In The Public Eye

I am beginning to realise that I am a 'YES' man.

It has not been a recent discovery or revelation but more of a slow dawning that I was also a 'YES' child, a 'YES' boy and a 'YES' youth.

It has not been a yearning for attention or somehow a reflection of a deprived upbringing because nothing is farther from the truth. I am part of a large and loving family where my parents shared out the nurturing and encouragement in equal shares which at 20% per child must have been very difficult but they more than excelled at it. We were all brought up to appreciate and respect others and ourselves and to accept everyone as an individual with their own feelings and ambitions.

The 'YES' thing was just a natural response to helping others and making their lives a little bit easier in what could seem like a troublesome and often frightening world.

As a child staring off in a life of 'YES' I was always volunteering or otherwise being volunteered for something. It may have been the case that there was a request for a particular job or role and for willing participants to actually step forward from the assembled line. I was quite well known for losing concentration and not paying full attention and so it was perfectly possible that my classmates or the whole school took a collective step back to leave me, staring vacantly, in the box seat.

In this manner I remember, vaguely being dressed as Joseph in a Nativity Play at infants school whereas I would have been more than happy with something like fifth sheep or twentieth Herod Guard. It was in the true manner of productions a silent role but still quite an ordeal facing a school hall full of fellow pupils, their parents and relatives and  the staff.

I was also quite a nervy child and you would think that with a regular experience of being thrust into the spotlight I would get used to it but I just did not. In junior school we put on a very ambitious performance of Victorian school life and times. I again found myself pushed up to the front in what must have been the lead role of a scruffy urchin in scenes obvously copied from biscuit tin scenes of Dickensian times or like a set of table mats that my parents had for best sunday dinner times depicting Cries of London Town. Most of my early years, up to age 11 were spent wearing short trousers and so I found myself so attired with a white uniform shirt, waistcoat and oversized flat cap on a stage in the school hall in front of a large audience including the local Member of Parliament. It was a very expansive production with hoop bowling children, lots of Oliver Twist lookalikes, blacked up child labourers from crawling up chimney flues or extracted from under the heavy and hazardous industrial machines and processes of that era. Another non-speaking role but making the most of my talents for looking distracted, vague and distant.

Senior school saw some reprieve from voluntary activities mainly because I was one in a much larger number and could hide and shirk from any tentative requests for the willing and able to do something. If there was however any protracted and awkward silence in the classroom at the announcement of a project or requirement my 'YES' tendency would overwhelm my dominant reluctance. I felt that my stepping up would alleviate any stress or pressure on my fellow pupils.

In such a manner I found myself responsible as part of a small group to drag a heavy canvas sheeting across the gymnasium floor every schoolday morning to protect the polished floor from the footfalls of 400 students who assembled there for hymns, prayers, announcements and the occasional naming and shaming of miscreants and those caught smoking or worse behind the bicycle shed. It was a horrible job, heavy, dusty and choking work. As with a sheet of paper it is only possible to fold the material so many times before it becomes impossible. Imagine the same with a huge, thick and unwieldy acre of rigid cloth that had to be reduced to the size of a duvet cover in order to fit into the store-room. The staff did obviously feel guilty about this task because us volunteers were given a whole days extra holiday after five years service. Probably less of a reward than offered to a Roman Centurion but nevertheless very welcome. Of course the generation of dust and fibres may actually contribute to a much reduced life expectancy from respiratory and lung problems but we do not yet know that.

Out of school life I was regularly asked to read out lessons and prayers in the local Church or at ceremonies where our Church was participating. This implies that I was in demand. In reality it was a very small congregation, illustrated by the fact that my Mother and two sisters made up fifty percent of the choir, and boys with clear voices were in short supply. My delivery from the pulpit, on the altar steps or once from amongst the ruins of an Abbey in an open air act or worship was remarked upon as being loud and precise. That was polite way of saying that I shouted and spoke in a very slow and laboured manner. The elderly and hard of hearing were the most common cross section of the congregation to compliment me. I must have looked a complete and utter Little Lord Fauntleroy and the only twelve year old in the world, apart from royal princes , to own a sports jacket.

My self consciousness and nerves soon got the better of me in public which may have been exacerbated by reaching puberty and realising that I was not very good at drama, or any type of performance and so I retired at age 15 years from such things.

In adult life people still ask you to do things and I once more found myself on committees and in steering groups for different organisations. I discovered some ability to arrange dinner functions and cycle races because the organisational work could be done methodically and in my own time leaving the actual event as just a formality and just a little bit more enjoyable for that.

With age does come, unfortunately, a degree of apathy and cynicism when the call goes out for volunteers. There are always keen fresh faced individuals ready to take up and run with a task and I now find that it is me who takes a rapid step backwards in such circumstances. I feel that I have served my time on the front line of making a fool of myself and am content just to clap and cheer those who step up to the plate.