DIARY
DEBORAH DEVONSHIRE Spring and autumn are the seasons of annual general meetings. The older I get the harder I find it is to sit through them. The words which go with committees like 'minutes' and 'agenda' don't exactly send the adrenalin racing, and impatience with a ponderous chairman sometimes makes the affair nearly unbearable. The items on the 'agenda' are slowly ticked off and you pray no one will take up the chairman's sugges- tion of bringing up something arising out of the minutes. The obligatory thanks to the officers still come as a surprise after all these years. It is such an unsuitable collec- tive word for a group of kindly women who spend much time and energy in raising money for whichever charity the meeting is about. My idea of an officer is anything from a 2nd lieutenant to the Colonel of the Coldstream Guards — a far cry from the good ladies present in the church hall, who aren't the types to bark out orders on Horse Guards Parade and would look out of place in bearskins. When it comes to finding a seconder for the vote of thanks to the auditor, desperation sets in and I long to go out in the rain. Any other business can be risky and it is a great relief when it passes quietly by. Then comes the speaker, who is, I suppose, meant to instruct or entertain and very often does neither but spins out the time till the blessed cup of tea looms and freedom is in sight. If you hap- pen to be the speaker, of course, things are different and you are in an all-powerful position. Disappointingly soon you spot people crossing and uncrossing their legs, shifting in the chairs and searching in the depths of a bag for the key of the car. All of which makes for a general feeling of unease andmeans that the audience is thankful you forgot the second half of what you were going to say. If it is a talk with slides, the audience is in the dark, so you can't see signs of restlessness. Snoring is their only weapon, but they are your victims, impris- oned in rows till the last click of the projec- tor. Their patience is an example to us all.
After the annual meeting comes the annual report. These arrive in our house by the ton, sent by every known organisation from Barnardo's to Bloodstock via the Water Board and the National Gallery. I suppose their production gives work for growers of trees, manufacturers of paper, printers, photographers, designers, the peo- ple who write them and the Post Office. That's good, but 99 per cent of the wretched things represent a huge waste of time and money, written as they are in unreadable official language and printed on reams of shiny, expensive paper. Annual reports published for their shareholders by Public companies vie with one another in richness of appearance and sheer weight. I guess the shareholders would prefer a Churchillian single sheet with the glad or sad news of the company's results so the money saved could go towards higher divi- dends. But it is a question of keeping up with the Joneses, so no respectable compa- ny would agree to such lack of pomp. I have discovered one exception. It is the annual report of the National Heritage Memorial Fund. If you have had enough of heritage — English, Living, Built, Land- scape, World, Gardens and the Depart- ment of National — do swallow your objec- tion to the overworked word and have a look. The beauty of it is its clarity: never an extra word, everything straight to the point. Instead of the usual rigmarole about finan- cial resources or funding, even the taboo word 'money' is used every now and again. The organisation itself must be unique in that it has more trustees than staff, who, believe it or not, number seven. When you have taken in that amazing fact, start read- ing and you will see what I mean. The descriptions of jewels, woods, paintings, manuscripts, a shingle beach, a fairground king's living wagon, a bit of the Brecon Beacons, a tractor, a colliery, drawings by Gainsborough, Raphael and co, Somerset cornfields, several church interiors, a trades union banner, a smashing portrait by Lawrence, a croft in Caithness, garden tools and an organ which have received grants are a delight. The accompanying photographs of such disparate beneficiaries make one pleased to be a taxpayer. No gov- ernment department, no waste, no messing about: the grants they can give go straight to these diverse and needy places and things. And now their money is to be reduced from f12 million to £7 million. Remind yourself, please, that the fund was established as a memorial to those who have died for this country. Their number has not diminished. Roll on the National Lottery and may the NHMF get a whop- ping share of whatever is going. Mean- while, congratulations to Lord Rothschild, chairman, and Georgina Naylor, director, for the work they do for us.
Journalists and even ordinary people have a strange new habit of leaving out the Christian name when writing about women. It immediately turns the subject into a dif- ferent person. I cannot recognise my sisters Nancy and Diana as Mitford and Mosley, or another sister when she becomes Treuhaft (though she is sometimes Mitford too, and then confusion reigns). And some- thing unnatural happens to that most femi- nine of human beings, the American Ambassador to France, when she is referred to so baldly as Harriman. I think it started a few years ago with criminals. Somehow it is all right for Hindley and other murderesses as they hardly deserve a Christian name anyway, but it is extremely muddling when applied to normal women. I don't mind about Thatcher, Bottomley and Beckett. Having chosen the dotty career of politics, which turns them into Aunt Sallys from the day they were elected, they can stand up for themselves. Must we drop the Aunt? Sally is no good alone and anyway we're back to a Christian name. What a conundrum. I can't see why the reporters do it. It can't be to save space just look at the acres of paper they have to cover with something: acres which become hectares on Sundays. Perhaps it is some- thing to do with them not liking the idea of women being proper women. The female journalists are very quaint and contrary, so we can expect something outlandish from them. I suppose it doesn't matter much, but when Hillary is in the news and she turns into Clinton, it does make one blink a bit.
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