One of my most endearing memories of Ian (Moyesy as he was affectionately known to us) was once again a business trip, where Ian’s competitive spirit came to the fore. As was often the case in the formulative years for the Siemens PKU (Partner Concept), the event entailed long days of slides and presentations, punctuated by even longer nights and early mornings of “networking” with the other countries, which on this occasion included amongst others Holland, Italy, Poland, Germany, France and Belgium.

The event itself was held in Garmisch, at the Sonnenbichl Hotel, which has fantastic views straight out on to the awe inspiring German Alps. I can’t remember the exact date, but I think it was around the November of 1994.  The highlight of the 3 day event was the penultimate night, when we escaped the confines of the hotel and headed for a Hutte in the mountains, taking our lighted beacons with us as the entire party of some 50 people marched through the fresh snow on the mountain tracks.

Once we arrived at the Hutte we were divided into our respective countries and invited to participate in a series of increasingly bizarre “Bavarian” challenges.  Ian was team captain and immediately decided The Brits were going to win and started picking the appropriate participants from the team for each event.  The first event was a precision challenge where 2 “lumberjacks” had to saw an exact weight of wood from a log where synchronisation was key.  This was followed by a beer quaffing challenge, which entailed drinking as much as you could in one attempt from a Stein and then holding the Glass (heavy with no beer in it) in front of you for as long as possible – this was where the amount of beer consumed played a vital part.  Fortunately, Ian had selected our honorary Bavarian beer monster, Guenter Sebus for this event and he duly held out longest to get us off to a flying start.  Next, each country had to nominate a singer and Mark (Mitchell) and myself performed the only song we knew the words to which was the classic Rolf Harris number, “Two Little Boys”.

The next event was where Ian, as usual led from the front going way beyond the call of duty for the team – after all he wanted to win.  The challenge was to pull an evil looking hook with a weight on the end, which we were told was used to weigh cheese.  Most countries made a token effort for a few seconds and then gave it up as a bad job, because it was virtually impossible to move the weight.  Ian got hold of the hook and then went through the pain barrier for fully 3 minutes - admittedly with his team mates egging him on vociferously.  (We have got the photo somewhere, which we are hunting for ! ).  Eventually Ian succumbed, but took first prize by a distance for the weight pulled and then revealed his pulling hand, which had been sliced open like a tin can by the said evil hook. 

The final event was where Ian’s management skills came to the fore.  This time the challenge was for the team to collectively hoover up a line of snuff.  Ian put his 2 big guns (noses) on first and messrs Algar and Mitchell by now well lubricated followed the captain’s earlier example of no pain no gain (and with a distinct nasal advantage where size does matter) proceeded to hoover up the entire snuff trail in relay before the other teams had come out of the blocks. (my nose is still blocked to this day). This was enough to secure the Gold medal as winners of the Bavarian Olympics.  The “British”celebrations were long and plentiful into the night.

One of my lasting memories was the following morning, where Ian ( for once slightly worse for wear) having rejected the translation for the previous 2 days succumbed to the dreaded headset for the non German speakers, to get a time delayed translation of the presentations.