Speech
234 Candidates; 142 passed - 61 per cent

The speech was made by the managing director of Woody's, an Oxdown grocery firm, and had three elements:

1. his plan to extend his modest empire with a new flagship store in Walton Road, which the council had turned down last year;
2. his submission now of a revised application, which added two storeys of affordable flats above the store;
3. information about his family, going back to his grandfather, born in Walton Road in 1904 and later founder of the firm.

The world of the grocer did not offer many lively quotes. There were better chances in his enthusiasm in offering homes for first-time buyers and his respectful memories of granddad.

Candidates took advantage of the reporter's printed brief, which provided a good supply of background facts and figures. Most were reproduced accurately.

Some, however, were unduly influenced by the campaign organised by competitors against Woody's original scheme. They assumed the traders' petition had caused the council to reject the planning application.

The speaker said the council had rejected it for quite a different reason, but this seldom appeared in the reports.

Most stories were reasonable satisfactory, though few were outstanding.

Numbers caused more problems than words. The year of grandad's birth was often mistaken for the date he opened his first shop.

The speaker announced the proposed store's ground area clearly as 890 square metres. Variations on this figure appeared as 190 square feet, more than 800 square feet, 890 square feet, 890msq, 850 square, 829 sq mts, 890 metres, 89 square metres and 829 square metres.

Candidates sometimes panic if they run out of time and shovel in facts, hoping some land in the right places. These two attempts landed awkwardly:

The managing director revealed emotional ties to the supermarket – which will employ full and part-time staff – site, just metres from where his grandfather Adam Joseph Woodruffe, who founded the company in 1904 and lived at Grimswell, near Oxdown, but died last December, was first employed as an errand boy.


Adam Woodruffe, who died just before Christmas, aged 98, opened the first Woody's store, of which there are nine, all built by the 1960s, when he was 22, after working as a delivery boy from the age of 12.

The most bizarre intro began:
"CENTENARY celebrations of a deceased grocer..."

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