… or at least that was how it seemed.  Imagine if you will a doctor’s waiting room.  Patients, all of them wrapped up in their own thoughts, avoiding eye contact, wondering if the symptoms they had experienced really were symptoms, some perhaps even inventing them to get a week off work, and then ….. someone says “I’m not feeling well!”. Imagine the embarrassment, what do you say next?  Everybody looks at the floor.

Well, we had a similar experience at the annual management committee meeting of the Penrhyn estate.  We all gathered in Julie’s front room, we were about a dozen in total, three of us representing no. 14, and the rest fellow residents.  The appointed hour, six o’clock, arrived and became history.  The secretary was installed at Julie’s tray table, the secretary’s assistant, who collects the revenues was there, a timid chap, always immaculately turned out with slicked back hair, but on this occasion wearing slippers as he is obviously indoors.  The secretary’s wife took names, the secretary’s assistant took names, the secretary shuffled papers, and a chair was vacant; the Chairman was awaited.

The secretary’s assistant tried to get conversation going, but only emulated a slightly damp firework.  The secretary shuffled papers.  Chairs became an issue, so Harry and the secretary’s assistant were despatched to fetch more, which arrived, we shuffled about a bit and settled down, but the meeting still awaited the chairman. The secretary shuffled papers and the silence roared.  The secretary’s assistant tried once again to stimulate some humorous group conversation which again failed. No, Julie hadn’t organised fish and chips, and his family were visiting two weeks prior to Christmas. The secretary shuffled papers.

The secretary’s assistant told a joke.  We laughed politely. The secretary shuffled papers.  The secretary’s assistant was now feeling bolder and took from Julie the parish magazine and turned to the joke page, proceeding to tell a number of what were obviously children’s jokes, enunciating each word very clearly as we obviously were all at the doctor’s with hearing problems.  It turned out that the chairman (who drives a Porsche) was travelling from Bristol, but nobody knew how to contact him; silence and shuffling took over. Except that one person has his mobile number, so rang him from her mobile; no answer which made the secretary shuffle more papers. The suggestion was made that we started the meeting slowly to await his arrival; the secretary declined so we all subsided again, and inspected the carpet.

Then he arrived, flustered, and had some papers of his own to shuffle, including the agenda.  Got to the point of Chairman’s statement – “I have had a conversation with the secretary, and I am willing to listen to any idea as to how we take this forward”.  Pardon?  It transpires that he had just resigned, followed by the secretary (who by now had obviously run out of papers to shuffle).  Now everybody shuffled nervously knowing what the next question would be; “who would like to take this over?”

Possibly not the oldest person there, but one who definitely had hearing problems tried unsuccessfully to move the agenda on to re-election of post holders without success (after all they had just resigned!), and then became quite obnoxiously aged and asked the question as to which youngster would like to take over.  At this point “the youngsters” all had hearing problems.  We know the symptoms, had the diagnosis, just don’t know the medicine or the prognosis, so we shuffled the chairs back from whence they came.