By Carole Dennett
In the illustrious words of Lance-Corporal Jones from Dad’s Army, Red Funnel, it seems, “don’t like it up ’em”.
After months of stonewalling questions about the future of our lifeline ferry services, they’ve finally broken their silence – not to enlighten us – but to unceremoniously boot the IW Observer from their terminals. The reason? Your guess is as good as ours. If we’ve written anything untrue, they could complain to our regulator, but they’d rather ban their passengers from reading the paper. It’s a curious decision: that’s one group of Islanders who don’t need to read about Red Funnel’s expensive and tardy services – they experience them first-hand! Depriving them of reading material during those inevitable delays and cancellations seems rather heartless.
We suspect our unsigned eviction notice didn’t come from CEO, Fran Collins – affectionately dubbed ‘Vanishing Fran’ by some staff. With a salary last year of £283,000, you’d think her primary focus would be steering the floundering ferry company towards safer waters. But, alas, her interests seem to lie elsewhere — moonlighting as a volunteer army Major and collecting director and non-executive director titles like they’re going out of fashion, from Saga Cruises and the Maritime Transport Action Group to the IW Chamber of Commerce.
This week we learn that Fran has joined Shipbuilding Enterprise for Growth, and she posed for a happy snap to celebrate. We can’t quite identify the background – is it Southampton or the Island?
Should anybody need reminding what Vanishing Fran looks like, there is picture of her looking thoughtful on the National Shipbuilding Office website. Perhaps she is pondering where to find some money to build new ships.
Her bio says that, since 2008, she has had “a strong commercial and operational focus.” Thank goodness for that, although reliability is worse than ever, and she may be the first CEO to oversee the company lose value. Time will tell!
Could it then be elusive operations director, Leanna Lakes, who exiled us from the terminals? Or is she still busy directing operations from far-off Kirkcaldy?
But fret not, dear readers! You can find your IW Observer in Waitrose in East Cowes, or Comicoffee Cowes, both close to Red Funnel’s terminals.
We’re still the Island’s favourite newspaper by far – OK, not among Red Funnel’s managers – but then they’re not Islanders.
Thank goodness for press freedom. It means Red Funnel’s maritime melodramas don’t go unreported – or unmocked. We didn’t make this ship up!
