David Hutchison, president of the Scottish School Board Association, is a businessman who says what he thinks - I didn’t get where I am today etc. When the time came to start last Saturday’s conference and there was no sign of the Education Minister and his opening speech, Hutchison pointed out that among the training packages offered by the SSBA was one on “how to run an effective meeting”.
So they would start without Brian Wilson. “If he comes, we’ll fit him in where we can.”
At that moment an apologetic minister hurried in and proceeded to speak for 20 minutes instead of his allotted 10. In response to a question from the audience he read out a chunk of his more interesting speech for Dunoon later in the day on rural schools (see page five).
He was due to leave at 10.15am. It was now 10.45. Two more speakers were meant to have completed their contributions by coffee time at 10.55. As Wilson made his way through the audience to leave, his farewell from Hutchison was: “Well, that’s the timetable shot.”
