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Lyc
Page 44
Page 45
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-cough Middleton THE chimes of the ice-cream van sounded across our village green on one of the coldest evenings of the very cold 1962 January. Like the children who scampered after the Pied Piper of Hamelin, but with a different fate in store, the youngsters of this chilly corner responded to the music, making haste to get their frozen bricks of
vanilla, or chocolate-flavoured confection. Some older inhabitants gathered round, too.
How different, I reflected, from the days of my own childhood when strict parental rules forbade our buying ice-cream from barrows wheeled about by certain immigrant Italians. flokey-Pokey we called the stuff they sold. The vendors were reputed to store it under their beds at night and some people called the ha'penny wafers and
cornets "a ha-porth of microbe." Still, we licked the cornets and I don't recall that we came to any great harm.
Long before the days of ice-cream parlours, dairies used to sell ice-cream—made of real dairy products, of course— at threepence for a vast portion. By today's standards it was perhaps not so very hygienic (though Considerably higher in the scale than the Hokey-Pokey) because bowls of milk used to stand on the counters without protection from coughs, sneezes and the dust kicked up by ho7;ses trotting along untarred roads. The first war had long ceased before the ice-cream parlour came on the scene with its general gestures in the direction of hygiene.
Then. came Wall's Stop-Me-And Buy-One tricycles with tinkling bells, forerunners of the elaborately equipped vending vans of 1962 with their chiming bells rendering snatches of grand opera. When Lyon Middleton, the present company transport and refrigeration manager, started his career with T. Wall and Sons, Ltd., sometime in the 'thirties, ice-cream still had its way to make. It was still very much in the tricycle stage, a device—little more to keep employees occupied during summer, a side-line which was to develop with astonishing speed into the vast enterprise symbolized by that fine building near Wembley Stadium. Not that the tricycle's day is entirely done, though now they're motorized.
It was as an accountant that Lyon Brough Middleton entered the company's service. But in those days in Wall's ice-cream division staff had to turn their hands to pretty nearly any job that needed doing. Accountancy merged into sales and so he found himself caught up with sales. Today he says he's still in it, for transport, he declares, is an integral part of sales in an organization such as T. Wall and Sons, whose products must be got with all speed to points of sale as well as direct to consumers.
His department is a vivid indication of the way the company has developed. And so is his assessment of current and future transport problems. Think about those first tricycles and then imagine the expansion—Middleton is responsible for some 2,000 vehicles of various types. There are the long-haul trunkers which transport ice-cream from factory to depot. Other vehicles carry the product to retailers. And there are those familiar sales vans for which our children lie in ambush, in addition, of course, to the motorized tricycles and trailers. The units range in size from six-wheeler articulated vehicles downwards, and they cover more than 13 million miles every year.
Refrigeration is a sine qua non, of course; but Mr. Middleton believes that enormous development lies ahead for refrigerated vehicles. To the layman it would seem that the system has already reached an advanced stage—he says it's still in its infancy. As he pointed out, not only ice-cream is involved. Precooked and prefrozen foodstuffs of all kinds will find an ever-increasing place in domestic life, and he and his department spend much time, money and ingenuity in developing vehicles to meet the new necessities. In the industry's councils he plays his part as a member of the Refrigerated Transport Committee, which is a key body in the organization of Unilever, Ltd., and Unilever N.V.
He superintends the company's activities within the framework of an annual budget (here the . accountant comes in!) in the construction of insulated bodies for their vehicles. Requirements are so highly specialized that it has long been the company's policy to build their own vehicle bodies. His system is reminiscent of the highly organized Canadian and American "project" conception. When a large building or engineering work is planned all the plant and materials flow in according to a strict prearranged time schedule so that there is no loss of working time and money through lack of a crane or of cement or steel. His methods are somewhat similar. Accurate forecasts of needs are made in advance. At a glance he can tell from charts and similar indications how matters stand—there must be no fortnight's wait for a spare part which has not been ordered or whose requirement was not foreseen. Here his methodical, accountancy-trained mind proves invaluable.
And there I have found the word which, I think, sums up his character and outlook—" methodical." He speaks slowly, methodically, and in something of a monotone which suggests he has schooled himself over the years to avoid any emphasis that might tend to mislead and that kind of enthusiasm which might trap him into misjudgment.
Wall's regard their transport fleet as one of their best advertisements. Men are employed specially to make regular checks to ensure that the blue-and-cream livery measures up to exacting standards. But even without the urge of considered company policy, it is certain that Lyon Brough Middleton would never tolerate an unsmart vehicle. He is like that. Extremely well-groomed personally, with a wellgroomed mind, he is a typical T. Wall and Sons man. And to all of this I call into independent testimony his colleagues on the Traffic Committee of the TRTA. H.C.