Day 152 - 11 Jul 95 - Page 35
1
2 Q. I am coming back to calling people in in a moment, but look
3 at the other side of the coin: Suppose you suddenly found
4 that you had actually over scheduled, if I may put it like
5 that, in other words there was not as much business as you
6 thought, did you ever send anybody home and say, "I am
7 sorry, you cannot work this shift because I have too many
8 people and it is going to cost too much money"?
9 A. No, what we used to do -- I mean, it was a fairly rare
10 event due to the specific projection of the business that
11 we had. If, for some unknown reason, there was -- I do not
12 know -- say there was a bomb scare, I remember because
13 Colchester was a garrison town and there used to be a lot
14 of bomb scares, therefore -- if, you know, an instance like
15 that happened, then we would ask the volunteers to go
16 home. If they did not want to go home, then we would not
17 actually force them to go home.
18
19 Q. You would keep them on and, I assume, therefore you would
20 pay them, is that right?
21 A. That is correct, yes.
22
23 Q. Going back to the case where, for one reason or another,
24 you might find yourself short staffed, the payroll you said
25 I think 55, 65, something like that, was it?
26 A. Somewhere between those numbers, probably fluctuating
27 throughout the year.
28
29 Q. Call it 60. To what extent were those 60 people or so
30 resident in the neighbourhood in Colchester?
31 A. The only person I can remember ever travelling from
32 outside of Colchester was Kate Scannel that you referred to
33 earlier on. She lived in Halstead.
34
35 Q. How far is that?
36 A. Ten miles; almost every other crew -- well, every other
37 crew member, as I remembered it, lived within the
38 Colchester borough area or within the town.
39
40 Q. Take Kate Scannel for a moment. Do you remember how she
41 used to get to work and go back home, what transport she
42 used?
43 A. She had her own car.
44
45 Q. Did any of your people live within walking distance of the
46 restaurant?
47 A. Yes, a substantial number.
48
49 Q. What is or was, perhaps is the right question, what was the
50 public transport system in Colchester like in those days?
51 A. It was quite adequate, as I remember.
52
53 Q. Buses?
54 A. Yes.
55
56 Q. Do you remember how late the buses ran?
57 A. No. I would imagine ten or eleven o'clock at night.
58
59 Q. What did you do if you had people staying on until one in
60 the morning? Say you had a girl 19 or 20 staying on to do
