Do you remember when you were younger. You’d get some new clothes, a suit maybe, or a new haircut. As a result, you walked just a bit taller. You had an air; a swagger.
During the back-to-back presidencies of Dr Terry Quarmby and John Woodward, the Institute of Demolition Engineers had that same swagger. It was brimming with self-confidence and ambition. And that ambition was both magnetic and contagious.
Sadly, in the years since John Woodward relinquished the IDE hot seat, that swagger has been slowly eroded by Brexit, a global pandemic, some presidencies that were so forgettable that I genuinely cannot remember them, a stalling in the Institute’s Degree Course, and by the protracted process of parting ways with the former National Secretary.
Aside from a smattering of Midlands events, I stopped attending IDE meetings a good number of years ago. Those events were still attended by (and even …