Last night I had the strangest dream. I dreamt I had been invited to the Beaumont Union dinner in the company of my sister and my mother, but not, for some strange reason, my wife.
We had arranged to meet at the house of my good and virtual friend, Jerry, in Wimbledon. I was a little dismayed when Jerry told me it was to be a dinner dance. "But Jerry", I said, "I don't know how to dance!"
"That's all right, Barnaby, Jerry told me. "We're all well past the dancing stage now".
I was also surprised when we set off for the dinner across waterlogged fields, as I dimly remembered that the annual dinner was held at the East India Company, but things had obviously gone down hill or down river in recent years.
"It's not very far", Jerry said, "less than 5 miles". At this point, I suddenly realised that I had left the words (lyrics doesn't sound quite right somehow) for the Beaumont hymn in my car. All I knew was the title, Concinamus gnaviter.
"What does Concinamus gnaviter mean?", my mother asked.
"Roughly translated", I said, "it means 'Let us all have a banana'".
And then, mercifully perhaps, I woke up.
The only Beaumont event I ever went to was a dinner dance in aid of something or other. In a marquee, and with Mary O'Neil and two old boys dredged up by her doctor father from somewhere in his Parish. You weren't invited, still being a pupil, and certainly Mose wasn't!
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember that day very well!
ReplyDelete