Gene, I hope you won't mind me contacting you like this. We haven't actually met but you are friends with my uncle...

Gene, I do hope you won't mind me contacting you like this. We haven't actually met but you are friends with my uncle...

It is an uneventful October afternoon in the school staffroom - lunchtime break. Some arguments going on as I had been stirring things up. It is a few days after Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and I am taking full advantage of this news. I had been saying for years that Bob should get the award. When I first started saying this many years ago people laughed at me. But as usual I did know what I was talking about and now here it was and I am certainly making capital of the event.

BOB DYLAN   ...   winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Enough stirring accomplished I head upstairs to the sanctuary of my Sixth Form office...


I open up my emails. I delete the rubbish (in other words anything about UCAS. Tee! Hee! Hee!) and am almost deleting the email titled 'Gene, I hope you won't mind me contacting you like this. We haven't actually met but you are friends with my uncle...'  when  on a sixth sense I open it. Boy am I glad I did! 


...

All that afternoon the contents of that email kept running through my head. So much so that when I was on the phone ordering copies of NUTSHELLS CONTRACT LAW by Robert Duxbury I said Robert Detterling causing momentary confusion.

In the end I phoned Tony of the big saloon and arranged to talk to him about the email after work. We don't teach in the same school so I arranged that we meet up in the Harris & Hoole coffee bar in Uxbridge High Street at 5.00pm. I arrived at the coffee bar early. They do wonderful hand-roasted coffee here. I sat at a table looking out towards Uxbridge Underground Station. Just love that sculpture by Anita Lafford in front of the station. Entitled 'Anticipation' it is quite conventional but has a definite charm. I love the way families often congregate around it.

ANTICIPATION by Anita Lafford

I took out my mobile smart phone which has FM radio, plugged in my earpiece, and listened to the PM programme on Radio 4. Serendipitously there was a feature broadcast about Bob Dylan being awarded the Nobel Prize. It seems that Bob has so far not made any acknowledgement of being awarded the prize and it's not known if he will attend the award ceremonies - or even if he will accept the prize. Some nobody from the Swedish Academy is calling Bob's silence extremely rude. Good old Bob!

I was so engrossed in the radio that I didn't see Tony arrive. I went to the counter and bought Tony a chocolate muffin and a cappuccino and had another black coffee myself.


"Well, in a nutshell Tony, I have had an email from Detterling's ginger nephew. He has had a major rift for some years with his uncle and seems to feel that I may be in a position to help heal things."


"You sure the email is kosher?" Tony responded. "Oh yes. No question. Some details about my correspondence with his uncle only he could have known," I assured him.

Tony replied,"Gene you have always been known to lend a helping hand to those in need. I guess you will do the same here."


I hesitated a little and said, "Yes, I have had much correspondence with Detterling for almost twelve years now. However I have not had intercourse with his nephew. I wonder if I am the right man for the task."


"If Detterling's nephew has taken the trouble of contacting you then he must be confident you can help. I'm sure he will bend over backwards to make sure everything will pan out," ventured Tony.


...

Despite Tony's reassurance I remained in Hamlet-like indecision all evening. Should I reply to that email? I couldn't sleep. I got out of bed and knocked on Marianne's bedroom door. (Since the children have left home we have separate bedrooms. It's ideal really and saves Marianne a lot of discomfort when I arrive home from the Good Yarn Friday nights semi-plastered after six pints of Tuborg and maybe a couple of Jameson's Irish whiskies.)

I talked to Marianne about my dilemma over the email from Detterling's nephew. (She never reads my blog by the way.)


Marianne didn't want to know and asked me to close the door quietly behind me on the way out.

To be continued