It’s a dog’s life, ain’t it? Your faithful Newshound is used to it, naturally, but spare a thought for all those dear garden centre friends currently experiencing the agonies (and possibly ecstasies) of the annual standards inspection that all members of the Garden Centre Association must go through. Any time between now and early June, they can expect an inspector to call…and unannounced, too! Off the lead, kind of…
Personally speaking, as your Hound always does, it struck me that the GCA’s inspectorate – the body of men and women tasked with putting the scores on the doors – was a tad unlucky when, shortly after 24 June 2016, the day the country voted for Brexit, it lost three quarters of its workforce as three of its four inspectors announced their resignations. Inspectorexit, we called it. Some might have said, as Lady Bracknell remarked to Mr Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest, that to lose one is a misfortune, but to lose three looks like carelessness. Not us, however. Inspectors come, inspectors go, leaving only the DNA on their clipboards as evidence, and that’s the way of the world…
But then, nine months later, when Premier May reminded us, by triggering Article 50, that Brexit is actually going to happen, lo and behold the GCA temporarily loses another inspector. Perfect timing. Inspectorexit II…not triggered by Article 51 but by the news that new man Hedley Triggs (pictured left above) had to pull out of judging the Midlands and Wales & West regions this spring because he has to have an operation. Please join your Hound in wishing him a speedy recovery.
Hound hears that one of last year’s retirees, Andy Campbell (below left), has stepped into the breach to cover Wales & West in Hedley’s absence. And another of the vanishing trio of 2016, Alyson Heywood (below second left), is back to cover Midlands. She and Hedley were once colleagues at Wyevale.
All we need now is for Ian Boardman, the third Inspectorexiteer, to announce his return “for old time’s sake” and we’re neatly back to Square One.
Meanwhile, woof woof! I’m exiting…until next time.
