The day doesn't seem too far away when we can get back to sitting in the library and having a read. I have always found open libraries as strange idea. It basically means that you can access libraries when they are not staffed and once you have had your library card validated. I find being in a library on my own on a Sunday a rather strange experience - but not an unpleasant one.
Then yesterday we had a meeting of the Hethersett Dementia Support Group and a film from the East Anglian Film Archives. I'm terrible with setting up electronic equipment so you can imagine my chagrin when a number of our usual band of helpers called off and I was left with a projector, a screen, a laptop and a number of plugs and leads.
It was more hit and miss than anything else but I managed to get it all hooked up and playing and we enjoyed a film about Royalty and Royal Visits in East Anglia.
I was particularly taken by the story of a cricket match between two villages in Tolleshunt D'Arcy. The village which is in Essex looks worth a visit. It was the home of thriller writer Margery Allingham.
Each year (I think it was on the day of the cricket match) Margery and her husband invited the whole village to tea in her garden. There was a lovely interview with a man, now in his 70s, who was a boy at the time: "I had no idea that this large and jolly lady was a famous author. To us she was just someone who once a year fed all the village."
Margery sounds a delightful type. Looks like I will have to read some of her books.
The film went back as far as the 1930s but included a considerable amount of footage of the 1953 Coronation. A piece about the setting up of a new town at Harlow had particular interest for me as I spent a very enjoyable year at college there in the early 1970s.
There was an interview with the son of a factory owner who organised celebrations meals for his staff along with sports events. This guy summed up what was a more gentle age. He said the times were very different to today. Everyone was dressed so well and so respectful in enjoying themselves. He suggested the aims of young people in those days were much simpler. One day I will let you know exactly his words as they seemed to sum everything up so well.
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As you know one of my hobbies is collecting stupid answers from the quiz programme Tipping Point. Here are two more.
When asked which war was ended by the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging, the contestant said: "Well I come from Lancashire, so I'm going to say the War of the Roses." I'm not sure of the logic there but he only got the wrong war, the wrong country and was about 500 years out.
The following one is possibly even more moronic.
When asked which president Joe Biden served as vice-president under, she replied Jeremy Corbyn.
The answers were of course the Boer War and Barack Obama.