DD Coincidence 3/24

A Guiding hand? I started my training career with The Distillers Company Limited back in 1964. In an effort to overcome a natural reticence and shyness, which, as many friends will attest, are still characteristics of mine, I joined the site amateur dramatic group. One evening we were rehearsing the farce “Here We Come Gathering” in the canteen (now “staff restaurant”). One of my colleagues was playing the part of a psychiatrist and at the point we had reached he had to sit on stage, read a paper and ignore the rest of the cast. We were chatting in the wings when the producer shouted, “Come on, Mike, you’re on!”. Mike grabbed the top newspaper from a pile on the nearest canteen table, went on stage, played his part, came off and said to me, “Hey, Don, there’s a good job here for you!” I looked, I liked, I applied and I got the job which set me off on the start of my life on the Wirral with Unilever. Had Mike Blanckenhagen picked up any other paper than the Manchester Guardian that evening, my life and those of my family would have been very different in the last 40+ years!