Continuing on a cultural high, we went to Dragon Hall on Tuesday evening for the launch of Keiron Pim’s book on the Norwich Hebrew poet Meir – or more accurately, the book of Meir’s poems edited by Keiron, called Into the Light. The upper hall was packed: must have been nearly 100 people there. Had a quick chat with Keiron and Rowan, and a longer one with Pete Kelley, who is still doing the letters pages at the EDP.
Yesterday teatime I continued the trend by attending the launch of The Marriage of Margery Paston by Susan Curran. This was at St Edmund’s in Fishergate. Lori Lain-Rogers was there, so we discussed the merits of the Sinclair C5, among other things. Also spoke to Susan, who is a PHS member, and asked her to speak at a members’ meeting. Was introduced to Professor Malcolm Wagstaff and his wife Pat, who have moved to Cringleford from Southampton and find themselves involved in most of the city’s societies. Rob Knee also attended, and we walked back to the station together along the Riverside path.
Earlier in the day we had also coincided – at the Norfolk Record Office, where he had brought some material for the exhibition and we were having a last meeting with the very helpful staff. I spotted what I thought was a wrong attribution in one of the captions and spent some time establishing that it really was wrong (phone calls to Caroline Gilfillan and Di Griffiths). Then I had to contact Belinda at NRO (I was on my way home by then), which proved tricky, as the phone lines were closed. Left a message and sent an e-mail, and she eventually called me back.
Our UEA intern David Whittle was also at NRO, and I was relatively nice to him, considering all the hassle he’d caused me the previous day, most of which I spent sorting out a leaflet for the exhibition. He and Lucy had collaborated on it, and Lucy had asked me to check it before it went. It was full of mistakes and queries, which I set about correcting and answering: after a while I could see that it wasn’t saving my corrections properly, which became very irritating. I could feel my blood pressure rising.
Eventually I discovered that David was in it at the same time, making trivial corrections and cancelling out my corrections when he saved. I must have corrected some things three or four times – and much of them I had to look up repeatedly in obscure places, because I had to be sure. Lucy had assured me that he had finished with it, so I was a bit short with her on the phone. Not long afterwards she fell downstairs.
She called me on Friday morning from the hospital to say she hadn’t sent the leaflet off to Vistaprint before she fell down and could I do it. Could I also ring the care home where her father was living to let him know she wouldn’t be coming to see him that afternoon. I did both; hopefully the leaflets will arrive on Monday morning in time to get them to NRO for the launch.
This morning Dot and I went to Yelverton, where the church now has a toilet and some underfloor heating, for the funeral of Sharon’s father, Les. Her mother had died four months ago. A quiet but lovely service, followed by tea and biscuits at Sharon’s. Jacob was there with his partner Kath, who is really nice. We had West London in common. Didn’t realise – or had forgotten – that Sharon was born in Canada.