SPA News Autumn 2012 - Shell UK

In 1960, after five years in St Helen’s
Court, I was posted to the Oil Supply
Department in Caracas. The head of the
department, Maurice Bettany, was due to
retire after 30 years in the country. Instead
of a big farewell party, he asked if he
could use the company aircraft to take a
party of colleagues for a weekend visit to
Angel Falls – the highest waterfall in the
world – which he’d never managed to see
in his 30 years stay. One or two older
colleagues dropped out, so I was kindly
invited after just six weeks in Caracas.
We flew over the plateau above the falls,
where Jimmy Angel, a US bush pilot,
had landed his plane about 22 years
earlier. From the air the plane looked as
though it had just landed but in fact it
iNSPiRED by DA viNCi
In January I was lucky to be allocated Shell tickets to the Leonardo Da Vinci
Exhibition, which was inspirational, especially Leonardo’s insight that “painting
the body was easy but painting the mind is difficult, it requires elusive perception
and subtle illustration”.
This inspiration prompted me to submit an abstract for "Organisational Mind
Management" to the Loss Prevention International Symposium, for presentation in
Florence 2013; the full paper aims to illustrate organisational mind management
and operational envelope risk by comparing two accidents, the Herald of Free
Enterprise capsize and the S61 Helicopter crash on the Brent Spar July 1990. I
was a member of the Shell team for this Spar crash; however, all the information
used is in the public domain.
The paper successfully passed the first evaluation and if the final manuscript is
approved I will present it in Florence next year. In December 2011, I completed
a Law Degree, so hopefully writing papers will be a way of passing on my experience
and keeping the brain active. The full manuscript will be available in 2013.
Readers may be interested in the links to the Conference and Accident Investigations:
www.wp-lossprevention.eu/loss-prevention-symposia/next-loss-prevention-symposium
www.maib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/HofFEfinal.pdf
www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/2-1991%20G-BEWL.pdf
brian Edmonds, Farnham
SPA LETTERS
cOcK-OF-THE-ROcK AND WATERFALLS … VENEzuELAN TALES
had got bogged down, so that Jimmy
and a companion had to hike for a week,
relying on local Indians to guide them
back to civilisation.
During our evening meal at camp in
Canaima, we were visited by a tapir
that apparently emerged from the jungle
every night to be fed by staff. A year
later, I was married to Vivienne, whom
I’d met at St Helen’s Court; on returning
to Caracas we visited Canaima and took
a boat trip with Rudy Trufino, who’d built
a house for himself and his family, by
the river. He’d installed a bar for visitors
and decorated the walls with various
animal trophies, including a 12-foot
baby anaconda skin, a five-foot
rattlesnake, and a beautiful bright
orange stuffed cock-of-the-rock;
memorable experiences indeed!
Keith Farquharson, inverness
Thanks, Keith. For those of you, like us,
who don’t know what a cock-of-the-rock
is, see below.
SHELL ‘ART
ATTAcK’
I thought perhaps readers of the Shell
Pensioners magazine might like to see
the attached photograph. It is one of a
series of art works made from all sorts
of oddments (don’t like to use the word
‘scrap!) which have been erected in
parkland by the banks of the Danube
Canal in Vienna. We were there on a
river cruise and had taken a bike ride
along the waterside cycle track.
Laura Lindsay, goldsborough,
North yorkshire
Thanks Laura – looks like it’d give the
Daleks a run for their money!
SPA NEWS | 5