Anecdotes shared by former colleague

In the wake of the passing of Sir David Amess, MP for Southend West, recruitment industry members share fond memories of the animal-loving politician.

Sir David began his business career working in recruitment for Accountancy Personnel (AP), now called Hays, in the mid 1970s. One of TALiNT Partners’ TIARA Judges, Sue Cooper, Founding Director of Scoop Consulting and Non-Executive Chairwoman of Executive Insights Group worked with him in the early stages of her career and shared these anecdotes:

Sue said: “When I joined AP back in the very late 70s David was the manager of the very successful Moorgate office’s Temp Division. I was a fresh-faced trainee sitting next to him hoping to learn from the master.

I have two dominant memories of that time:

“The first memory is that he had an attaché-style briefcase and pinned into the lid was a giant photo of Maggie Thatcher. He was obsessed with politics way back then and he looked at that picture a lot!

Secondly, I asked a lot of questions and when he had had enough of me, I’d be sent down to the dusty basement to look for a candidate file and told not to return until I found it –  after hours of searching to no avail! Not finding the candidate file wasn’t surprising as it didn’t exist. It was just a tactic to keep me out of the way and to give him a break from my endlessly questioning!”