<b></b><b>Timing tale </b><br> Having just put down the phone to Wimpey boss Peter Johnson - trying to get the inside track on the McAlpine takeover - Greenfield turned his attention to the newly arrived post on his desk. Among the numerous PR puff pieces lay a lovely letter from a Nichola Cain introducing Staniforth.<p></p><p> Communications as the new PR company for Alfred McAlpine Homes. Nichola would be &amp;"in touch very shortly with details of some new and exciting developments in homes - and Alfred McAlpine in particular&amp;". Better make that quick, Nichola, this could be a rather short contract.... </p><p><b><b>Marketing ghost</b></b><br> The tale of Tory leadership hopeful Iain Duncan-Smith's brief sojourn in the housebuilding industry may be more torrid than I suggested last month. For it now transpires that IDS, as he is now referred to in Tory circles, was actually marketing director of Bellwinch Homes sometime during the eighties. </p><p>If memory serves me rightly, the only man who made Bellwinch faintly noticeable in that era was Ron King, one time president of the HBF, with Ray Davies doing much to save the company and turn it around in the recession of the early nineties. I was never aware that …