“…..a big American food firm in Britain held a sales conference, to pep up its salesmen. The sales manager began by blowing up a balloon, and bursting it with a small bang. ‘That wasn’t very good, was it,’ he said to the company: ‘Now each of you will find a balloon under his chair: would you mind bringing it out and blowing it up.’ The salesmen pulled out their balloons and all blew them up. ‘Now we’ll all burst them together’ – and they did with a loud bang. ‘That was much better, wasn’t it? You see that goes to show that one man by himself can’t do much, but if you all work as a team you can make a big bang.”

(From Anatomy of Britain by Anthony Sampson, 1926 – 2004)

John Lentell

16th July, 1969