MODEL BOAT CLUB

You really have got to love the British. We embrace our hobbies and eccentricities with such passion and fervour, and never more so than when we've retired and are looking for something in which to pour all those energies which we used to use to earn our crusts.

Over on a lake in a Country Park relatively near to where I live, a model boat club spend their afternoons sailing their remote-controlled yachts and speedboats and battleships around and between the ducks and the geese and the gulls, and this amuses them greatly as well as entertaining the many people who come to visit the park.

They take it all very seriously and have their own little platform from where they can sail their boats and it seems to keep them all very happy and, more importantly, very interested in their lot and with engaging with the world.

Now, I do love a good enthusiast. I like it when someone is an expert in their particular chosen field of expertise. I wouldn't necessarily want them to sit down next to me and try to tell me all about it, you understand, especially if it's their enthusiasm and not mine, but it pleases me to see such passion being expressed for something which might leave the rest of us befuddled.

I mean, I know that I burble on and on about things that you're not necessarily interested in, but at least you can choose not to read those burblings if you don't want to...

That's the beauty of having an interest; It's a very personal thing. You can choose to share it with others, but you should never be disappointed if they aren't as keen upon whatever it is as you are. Just as long as you're happy, and they're happy to leave you to enjoy whatever it is you enjoy, the world can be as happier place for everyone.

Which brings us neatly back to the model boat club.

On this particular afternoon, you see, the boat club had a problem.

The shutters which enclosed the little boat house where they keep their recovery boat appeared to have jammed. This caused several of them to try and help out, although, in reality, it seemed that only one of them was actually doing anything practical about it whilst the rest offered advice and witty banter depending upon how well the repairs seemed to be going. There did seem to be one who was content to merely act as extra labour as required (This so reminded me of my days in the theatre set-building that it was almost untrue) and the prime engineer did seem to appreciate the help when he needed it whilst having the air that he wished everyone else would leave him alone to get on with it in between times.

One or two of them, very sensibly, drifted off and went to sail their boats and let the rest get on with it, although "extra labour" did once surprise me by addressing the rest of the group from the top of the boat house in a manner which reminded me of a shop steward addressing the workers at a British Leyland plant on the news back in the 1970s.

Of course, you never know... Perhaps that's what he used to do before his retirement...

I watched this develop for a couple of hours and it was very entertaining to occasionally glance across and watch the subtle interplay of the members of the group as they played their roles in the great game of life and displayed to me once again that people are alike all over and that any club or small group of people is in reality just a microcosm of society at large.

Fascinating stuff, people watching.