The Wine and Spirit Association today said it was sad to announce that its former director, Dick Insoll, died peacefully on 2 May.
He retired officially in 1992 after many years distinguished service with the UK trade, and continued in a consultancy capacity as secretary to the Association’s Freight Forwarders Group until the day he died.
Details for his memorial service will be provided in due course.
Having completed his National Service in the Royal Artillery (1945 – 1947) Dick took employment in the administration of the transport industry – a sector in which he was to retain an interest throughout his life – but still found time to study for an external degree with London University. This willingness to learn and an eye to detail remained important strands to his character.
In 1969, however, a change of career saw him become Secretary of the Wine & Spirit Association. The then Director was John Mahoney, a specialist in wine and spirit law. While he did not always see eye to eye with his Director, Dick was to learn from him the value of close study of those laws important to the Trade. A little later, he succeeded Mahoney: an eventful chapter in the Association’s history had begun.
Under successive chairmen – Guy Gordon Clark, Peter Noble, David Rutherford, and George Bull among them – and using Circulars, symposia, and his own (sometimes waspish) sense of humour, Dick prepared the Association’s membership for the effects on their businesses of the UK’s Accession to Europe and the subsequent tidal waves of change. A lateral thinker, he took great pride in his professionalism, using it to network (before that term was ever coined!) both at home – in the UK’s Ministry of Agriculture, HM Customs & Excise, and Parliament – and abroad where, with his permanently correct manner and very English morning suit, he became a familiar figure within all the relevant Departments of the European Commission. He helped to initiate the European Federation of Wine & Spirit Importers and Distributors (where his counsel became legendary) and became its first Director. He also set up the Association’s three bilateral groups – one of which was then known as the Anglo French Liaison Group which successfully advocated the commercialisation of ‘Vins de Pays’, until then merely an authorised term.
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Whilst a very private man, Dick derived great pleasure from representing the Trade at meetings with Government, with his peers from Scotch Whisky, Gin, beer and those from such contiguous sectors as Freight Transport. He enjoyed working with the Association’s Officers and the Chairmen of the Regional and Provincial Associations and, with the current Chairman, making the Annual Goodwill Visit to a wine producing country or region. [One year this meant visiting Sicily where, he claimed (Dick’s quirky interest in matters pertaining to the Mafia was well known), he had seen many small men in black hats and suits sitting in the squares, watching….]
Dick was meticulous in his attendance of Association meetings at every level, always displaying great interest in the Membership’s affairs. Because of his Trade-wide exposure, his incisive comments on knotty points were always sought. If he wasn’t at a particular meeting then the Committee concerned knew instinctively that he had been called away to some other duty. During his 23 years at the Association he had become ‘an Institution’.
Although Dick Insoll retired in 1992 – when he was rewarded by the warmth of the host of friends who gathered at Vintners Hall on 30 June to mark his contribution to the Trade and by the presentation of yet another foreign decoration, the Légion d’Honneur – he continued his connection with the Association’s Freight Forwarders Group until his death.
Perhaps the best epitaph for Dick is ” A Man of Respect”
Obituary by John G Burton and Peter Lewis
