SEMAINE BRITANNIQUE au MAROC
Casablanca
12-16 Mars 1990
- The opening ceremony.
It was only a short stroll from our hotel to the venue where the opening ceremony was to take place at 1000hrs. However we had an early breakfast and were there at 0800hrs to make sure that if there were any problems we had time to put them right. George had gone back to Cyprus leaving just two of his men, Dino and Fary, to maintain the stands. As everything was in order we returned to our hotel to change. Promotor men knew what was expected and always had their suits with them.
Dave had flown in a Scot to play the bagpipes during the opening ceremony and he caused quite a stir. Certainly looked and sounded good. However, the most important person there was Lord Trethgarne. He was there in an official capacity as Head of the Ministry of Trade and it was his job to perform the opening ceremony in company with the British Ambassador and other dignitaries. There were Moroccan counterparts from their Ministry of Trade of course and Moroccan TV.
A little story I read recently whilst googling Lord Trethgarne was that in 2015 he was done for speeding, for the fifth time in three and a half years. He was on the embankment and on his way to the house of Lords. His excuse was that he was taken short and was in a hurry to get to the Lords toilets before he wet himself. He produced a doctors letter to say he had a problem with his waterworks. The judge, a woman, didn’t want to know and fined him £1,500 and banned him from driving for four months and left nine points on his license and told him next time to stop at a pub or restaurant to use their toilets. Looks like drink driving next time for him!.
