Q. During August there was a time when members of
Brooks's were allowed into White's, A Test match was on and I wanted to see what the score was but the gun, or operator, to switch on the set was resting in the hands of a fairly aged member who was fast asleep at the back of the room. There was no one else present in the room. If you are in somebody else's club, what is the protocol about taking the operator out of the more legitimate member's hands?
J.S.S., London WI A. You were fortunate to have this rare opportunity to breach the portals of White's, since the club does not normally collude with the system of offering hospitality on a reciprocal basis to members of other clubs in St James's whose premises are being 'cleaned'. This happens annually in August when most members are away abroad or shooting. The system does not lead to any difficulty provided the invitee is most scrupulous in always taking second place should any member of the host club compete with him for club facilities; he should at all times be discreet and unobtrusive. Since there were no other members present in the room, it would have been acceptable for you to turn on the set, but clearly you could not have risked wrestling the controls from the rigor mortis-style grip of the sleeping member. Instead, you could have pretended not to have noticed where
the device was and just switched on the set manually, as though taking it for granted that in such an old-fashioned setting as a gentleman's club they wouldn't have anything so up to date as a remote control. To avoid a 'rude awakening', you could have pressed the volume button to mute with one hand as you switched on the set with the other, only gradually increasing it in line with the aged member's reaction.
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