1 September 2011

Yesterday was what we have now come to accept as a rare lovely summers day. Two . of my pals came down from London to give me lunch at the Cricketers. It was incredibly kind of them as they are both busy lawyers. Danny Gowan, the senior partner of the DAC (Davis Arnold Cooper) and Rowan Planterose, another partner, who was originally a barrister and switched to being a solicitor some years ago.

I’m sure throughout this chronicle I have mentioned Rowan several times. How he has contributed to . my books and the pièce de résistance, the Fission Chip case in Budapest. Both Danny and Rowan I met through arbitration ,so I suppose I have know t known them both around 25 years.

I will not go into the story of the Fission Chip case again as I’m sure I recounted this not too long ago . However, I cannot remember whether I told you about my little prank with Danny. I was sitting in an arbitration in Chambers near Fleet Street and it unexpectedly settled in the morning. I find myself at a loss at lunchtime quite close to DAC’s offices. I wondered whether I could persuade any of my friends to come and have lunch with me and decided to play aa little joke on Danny

I went up to reception in DAC’s offices and asked the receptionist to be good enough to telephone through to Danny’s secretary and let her know that I was here for our lunch date. Apparently this threw Danny and his secretary into a bit of turmoil as, of course, there was no record of such a lunch having been booked. Nevertheless, Danny appeared 10 min’s or so later with Rowan and another partner apologising for keeping me waiting and off we went to lunch. I seem to remember we had a very jolly time together which started with a bottle of champagne. Of course, I did not let on at that point as it would have spoilt the fun but had every intention of coming clean a short while after. I then heard through the grapevine that Danny had given his poor secretary a hard time over forgetting to note the appointment. (Not too hard a time as  Danny is far too nice a person for that) At that point I felt I should come clean and so sent Danny an  e-mail begging him not to sack his secretary and then explained why. I think from Danny’s point of view it was worth every penny of the lunch as he dined out on this story from long time afterwards.

Anyway, then we were yesterday sitting under a blue cloudless sky bathed in warm sunshine enjoying an excellent meal together and chatting over old times. I am so lucky to have such good friends who are prepared to make the journey from London to give me lunch and more than anything else to enjoy the pleasure of their company. Such occasions certainly improve my quality of life, despite my disability, and make me realise what small things can give you such a great amount of pleasure. I sincerely hope that my blog gets this message across to others who might be in a similar position to me,and their carers, and inspires them to continue to lead as normal a life as possible. Okay, you can’t feed yourself but then I have never yet once found that any of my friends I had  sitting next to have the slightest problem in feeding me. After all most of them have had small children, at one stage or another so, although they might be a little rusty, they do know what to do.