Bosses recall haze of their bygone A-level results days

AS a rather different A-level results day arrives, bosses take a trip down memory lane with Spy. Frazer Thompson at English wine maker Chapel Down recalls: “It was the day that Elvis died. I did badly to everyone’s genuine surprise but my own. I was working in a family friend’s scrap metal yard in a rough part of Newcastle to earn a few quid for a holiday. I thought it was Heartbreak Hotel. Beer can work wonders.” Speaking of oop Norf, Dominic Agace at estate agency group Winkworth was delighted by three Bs which meant he could go to his university of choice, Newcastle, “where I’d heard pints were £1 and there was a revolving dance floor in The Boat nightclub”. Lawson Mountstevens, managing director of Heineken UK’s Star Pubs & Bars, got three Cs and celebrated with a game of cricket on the pub green. He jokes:

A COUPLE of unexpected appointments at gritty supermarket chain Morrisons. Sky chief consumer officer Lyssa McGowan, on left, a Harvard grad, has become a non-exec, as has Susanne Given, far right, who held top fashion jobs at Superdry and John Lewis. Could chairman Andy Higginson finally break up the cosy ex-Tesco boys club at the top table next?

“I grovelled my way into university, took a break from the cricket crease, and devoted my working life to one very long pub crawl.”

MEANWHILE, pubs group Greene King says it is recruiting 150 apprentices as the exam results come out. Good luck finding sober Gen X-ers to fill those gigs.

THE tangled web surrounding bust former fintech darling Wirecard spreads. Today Philippine investigators recommended that two immigration officers be charged for allegedly falsifying Jan Marsalek’s

travel records. To recap: the former Wirecard executive mysteriously went missing after the payments firm became embroiled in an accounting scandal and German police are investigating him for “suspected gang-type fraud committed on a repetitive and gainful basis”. Marsalek had supposedly travelled to the Philippines on June 23 and left the next day, onward bound to China. But the National Bureau of Investigation says that the immigration records were “both spurious” and made to mislead authorities in Europe. The hunt goes on.

DROLL stuff from insurer Admiral’s boss David Stevens, who remarks: “A year ago I described our results as ‘frankly a bit dull’. With the benefit of hindsight there’s a lot to be said for ‘dull’ if the alternative is a global pandemic.” Quite.