[Graeme / New Zealand]

I work with a bloke who's father has just passed away. He told me this yarn about him a month or so back.

Back in the early 1970's his old man worked for FOMOCO NZ at their head office in Lower Hutt. One weekend he was painting his house when he got a call from one of the Secretarial staff who told him he better come into work because Henry Ford II wanted to see him. His reply was along the lines of "come on pull the other one", dismissed it as a prank and went back to his painting. Soon after he gets another call this time from his Manager, saying that HF II was there and he really needed to come into work , so he took it more seriously and went in. He then finds himself standing before the man himself who was there on a flying visit to his "outpost". "The Duece" offered him a secondment to Fords Taiwan plant to help set up up a new Division there. He turned it down for family reasons. Now how many of us would have got to meet the "head sherang" of the Ford Motor Company, yet alone get the personal offer of a job. My workmates father went on to own and operate Coffey Ford in Fielding in the Manawatu.

GB