months given a warm welcome to John Woodward (Area Life Inspector), Chris Scott (Resident Secretary at Bath), Richard Adams (Inspector at Gloucester) and Richard Chivers. The last named returned to us from our office in Jos, Nigeria, arriving in a sports car which he maintains has *E.P. instead of H.P.
* (E)lephant (P)ower.
A few weeks ago Mr Murdoch in his capacity as representative for Mr Peter Scott, spent a pleasant day with us and was able to meet and talk with members of the staff. It was a purely social occasion and we hope that Mr Murdoch enjoyed his short visit. We were very pleased to receive him.

Croydon
This year we have welcomed several school leavers to maintain the strength of our combined department. Our most recent addition was enlisted a few days ago - Ralph Horne from Head Office who joins our accident department. Our photograph shows Mr and Mrs Boots who were married on the 11th

September. As well as a particularly enthusiastic send-off from the young ladies of the office, which included the adornment of his car with toilet rolls, toothpaste and dubious slogans of advice, Martin Boots of the claims department was presented by the staff with a suitcase.
The following week Chris Oxenham who recently joined our motor department was married. The day before his wedding Chris was given a canteen of cutlery. Both young men appear to have recovered most satisfactorilv from traumatic shock considering they are both now married and their morale seems high.
In the Bob Dibble familv, 1971 appears to have been an eventful year whilst Bob was making arrangements to vacate his desk in the accident department to become an inspector his wife was also preparing to give birth to his son, Mark Ian.
On the 12th March Mr Bartlett, No. 1 of our fire department became the proud father of a son Robert John.

Exeter
As a postscript to the last edition, our skittles team finished sixth out of fourteen in the local Institute Competition. We are grateful to David Maude for the work he did as captain and we hope that we shall do as well, even if not better, under this year's captain, Peter Leaman.
Whilst still on the subject of sport, Peggy Odam captained the Exeter Team

in an Institute Tournamentbetween Exeter and Plymouth. Thanks largely to her and Geoff Parker's efforts, Exeter won the Tournament, as a result of which Peggy received the Trophy at the Local Institute's President's Evening in September.
This year our Resident Secretary Brian Nolan is President of the Barnstaple Institute. We offer him our congratulations and wish him an enjoyable and successful term of office.
The only staff change of any significance this year occurred when we swapped Ian Forrest of our motor department with Peter Jackson who came from Birmingham. Within a very short time, Peter made his presence felt by popping out of the office late one afternoon and locking himself out, and all the staff in! He then had to find the nearest phone booth to ring us so as to get back to his post.
Two weddings have been celebrated in the past few months, the first being Graham White of our fire department to Daphne Sarahs, a nurse at a local hospital. Apart from this notable achievement we must congratulate Graham on gaining the Local Institute Prize for the best examination paper in Part A.
The other wedding was that of Miss Sandra Love of our accident department to Anthony Kelly, a dental technician.
Finally we congratulate Steve Baldock, Inspector at our Truro Office on becoming a father to a baby girl Nichola on 21St May.