Nothing’s Noise

“Sometimes the greatest lies are told in silence”

Or maybe not!

I suppose, Dear Friends, that experience is a great teacher. We all know that one of the concerns of living in a technological world is the fear of scams. We are all aware of people who talk a good line, people who are trying to convince or sell. But sometimes trying to fathom the real person is like trying to find a shadow on a very dark night.  And for that, I suppose, we need to see action rather than words. We have all at times been let down by people and have in our turn let others down. But there have been acts of kindness along the way which are so memorable.

I once worked for a building construction company called Duncan Smith and Sons.  Duncan was somebody whom I had met in the pub in which I worked in Clevedon, Somerset. I fancied working outside for a change and also doing a day job rather than the horrendous split shifts which were a part of bar work.  Duncan was a really good boss. He paid well. In those days he would come around at the end of the working week and give us our pay packet. On one particular Friday, for some reason, he paid us at lunchtime. Somebody decided (I will swear to this day it wasn’t me!) that flush with cash we should go to the pub for lunch. Oft we went and somehow the 30 minute lunch break went somewhat longer. And when the pub shut at 2.30 p.m. we had stocked up on a carry out to continue our session at a local park. By the time we returned to the site the concrete company had dumped their concrete in the middle of the customer’s driveway ready for us to barrow and lay. Only trouble was that the heat of the day made it no longer malleable. There was nothing we could do, indeed tying an undone shoelace would have been an achievement at this point in our beer-clad state.  Duncan sought us all out on Saturday morning. It was something a local boss could do in those days. So four hangovers found themselves jack hammering concrete on a punter’s driveway on a Saturday morning.  Through the misery of that day I thought that this would be our last day on the job; that we were all for the sack; that Monday morning we would turn up and be turned away.

Monday came. We were all surprised when nothing was said. We worked the week. It was almost punishment enough waiting for the hammer to drop. Friday came. At the end of the day Duncan came around with our pay packets. We all expected to be docked money. We were surprised that we had been paid our full whack with the addition of the 6 hours overtime for the Saturday we had worked. Duncan didn’t say anything. We never asked. But the following Friday after work he offered to buy us a pint at the local. We were confused and bemused. I thought that he had found a new work force and we would be out on our ear. Duncan was chuckling as he took his first sip of ale. He looked around at our worried faces.

“I should have known better than to pay you bastards early on a Friday. Owner went nuts when he phoned me on Friday night. That’s why you were there on the Saturday. My fault, boys, but don’t do it again.”

And you know what we never did. We worked a smidge harder for Duncan after that. The unspoken rule was that we would go the extra mile for Duncan and his company. Duncan Smith had inspired something in us. We were too immature to put a finger on it at the time. We didn’t voice it. But we certainly got it.

Some people we know, Dear Reader, are in the heart of a bewildering exercise in truth creation. Half of them can’t lie straight in their beds at night.  It’s the Duncan Smith’s of this world, those who are out to give and not out to get who really matter.

We found something’s noise in the actions, not the words, of Duncan Smith.

Squadron Leader McEwan-Mason was a teacher of mine at Millfield School. I was in the RAF section. Our cadets marched and strutted on a Friday afternoon. It was something that we all had to do. I can’t remember learning any particular skill other than polishing boots and ambushing an ‘enemy’ in the woods.   We did, however, have an end of the school year cadet force camp. We were despatched off to RAF Consett in the North of England.  It was allowed for me not to return to Somerset with the other cadets as I was to catch the train to Edinburgh whereupon I was to bike and camp to join my family on their annual holiday to Nairn in the Highlands. I was to travel on a warrant card. The Squadron Leader intimidated us all. Not because he shouted at us, punished us, became angry at us. I cannot remember any of those things. He was a man of few words. But there was a presence in his presence. He fixed me up with bus transport to the station in Newcastle and I was shocked and a little bit embarrassed when he boarded the bus to accompany me to the station.  I remember he had a war time injury which caused him to stoop. His back was slightly hunched over. We did not talk. But I picked up my bike and followed him to the ticket office where there was a queue. There was a long line up but the line was moving quickly. Mr. McEwan-Mason joined the snake and I fell in behind Him.  I was shocked and amazed.  I had never imagined that such an icon as he would ever be a part of anything so mundane as a line up for a train ticket.  Unreasonably I started to feel embarrassed and guilty. It is easy to say that I shouldn’t have because he smiled benignly and patiently at me as we waited our turn along with everyone else. I suppose that I had never imagined him ‘along with everybody else’. When we reached the counter he explained that I needed a ticket based on a warrant card which needed to be issued as I had been at cadet camp. He walked me to the platform, looked me in the eye, wished me an happy holiday, turned on his heel and moved away. The fact that I remember this 56 years after the event tells me that there was something about the character of this man which inspired awe and admiration. It wasn’t what he said because he said very little. It wasn’t a grand gesture because there wasn’t one. There was just something, something which I cannot touch or explain or understand.  It was much ado about nothing, a dust mote but a moment that held me then as it holds me now.

 I guess that sometimes speech gets in the way of genuine communication. It’s the gesture and the kindness which we remember. Sadly if we remember words they are often cruel words. Duncan Smith and McEwan-Mason had come through a war. They had faced danger, they had faced fear and they had faced themselves.  They were confident in their leadership, they had nothing to prove. The ‘High Horse”, upon which we petty men are wont to sit when we feel threatened, for them,  had long since bolted.  A bit of a concrete kerfuffle on a Friday afternoon or lining up to put a nobody  on a train were shrugs of the shoulders to people like these. I don’t know, Dear Friends, if greatness in those two men was real or not. But that doesn’t matter because to me it was very real and therefore they were great men.  I guess that I have learnt over the years that once the chess game is over the king and the pawn go back in the same box, that there is some form of equality in adulthood but with Duncan Smith and the Squadron Leader, whose actions spoke louder than words, I was in the presence of better men.

Thanks for reading.