Heartbreak and Facilities Management

The ultimate test of your own knowledge and comprehension is in trying to convey it to others.

I have never been as disappointed as the time I attended a lecture by a very extensively published technical author.

His books were the bedrock of my learning at the time. I spent many, many hours amongst their pages of well reasoned text on a range of subject matter which in the delivery of others could bring about fatigue, swift boredom and even induce rapid slumber. He had a way of explaining things which was immediately understood being backed up with practical examples and clear schematics.

In the sphere of my chosen discipline that author was the rock-star, guru, oracle, svengali like figure and role model.

That was until I actually came across him.

The first time was on the bus.

I had just finished a day at college and was making my way back to the damp and fetid atmosphere of my shared student house. A group of us on the same course were occupying on the top deck, talking noisily about everything apart from our coursework typically football, music, football, girls, football and music when a sort of whispering calm descended through the double decker.

I do not know where it originated from but recognised it as the reverential silence that was the pre-cursor to something momentous.

In other situations in my experience the catalyst for the equivalent of the world going into slow-motion had included the spotting of a celebrity, the glimpse of a beautiful woman, the same with the rear of her skirt tucked into her knickers, in the witnessing of a crime or a piece of anti social behaviour such as bullying or victimisation of a fat, ugly, ginger haired kid.

We looked amongst each other in the group trying to work out what the signs and portents meant to find the quietest and meekest of our number with finger outstretched pointing towards a bald headed man in a Gaberdine raincoat who had just made his way up the steep, rolling stairs to sit in the front bench seat.

In a quiet and stuttering voice, as though scarcely believing what he was seeing my fellow student muttered a series of words which to me sounded very much like the name of the illustrious author.

I recalled that the covers and sleeves of the numerous chunky reference books had not ever included a mugshot of the writer. This would be commonplace in a novel or coffee table type publication but rarely found in a general work. I had therefore created, for visualisation purposes my own image of the creator of those influential books.

Thinking back my imaginings of a tall, cultivated, eloquent and stunningly handsome persona were a bit homo-erotic but then again I was often alone in my thoughts late at night accompanied only by the pages of the man as though in a one to one relationship. Ooh-err Matron as they say.

It was, I realise a bit of a relationship in that I could be found talking aloud and conversing as though to the actual words on the bright white paper, even arguing and contesting specific issues. In the wee small hours ,after a long day studying, a couple or so pints of Guinness and inadequately sustaining food it was not unusual for me to hear voices as though the pages were talking back to me. I have often felt that I would be, on this basis, an interesting case study in the Psychiatrist's chair or hurtling about like a whirling Dervish in a strait-jacket in a padded cell observed by white clad medical staff.

The focus of our respectful open-mouthed-ness was, on closer squinted assessment of the back of his head, a most ordinary character of the type that you would not ever notice in a crowd or if you did you would immediately stereotype as an accountant, solicitor or lawyer. His identity appeared to me confirmed by others in our group but I found myself in denial. Surely the golden words of wisdom could not come from such a plain and frankly, invisible source.

A few days later the reason for the presence of, until then, my hero on the bus was obvious. He had been visiting the college to make final arrangements for a special, one-off appearance to coincide with his new addition to his catalogue of text books. Sure enough the weekly lecture dedicated to the subject was to be taken in person. I was prepared to give the man the benefit of the doubt given the still overwhelming inspiration of his writing to me.

I sat in my usual seat in the stepped amphitheatre of the lecture hall, about half way up and towards the centre which afforded the best acoustics and vantage point of the stage and white boarded background. I hoped for a fanfare and almost gladiatorial entrance of the author but the same small, stumpy shape shuffled out still clad in the flasher mac and took up position at the lecturn.

What ensued was a dull, monotone and weak delivery of gobbledegook, incoherent ramblings, nervous glances into the audience after prolonged periods of head-down disinterest and the unmistakable sound of someone plummeting from a high pedestal. The 90 minutes of painful witness seemed to me more like a 90 day ordeal, a session of torture and overwhelming embarassment.

I left the auditorium feeling dejected and not a little cheated. It had been, for all of its agony, a valuable lesson in life and with broken heart I was certain that I could never trust another human being, well at least not in the realm of books on plumbing and building services installations.