Backchat had a great time at the Insurance Industry Awards 2000 bash last Friday in Birmingham. He saw a lot of friends and, so swelled were the numbers this year, was still bumping into old chums the following morning, having missed them in the crowds the night before.
Going through the several hundreds of photos of the evening brought back some enjoyable memories too. But Backchat was amazed to see one person appearing in more photos than anyone else. She appeared even more times, it seemed than Zurich staff – and Zurich was in a lot of pictures as it walked away with seven awards.
Who was this person? Backchat needed a clue.
First she appeared next to Insurance Times senior reporter Mike Cooper. Perhaps she was a PR woman attempting to snake her way into his charms.
Then again, there she was with Mike Slack, the naval-clad skipper of the Association of Insurance Brokers and Intermediaries (AIIB) (and host for the evening Clive Anderson). Could she be an AIIB stalwart, Backchat wondered. Or was it just a case of all the nice girls loving a sailor?
But wait, there she was again but this time with Graham Gomm, erstwhile head honcho at AIIB arch-rival the Institute of Insurance Brokers (IIB). Was she with the IIB and, if so, what secrets did the Mata Hari glean from the slack Slack? No slacking on her part, clearly.
And then Backchat found a photo just of her, on her own, and realised that the photographers, both male, had simply been keen to photograph the woman, probably just to use up the film. Clearly she had not minded.
So who was she?
She was, of course, Elizabeth Adams-Reid, technical services executive of the IIB. So that should put an end to the gossip then.
