch a computer run his new ship.