David Parkin celebrates an awfully big adventure and looks for enthusiasm from the CBI

THE CBI Yorkshire and the Humber (why do they have a name that relates to a place that no longer exists?) annual dinner was held in the University of Leeds refectory building this week.

It has been held in the same venue for the last few years, a contrast to the previous approach of moving it around the region. That gave guests the memorable experience of having dinner on the platform of York Railway Museum and in a vast aircraft hangar at RAF Linton-on-Ouse.

Some guests at this week’s annual bash were able to drop into the pre-dinner chat that they had seen The Who, The Wonder Stuff or some other band at the venue.

I kept quiet. The only time I went there to see a ‘gig’ it was quiffed American rocker Chris Isaak (who sang Wicked Game) and I left early because it was a bit loud and someone stepped on my foot.

Anyway, back to the CBI. The dinner marked the reappearance of former Yorkshire regional director Andrew Palmer, who has been as rare as a Capercaillie in these parts after being despatched to Scotland to support the organisation during the referendum campaign north of the border.

He was replaced by Giles Fletcher, who moved across the Pennines from his role as deputy in the North West.

My Manchester contacts tell me he did so with the kind of enthusiasm displayed by one being sent to a Siberian gulag.

Perhaps that explains why I have struggled to find anyone who has met him. He concluded the evening by drawing the raffle and thanking the audience for being there because by doing so they were away from “family and friends”.

I was lucky enough to be amongst friends from Barclays. Hosted by Debbie Mullen, Caroline Pullich, Karen Swainston and Rob Lawrence, the bank had bravely invited a clutch of regional journalists who are all good eggs.

When journalists get together there is normally plenty of drinking but very little backbiting. We are nice to each other but just slag off everybody else.

The dinner featured a speech by Alison Munro, chief executive of HS2. She told the audience that they should grab this “once in a lifetime” opportunity with the kind of charisma you might expect from a career civil servant. 

If she can’t sound excited about this huge rail project then how can we?

The other speaker was John Lloyd, the TV producer and writer behind great comedy programmes like Not The Nine O’Clock News and Blackadder.

He told the audience former Education Secretary Michael Gove had once pronounced that Blackadder should not be shown in schools as a historical documentary.

“Surprisingly it wasn’t written as a documentary,” said Lloyd, “I am able to confirm that Queen Elizabeth I didn’t really have a nanny called Bernard, that was just in Blackadder.”

He also gave the fascinating fact that half the regimental goats in the British army are called Baldrick.

If you want to leave a historical legacy, then that is a pretty good one.

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LAST night saw a party thrown to celebrate the remarkable career of corporate lawyer Martin Shaw.

He started in the then Leeds firm of Simpson Curtis 48 years ago and has been there through its growth over the last five decades to become the European player that is now Pinsent Masons.

I think you can say with some certainty that none of today’s lawyers will ever enjoy such a lengthy career. And Martin has done so with enthusiasm and charm.

I first met him when I arrived in Yorkshire in 2000 and was immediately thrust onto the committee organising the Variety Club’s Yorkshire Business Awards.

By that stage he already had a formidable reputation as one of the men who had helped float some of Yorkshire’s great companies on the stock market.

Many of those people gathered at Bibis in Leeds last night to pay tribute to Martin and wish him well. He had given the evening a title: “An Awfully Big Adventure”.

Introduced by a witty speech from Pinsent Masons Leeds office managing partner Chris Booth, Martin, immaculate as always, stepped up to the microphone to reminisce about his career.

I well remember bumping into Martin and his wife Chris at the premiere of the film Calendar Girls, which was held at The Light in Leeds. I was with my parents and Martin leaned forward and said to them: “This is the best business editor the Yorkshire Post has ever had.”

Now, I’m sure that if he met any other parents of business editors of the Yorkshire Post, he may very well have said the same, but it was good enough for me. And my Mum liked it.

I’m sure that while Martin will still play a role in corporate and charitable life in Yorkshire, he deserves a long and happy retirement after such an awfully big adventure.

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I GAVE a speech at the monthly meeting of business group Wakefield First last Friday.