Yiasou

Given the amount of holiday Nigel had this year, it was really no wonder that our company Grand Met had to announce it was being sold off in 1991 as being unprofitable.
 
And it was only that we wanted to show our guest host land some respect by following their cultures and traditions. The Bavarian Constitution shows clearly:
 
Art. 147
Sundays and officially recognised holidays shall be legally protected as days of spiritual edification and rest from work.
 
Art. 174
Each employee shall have a right to rest. This right shall be guaranteed on principle by a free weekend and by annual holiday with continued payment of remuneration.
 
And of course, we could not simply ignore our roots. So a compromise was found. We recognised and observed all UK, German and Bavarian public holidays and in return accepted the standard German holiday entitlement of six weeks per annum.
 
Nigel’s wife Liz was heavily pregnant with daughter #1 who was due on 15th October. We knew this date very precisely as we had been working on a “Risk Management Plan” for Wienerwald. In fact on the day after this postcard was sent, I was in a meeting at 10:00 am in Munich to present our plan to the company board. If my memory serves me well, this risk management exercise had been started by Grand Met in the UK some months before but I can’t remember the event that started it. Whether it was connected with a threatened kidnapping or poisoning of food and drink in the UK. I remember having to work out how the central switchboard was to be kitted out with tools and equipment to record ransom calls etc.
 
The postcard shows no detail as to where they were on holiday but Nigel has told me it was Zante (Zakynthos).