May I make a complaint?
By Leslie Robins (March 2002)
I once had a neighbour in Lee Common – I’ll call him Henry – who had brought complaining to a fine art. His method was to go straight to the top. It only took him about three minutes to find out who the head man was, and after that he wouldn’t deal with anybody else. “Dear Sir Peter” he would write when Sir Peter Parker was Chairman of British Rail and Henry’s train had arrived at King’s Cross two minutes late after a journey from Edinburgh (it was Henry and not, as is widely supposed, the Mayor of New York who invented the concept of zero tolerance).
No-one liked Henry much, but it was undeniably useful to have all your complaining done for you. If the lights went out following a power cut, Henry was on the phone to the boss of Eastern Electricity while you will still groping for the candles. If the water from the cold tap was looking a bit murky you needn’t worry – Henry had spotted it half-an-hour ago and the General Manager of Three Valleys Water was by now a gibbering wreck. And was that a low-flying aircraft disturbing the peace of the village? – the Station Commander at RAF Brize Norton had better watch out.