Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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We have Mail - Colin Hasson
Hi Jan
Hope you and yours are well.
Very sorry indeed to read of the passing of dear Colin. Truly one of the industry's great characters. His contribution over a very long time was immense.
I have enjoyed many a conversation with Colin, so many times, mainly concerning our mutual passion Arsenal Football Club.
My sincerest condolences are extended to his family.
Best regards
David Garcia, chairman, Polaris Plastics
T: +44 (0)1908 211811
E: [email protected]
Hi Jan,
Remember me? It takes a lot to drag me back into the realms of the cleaning industry, but I had to write and tell you how shocked - and saddened - I was to read in the Cleanzine of the passing of Colin Hasson. Colin was probably my last regular link with the cleaning industry that I served for around 25 years around the turn of the century (and it seemed like a whole century at the time!) as press and public relations officer for the British Institute of Cleaning Science and later the British Cleaning Council as well as several other industry bodies. We exchanged Christmas cards every year and chatted on the phone every so often. He'd been around and about - always at the centre of things - for so long that I thought he was pretty much immortal. Who else will give me the gossip now?
I absolutely echo everything you said about him. He was a great guide to the ins and outs of the business, both the people and the products, and always on the inside track. Like you, I found it a constant pleasure talking to him. He was witty, cultivated and erudite - and he was both knowledgeable and opinionated, which was why I always turned to his column first in European Cleaning Journal (I suppose it can now be revealed that he was for many years the anonymous UK correspondent).
As you may possibly recollect, he took over from me in getting together the material for the BICSc Journal which appeared regularly in the pages of Cleaning & Hygiene Today, mostly because he believed that doing it himself would save the Institute the additional cost of paying me to do it, and I remember our exchanging grumbles about the terrific content tempered by Colin's total disregard for adequate punctuation.
On the other hand, if, in preparing press releases or articles, I ever needed advice or information on virtually any aspect of the industry, it was always Colin I turned to, and it was a very rare occasion indeed when he failed to come up with the goods. In return, I was glad to be able to help him with memories and photographs when he wrote the definitive history of the Institute, ‘Teach to Clean’ in 2011, the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Institute. After all, I'd done a series of articles on the 25th anniversary, and there weren't all that many of us still around who knew much about the earliest days, when BICSc was still located in the old Hop Exchange building in Southwark.
I know he'd been in and out of hospital in latter years, but I didn't know that he'd been poorly for some time.
Best wishes,
Jay Grenby
16th April 2015