Between friends
Sir: 'How,' asks my friend Bill Grundy (22 November), 'do you find out what any par-
, illiricular industrial dispute is about after the first day?' and goes on to criticise me gently for failing to follow up my story of 20 October when the engineering union voted not to go on strike the following day.
He will know by now what the outcome of the subsequent negotiations was (madden- ingly untidy it may be, but events do not occur at neat seven-day intervals just for the benefit of the Sunday papers). Having kindly quoted the opening line of my' story, Mr Grundy rather selectively failed to quote the second, which drew the readers' attention to a meeting of all the engineering unions the following Friday.
If he cares to look at the files for Saturday 26 October he will see that my morning paper colleagues all reported that meeting, making it unnecessary for me to repeat it.
If Mr Grundy really aspires, as he says, to become an expert in current affairs, the first lesson he should learn is a little patience.
Peter Paterson Industrial Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph, Fleet Street, London EC4