We are always pleased to hear from customers how much they enjoy our products and we are consequently all the more concerned that you have purchased one which does not come up to the high standard you have come to expect.
We make our soup in huge kettles, much larger than the original Mrs Baxter ever used, and although the mix is heated up to boiling point, the vegetables are not actually "cooked" until they are sealed in a can. We do notice that, even with the huge stirrers we use, the bottom of the kettle can be thicker than the top. As we are aware of this, we take the first and the last few cans off to ensure that our discerning consumers only have the traditional Cock-a- Leekie Soup normally associated with Baxters. It would appear in this instance that you have purchased one of the cans which should have been removed. You may be sure, however, that your complaint will be the subject of investigation with our Production Manager. In order to assist us with our investigation I would be grateful if you could return to us the coded end of the can concerned, if this is still available; unfortunately the bar code on the label does not give us the information we require. I enclose a prepaid envelope for this purpose.
As a gesture of our goodwill, I have pleasure in enclosing some vouchers which will enable you to obtain replacement Baxter products from your local store. I hope you will accept these with our compliments and that you enjoy the products you choose. Also enclosed is some information about our Visitors Centre which I hope you will find of interest.
Assuring you of our best attention at all times.
Yours sincerely,
Miss M Macpherson
Quality Audit Manager
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
1st April
Miss M Macpherson
Quality Audit Manager
Baxters of Speyside Ltd
Fochabers
Your ref 20517
Dear Miss Macpherson
Thank you for your prompt and informative reply, and for the gift vouchers, which I passed on to the needy. However, your letter leaves me confused to say the least. You write that you make your soup in huge kettles, 'much larger than the original Mrs. Baxter ever used', yet your television advertisement clearly shows Edna Baxter making the soup in her kitchen using ordinary utensils. Perhaps you can clear this up for me?
I look forward to your reply.
Yours faithfully
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
PS. Since my initial letter to you I have become a real fan of Cock-a-Leekie flavoured rice pudding. If you'd like to try it for yourself I've found that 85 per cent Ambrosia Creamed Rice to 15 per cent Cock-a-Leekie Soup gives the best results. If you were to market this as Cock-of-Puddings I am quite sure you would have a winner on your hands.
****
BAXTERS
9th April
Reference : 20517
Mr Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
Cheshire
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your letter of 1st April, further to your complaint about a can of our Cock-a-Leekie Soup.
The television advert depicting Mrs Baxter shows her developing new recipes in her kitchen. These recipes are then transferred into the factory where we indeed use huge kettles in the preparation of over 50 million cans of soup per year.
I hope this satisfactorily answers your enquiry and that we can continue to count on your valued custom.
Assuring you of our best attention at all times.
Yours sincerely,
Miss M Macpherson
Quality Audit Manager
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
11th April
Your ref 20517
Miss M Macpherson
Quality Audit Manager
Baxters of Speyside
Fochabers
Dear Miss Macpherson
You can always count on my valued custom. I have been enjoying your soups ever since I can remember, and the fact that you choose to mislead the general public with your television commercial won't stop me now.
You didn't mention whether or not you might have any interest in my idea for 'Cock-of Puddings'. Since I last wrote to you I have improved it with the addition of a little nutmeg and a hint of honey, and it really is quite something now, even if I say so myself. I had friends round for dinner the other evening and served it up as desert with a spoonful of Robertson's Raspberry Jam, and everyone present voted it an unqualified success. Indeed Laura Barker remarked that it was ‘to die for’.
My kindest regards to you.
Yours faithfully
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
BAXTERS
22 April
Reference : 20517
Mr Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
Cheshire
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your recent letter, further to your original complaint about a can of our Cock-a-Leekie Soup.
We do not make desserts and hence my not picking up on your 'Cock of Pudding' suggestion.
Assuring you of our best attention at all times.
Yours sincerely,
Miss M Macpherson
Quality Audit Manager
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
25th April
Your ref 20517
Miss M Macpherson
Quality Audit Manager
Baxter's of Speyside Ltd
Fochabers
Dear Miss Macpherson
I was sorry to learn that you don't make desserts, but then at one time you didn't make soups did you, so I'm quite sure you will change your mind once you've tasted Cock-of- Puddings, a sample of which I enclose. And here’s a snap of it that you may like to use in your advertising campaign for it, which I feel sure you are bound to mount.
This is the definitive version, and consists of 4 parts of Ambrosia Creamed Rice to 1 part of Baxters Cock-a-Leekie Soup, half a teaspoon of honey, quarter of a teaspoon of minced root ginger, and a little nutmeg. Utter bliss!
I haven't got canning facilities of course, but the old salmon tin I have put it in has been thoroughly sterilised in Milton, before re-sealing the tin lid with superglue, so you have nothing to fear on the health front.
My family and I plan to visit your Visitor Centre on the 23rd of May, and your factory the following day, all being well. By then you and Ena Baxter will have had the chance to sample Cock-of-Puddings and evaluate it. Indeed I will be very surprised if you're not producing it in vast quantities in one of your huge kettles by then. Whereabouts is you office, I'll drop in on you?
Incidentally, the expression 'to die for', which I told you was used by Laura Barker to describe Cock-of-Pudding, proved to be a little unfortunate, as two days later she dropped dead. But I'm quite sure it had nothing to do with the pudding.
My regards to you.
Yours faithfully
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
BAXTERS
9 May
Reference : 20517
Mr Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
Cheshire
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your most recent letter about your Cock of Puddings. The sample which you kindly returned to us had deteriorated in the post and I am sure you would appreciate our reluctance to taste it.
Finally, I do hope you enjoy your visit to the factory in May. Unfortunately I will be away on holiday in the USA that week, but I am sure that the Visitor Centre staff will ensure your visit is most enjoyable.
Yours sincerely,
Miss M Macpherson
Quality Audit Manager
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
> 11th May
Your ref 20517
Miss M Macpherson
Quality Audit Manager
Baxter's of Speyside Ltd
Fochabers
Dear Miss Macpherson
Coward.
Yours faithfully
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
31st March
Spam
Thetford
Norfolk
Dear Spam
About a month ago I at last took the plunge, bought myself a computer, and became a Silver Surfer (actually I am a bald surfer but I believe Silver Surfer is the name that has been conferred upon old age pensioner computer owners).
With the computer and internet connection came email, which I find very handy. One thing I don’t find very handy is all the unsolicited email I am now receiving. Up to fifty messages a day and increasing daily. A younger friend who has been surfing for some time and has experience in these matters tells me that this unwanted mail is called Spam.
Which is the reason I am writing to you. Just what is your game? I can’t for the life of me think why you should want to do this, except to make money. Why can’t you people at Spam be satisfied doing what you are good at, i.e. making excellent chopped pork and ham luncheon meat, and stop sending people messages they don’t want? The other day I had one asking me if I wanted to buy an inflatable rubber woman! Not only was this disgusting but at £11.90 it was very poor value too.
Kindly remove my name of your mailing list at once.
Yours sincerely
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
SPAM up for the taste
Mr T Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
11 April
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
Thank you for your letter of 31 March regarding Spam. We would like to assure you that we are not responsible for the SPAM mail you have been receiving during your email.
Spam mail is defined by the University of Glasgow as:-
“unsolicited, or ‘junk’ email that is analogous to unwanted circulars that are received in paper mail.”
and is in no way linked with our company. If you wish to prevent unsolicited emails there are many different methods available on the internet to prevent such mail that can be found via an internet search.
Whilst you are on the internet you may wish to visit our site at www.spam-uk.com where you will find lots of real SPAM information, comments and recipes.
I hope this information is of use to you and would like to thank you for your interest in our brand.
Yours Sincerely
Stuart Neal
Technical Assistant.
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
14th April
Stuart Neil
Technical Assistant
Spam
Thetford
Dear Stuart Neal
Ref your reply to my letter of 31 March.
Do I feel a fool! Thanks for putting me right. Thanks also for pointing me in the direction of your very interesting and informative website, on which I spent a pleasant half-hour or so this morning (after I had got rid of yesterday’s Spam). I shall certainly be trying your Stinky French Garlic Spam, which sounds like heaven to a garlic lover like me.
In fact your informing me of your website has solved a little problem I had vis-à-vis my other half. Her birthday is coming up very shortly and as usual I didn’t know what to get her. I do now. A pair of your Spam Earrings, price £9.50. I have sent for a pair and can’t wait to see her face when I give them to her.
Yours sincerely
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
28th April
Stuart Neil
Technical Assistant
Spam
Thetford
Dear Stuart Neal
Further to my letter of 14th April.
The Spam earrings arrived just in time for my wife’s birthday, and very nice they were too. She said that she liked them as much as she likes Spam, which is quite a lot, but thanks all the same but she didn’t want them as she has several friends who are vegetarians and if she were to wear the Spam earrings in their company it wouldn’t be in very good taste.
I was therefore left with a pair of Spam earrings on my hands. However, so that they wouldn’t be a complete waste of money I decided to open them and have the Spam on a sandwich. Imagine my surprise when on opening up the little tins I found them to be more or less solid metal with not a trace of Spam inside!
This is quite beyond the pale. I realise they are only earrings but they are Spam earrings and as such should contain Spam in them. And now they can’t even be used as earrings as I ruined them beyond repair trying to get the non-existent Spam out.
I would be interested in your observations and my money back.
Yours sincerely
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
NO REPLY!
****
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
CHESHIRE
19th March
McVities
Admail 827
Fakenham
Norfolk
Dear McVities
I'm afraid that I have a rather serious complaint to make about one of your vegetarian products. I’m a vegetarian and yesterday I purchased a packet of your Linda McCartney Deep Country Pies from my local supermarket, and later heated them up for supper along with some oven chips, for my three children and myself. I have to report that in at least one of the pies, the pie eaten by me, was a quantity of meat. It is difficult to believe that with a pie whose ingredients already include water, wheatflour, vegetable oil, onion, rehydrated soya protein concentrate, vegetarian seasoning, modified starch, wheat protein, soya flour, salt, malt extract and sodium, that there would be any room left in it for meat, but meat in it there was. There could very well have been meat in the other three pies as well, but unfortunately my children had eaten them before I had the chance to check. (The speed with which my children dispatched the pies would suggest that they did indeed contain meat, since they are reluctant vegetarians at best, and anything put before them with meat in it tends to go down their throats without touching the sides.)
Needless to say I am very disappointed in your 'vegetarian' pies and certainly won't be buying any more.
I would like your comments on this as I may decide to take the matter further with the appropriate authorities.
Yours faithfully
T Ravenscroft (Mr)
****
McVities
Our Ref: CW0064
8 April
Mr Ravenscroft
17 Lingland Road
New Mills
Cheshire
Dear Mr Ravenscroft
I write further to your letter dated the 1st April, regarding your complaint of a recent purchase of our Linda McCartney Deep Country Pies, which you believe contained meat. On behalf of the Company I would like to apologise for the upset and the inconvenience that you have been caused.
Dear Coca-Cola Page 2
