Poking the hornet’s next…

Dr Terry Quarmby gives his considered response to our latest editorial.

Terry QuarmbyWell it seems that our unerring ability to tickle the nerve of the global demolition industry remains undaunted.

Our latest edition of This Week in Demolition, in which we once again bemoaned the lack of women of influence in the demolition sector, has been met head on by former IDE president Dr Terry Quarmby. And, even though we don’t necessarily agree with all of what he has to say, we respect his opinion above most others in the industry and are, therefore, delighted to air his response (with his permission) here:

As much as I like to agree with you on many subject matters, I have to strongly disagree regarding women in the UK demolition industry at senior level.

For one, Holly Bennett is to be the next chair of the London and Southern Region of NFDC and she will no doubt go on to become the National President.

At IDE we had a woman president over 10 years ago, in Mary Bradley, way ahead of the yanks and Europe, as always. We also have had the IDE national secretary as a woman, which is a very influential and difficult role, for a goodly number of years now.

There are also a number of women running UK demolition companies very successfully too, i.e. Sharon Haskell, Julia Comley and a couple of others whose names escape me.

So we are not behind anyone. We are in fact way ahead of the game, as the saying goes and long may it be that way,