INTEGRITY. Rodney Hunt's retirement, at 57 years young, next March from his post as md of The Today's Group has made headlines.
Known to many as Rod - sometimes used by suppliers as in rod of iron - he has had the advantage of growing (in an intellectual sense) with the job.
When Peter Garvin and Dudley Ramsden diversified into wholesaling after building Nisa, a hugely successful mould-breaking model for retailer strength-through-numbers and widely copied, Rodney was in that inspired team.
Today's was the result of the merger of Target and the National Independent Wholesalers' Association, or NIWA. It then grew like Topsy.
Planning a buying group for wholesalers in the 1980s over tea and biscuits at the Crown Hotel, Bawtry, were heady days. Since then Rodney has rightly become known as Mr Integrity.
WISDOM. Now it can be told. Rodney was the distinguished chairman of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors in 2003 when it was alone in fighting the acquisition of Adminstore (Cullen's etc in London) by Tesco.
The trade association took the fight to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) to contest the passive OFT nodding through the deal.
But suddenly, overnight, Tesco threateningly intervened in the case with its massed ranks of expensive top barristers.
FWD faced bankruptcy if CAT ruled against it. FWD's legal advisors, faced with the Treasury-backed OFT top-drawer legal eagles plus the Tesco bottom-less pit funded lawyers, advised withdrawal.
For reasons which have disappeared into the mists of obscurity, Bill Grimsey, head of The Big Food Group (now defunct) which included Booker, disagreed with the withdrawal and took Booker out of FWD.
STRENGTH. The Rod of iron came into his own. As chairman of the Federation, Rodney showed great calmness and leadership in the face of the organisation losing a high-profile member.
FWD not only remained intact - it became stronger than ever. It took pleasure in the eventual judgment of the court which laid down an important precedent.
The CAT said that future appeals against the regulators must not be inhibited by legal cost considerations - in other words small companies or organisations should not be discouraged from testing daft decisions by the CC or OFT through fear of having to pay huge costs if they lose.
And there was another happy ending. Booker, today a success under Charles Wilson, returned to the FWD fold to take a leading role in promoting and defending industry interests.
SUPPORT. Tesco gets support for its decision to follow FWD's food industry pioneering knock on the door of the CAT. The giant multiple wants the court to throw out the local competition test which the recent Competition Commission review recommended.
But using the CAT is the only way to get a "truly independent view of any issue " says AW Gilmour Stubbs, former md of a Cheshire salt works.
Reflecting the convenience lobby's frustration at its failure to persuade the CC that small shops do not get a fair deal, he says the CC acts as investigator, prosecutor, jury and judge to merely serve its own cause.
It's time to ask the CAT to make the OFT and the CC redundant and to set up my new regulator, the GIT, or the Guaranteed Impartial Trust. It's a memorable acronym and can only do better job.
RECOVERED. Mention of The Big Food Group, which many Booker employees past and present will recall, brings news that " The Bills" are no longer a duo.
Bill Hoskins and Bill Grimsey worked together at Wickes in the 1990s before moving on to run TBFG. Described in The Daily Telegraph as "turnaround specialists", the paper says Hoskins has resigned as finance director of Focus, the DIY retailer where Grimsey is now the boss.
The City says Booker's recovery programme post-TBFG is now working so well that the Aim-listed company has plans to move to the main market by next spring.
CRUNCH. Our doormat sees absolutely nothing, absolutely zilch, in the way of colourful and persuasive offer leaflets from local independent stores - except one - as the credit crunch tightens its hold.
But the local Lidl and independent Bargain Booze bombard us with their literature. Stooping to pick them up to see what they are up to, our family notes price-cut after price-cut given blazing prominence.
Yet we have the usual sprinkling of symbol and unaffiliateds in the community. Are the non-leafleteers immune to the squeeze? What's going on?
Lidl is currently ahead in the red wine race with a 2006 Tempranillo DO Valdepenas at £2.99 for a single bottle, £1 under the Bargain Booze cheapest red single bottle price. For white lovers, Lidl has a 2007 Pedro Jiminez 13% at an unchallengeable £2.22 for a single bottle. Their car park is packed day in, day out.
PARKING. Retailers need a strong voice to help them overcome the growing official culture of anti-independent parking enforcement.
Alma Floyd tipped off customers when so-called "community" support officers approached her shop in Cheddar, Somerset, to ticket cars parked on the pavement outside - it's been done for 60 problem-free years!
Now local police have had a Stalinist purge - and Alma's trade is well down. She has been threatened with arrest if she continues to alert customers to the approach of the ticketers.
Come on Jacqui Smith, our caring Home Secretary. Please tell the police to hunt muggers, burglars and knife-carriers - and while you are at it please support retailers by encouraging the police to help when youths gather outside small shops, thus intimidating potential customers.
PATRIOTS. We must support British food producers. It's a no-brainer. But the recent Tesco product recall (it can happen to anybody so do not gloat) involved its own-label canned beans and sausage, the press ads gave the game away.
The product was made in Italy. Vigilante does not believe that such a simple, elementary and conventional item cannot be produced in our own green and pleasant land.
TEMPTATIONS. The power-crazed Department of Health seeks to transfer cigarette displays from behind to under the counter to protect youngsters who might start smoking under the influence of the colourful packs. True!
In our experience, the first temptations to smoke - and indulge in other teenage pleasures - arise in school bike sheds. Will these handy hide-aways now be banned?
Will Government proposals to ban the display of tobacco in retail premises damage the wholesale sector?
