by Andrew Newman
by Andrew Newman
o winners for the Editor at Newbury Racecourse last month at the Be Wiser Race Day. However, among the day’s highlights was a visit to the Newbury Royal Box for a glass of champagne, kindly laid on by Mark Bowyer-Dyke, Andrew Dunkeley and their team. Arriving a minute or two after the main party, it was my pleasure to witness a papal blessing being conducted from the first floor balcony by none other than the well-known racegoer (and IP contributor) Terry Wellard. Although drawing the interest of many punters in the crowd below, it turned out that what was going on was just a friendly piece of animated bantering between the aforementioned Mr Wellard and a racing trainer of his acquaintance.
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Talking of the Be Wiser Race Day (featured on page 6 in this issue), extra special proof reading care had to be enforced this month in the photo caption on that page. The two ‘dead- heat’ jockeys were but a keyboard slip away from a ‘dead- beat’ insult. And the ‘B’ key is indeed right next to the ‘H’ key too!
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After cricketer Matt Prior’s recent embarrassment at Lord’s, the England wicketkeeper said he felt stupid when a dressing room window was broken, showering glass into the members’ area below and causing at least one slightly injured lady spectator to receive a conciliatory invite upstairs for an apology. What would health & safety do if let loose on that one, I wonder? (The broken glass
aspect that is, not the lady in the dressing room).
The reprimand from the International Cricket Council and the Match Referee to the effect that Prior should be more careful in future echoes a similar slapped wrist meted out to a junior underwriter for a similar incident in the gents loo in the City office of one of the large composite companies. Like Matt Prior, this young man also smashed the glass by hurling a missile at the windowsill. In his case however the resulting shards fell to the ground from six floors up without causing injury to anyone, other than startling a few pigeons rooting around the dustbins in the internal well to be frequently found in office buildings in the years we are talking about, long before the appearance of the wheelie bin and the covered atrium. We are never likely to know what really happened at Lord’s until a ghost writer milks the incident to the hilt to increase sales of the next autobiography. Unlike the Lord’s incident, the City-based event was witnessed by several underwriting colleagues, who could definitely vouch that it really was a freak accident.
The projectile? A cake of soap. Not Camay. Not a hotel- sized soap, or anything fancy. A solid chunk reminiscent of a half- brick, and twice as heavy as anything you might find at home. The offender had this wrapped in a small hand towel. Trooping into the convenience with a number of similarly armed colleagues after a frustrating afternoon at the underwriting desk, he vented his ire by hurling his ablutionary equipment onto the windowsill.
JULY/AUGUST 2011 insurancepeople 33
Unfortunately during the
trajectory, towel and soap parted company like booster rockets at a Shuttle launch. The towel slapped harmlessly on the windowsill, while the hard-as-a- rock soap bounced straight through the window. To find out exactly why a troop of males were to be found invading the gents washroom at about ten minutes to 5pm in a City office, armed with their own personal hand towels and personal soap generously provided by a paternal employer, we have to go back into the era when all this happened.
It was a time when there were still “gentlemen” cricketers. There was strong paternalism from employers, in the era when the ‘job for life’ really did exist. The towel and soap were renewed at regular intervals. The cheery little janitor charged with the towel changing task would bawl his arrival with, “Towels please!” at which the female filing clerks and typists would collapse into fits of giggles.
It was all part of an obligation to provide not only an ‘at the desk’ tea trolley service
in association with:
distributing a sandwich in the morning and a chocolate biscuit in the afternoon to every member of staff, but also granting the time allocated each evening for the ‘wash’ ritual to take place. Like Prior, the underwriter got away with it, and nothing further was heard after his confession. As his boss said at the time, mirroring the Prior incident. “It was just a freak accident.”
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Any readers alarmed at the ‘Springwatch’ incursion on this page last month, and the gambol into the joys of summer and garden wildlife will no doubt be gratified to learn that shortly afterwards the author was stung by a wasp and the heron stabbed a hole in his pond liner.
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