HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL
Club News
Christmas/Ladies Lunch December: Deputising for Chairman, Andrew Banfield welcomed Coulsdon and Purley Probus Members, wives, partners and guests. 53 in all including our special Christmas guest, The Reverend Malcolm Newman. Chairman, Roger Gourd, sent his apologies due to illness. £102 was raised for the Chairman’s Charity, Macmillan Cancer Support.
Following our Christmas Speaker, Andrew Banfield asked for a special thankyou to Chris Moniz for organising our lunch. Lucy and the staff of PSC were then presented with a Christmas Bonus cheque and thanked for a splendid Christmas Lunch. Ian Payne acquainted Purley Members with the Newsletter and asked for personal stories or anecdotes for future issues.
On the merger, Ian reported that from today, lunches will be joint with Purley and that the formal merger will take place after the AGM on 2nd March when a new Committee will be elected and new Rules (Handbook) and GDPR statement will be adopted.
Our usual £1 raffle raised £73 which was donated to Reverend Malcolm Newman’s charity ‘the Salvation Army’. A second raffle donated a table centre (a small Christmas tree in a wooden box with lights) to the winning lady on each table.
Please notify lunch changes by 10.30am the prior Tuesday for Thursday 2nd Feb. meeting to chris@moniz.co.uk T: 020 8660 6063. Member News please to Welfare Secretary, John Crumplin T: 020 6886 2924. Please email vincent@fosdike.com with articles/news for the Newsletter.
Christmas and Ladies Lunch December 2022
Reverend Malcolm Newman’s Christmas Talk
Malcom thanked the Club for the invitation to talk and for the lovely lunch. He told some traditional Christmas stories but with a humorous twist beginning with Noah and the Ark where the animals boarded mostly two by two but the Turkeys asked ‘Why seven of us?’ Noah was obviously thinking ahead!
Meanwhile, in Bethlehem the Inn Keeper was trying to get a good night’s sleep but continuing ‘knock, knocks’ at the door kept him awake. First a couple he could only offer the stable. Then a bright light ‘all I need’ when ‘knock, knock’ – three shepherds. He sleeps when ‘knock, knock’ – three kings – all sent to the stable. He sleeps, then Angels singing about the birth of a baby – ‘oh no not babies’. But the Inn Keeper joined those gathered round the manger – ‘isn’t he lovely’ he said.Malcolm ended with the Poem ‘The Night before Christmas’ and wished us all a Happy Christmas and New Year.
Today: Jim Mulvey: ‘Early 20th C Postcards of Croydon & Purley.’
2nd February: Mike Bunn: ‘High Speed Rail in France’
Bar Room Reminiscences – The Lady Vanishes
Will I ever see her again?
Blood was dripping steadily down her leg slowly filling her shoe. She stood bemused, surrounded by three spectators apportioning blame and thus avoiding the need for action whilst she bled. A tree sharp cutting at calf level protruded across the pavement and had cut a small vein. I recognised her as a local resident and asked her if she lived nearby. She did not reply directly but said she was on her way to visit a nursing home close by. Vague. Not sure where she meant. Decision time! The liability debate was still in full and useless flow. The injury was not an ambulance job but needed attention now. She was elderly, maybe vulnerable, perhaps a weak heart, perhaps on blood thinners, perhaps muddle headed. No, one should not “pass by on the other side”. About a hundred and fifty yards away was a community medical practice. None of us had a car. I decided she might walk there (if she collapsed half-way it would be an ambulance job).
BUT BEWARE (have you spotted the catch)? NHS bureaucracy could be the real killer. Time was ticking and blood was dripping. The injury was simple, but the process would require guile. She felt she might not walk that far but I assured her I would walk with her and do the talking when we got there. She seemed lucid as we walked. When we finally made it through the high tec self-opening doors she would follow my lead, we really had no time to waste but the NHS can have plenty if the wrong answers are given.
Like the American customs point one must NOT STEP OVER THE LINE until called forward. I halted Joyce at the line and stepped boldly up to the screen where no man goes unsummoned. I got my point in before the inevitable rebuke could be given and the expected response which would be “We are not a casualty unit, take her there”.
I sought to forestall this by saying “this poor lady has fallen in the street and we can’t stop the bleeding”. Joyce then started to correct my version, wanting to say that she had walked into a tree branch. This would have guaranteed a downgrade, and not stopped the bleeding. As she started to correct me, she picked up my slight shake of the head and stopped mid-sentence.
We had not won yet. The gatekeeper asked searchingly “is she registered here”? I called the question back across the line with a faint nod of the head. Joyce came through like a real trouper YES, she called back.
O.K. wait in the waiting area on my right.
Bingo! I have no knowledge as to the truth of that, but she scuttled off and took a seat.
Now for the all-important exit strategy! We really did not want to risk being branded a fake. If they then returned to ask for her details and I was available a lot more time could be wasted. I think and hope that J. had the strength of character and wits to “go passive” in the face of enquiries as I left via the back door emergency exit. Thus, they had a simple choice of diverting a doctor to her or calling an ambulance.
I never her saw again. She was tall and wore a green hat. I asked a few shop keepers, and the café staff close to where the blood stains are still faintly visible when you know what to look for. But no one can help. I even asked someone who looked at first glance like her, it was not her.
I truly hope she is well as I felt we had been a good team and deserved a happy ending.
Story told by a former member of the health authority (anonymously).