I was sad to hear of the passing of Barry Humphries, following the equally sad loss of Paul O’Grady and the tragic loss at such a young age of Paul Cattermole from S Club 7.  My nan used to say you can tell you’re getting older when the celebrities you know from your youth start passing away.

But as well as sadness there’s happy memories.  We remember concerts we went to or maybe TV shows or movies in which they featured. Most of all we allow ourselves a moment to remember their skills and achievements, we reflect on just how good they were at what they did.

I don’t believe in regrets, everything happens for a reason, but even so I have a few. Once the wonderful actor Kate O’Mara stayed at a hotel where I was duty manager.  I bought her a bouquet of flowers and put them in her room prior to her arrival with a welcome card. She came down to thank whoever had done this, I was too nervous to go out to meet her, big regret.

Celebrities now seem much more accessible.  We can send them social media messages but they can’t read every message… can they? Do we actually get a chance to tell them how much we appreciate them?

Sometimes at work we don’t realise at the time who has had a great influence on us. Maybe what you learn doesn’t come into play until much later in your career or their approach was so hard on you at the time you don’t reflect on what they are trying to develop or invest in you.  One of my interview questions for potential managers is ‘In your career who do you feel has been your biggest influence?’

Many years ago I worked at Granada Studios Tours – sadly long gone. It was the best job I ever had!  I started as a kitchen porter and have never forgotten how hard that team worked.  Then I moved to Burger King on a wonderful New York set resplendent with yellow taxis, and finally Mrs Hudsons Potato shop on a complete Victorian Baker Street as used at the time for the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes Series (my bins were behind Mavis Riley’s House on the actual Coronation Street set!).

in overall charge of retail and catering was Janet Jenkins. She ran her two divisions with a rod of iron, even managers vanished if they saw her coming. But my goodness she drilled those standards into us ‘corners, walls and floors, Jason, if they look clean, everything is clean’. I never forgot that, and it’s a mantra I instill in teams today.  Most of the people I’m still in touch with from those days in catering moved on to management and I think we all took some of that learning from her but we were all too scared of her at the time to appreciate what she was teaching us.

Now and again I’m reminded of those early days.  Like recently, when I was on the way to Clare and Andy’s wedding.  Clare was my manager from Mrs Hudsons’, and has become a  lifelong friend.  Thank you Clare for teaching me so much about operational management and planning for busy shifts (and boy were we busy!). Also thank you, Janet. I’m not sure any of us said this at the time or maybe even realised what a big impact you had on us, so now I’ve finally had a chance to say it.

So think who is your biggest influence and, if they are around now, tell them.  if it’s from the past try to send a message. They may never realise the impact they have had on others, and leaving it to tomorrow may be simply too late.