It was almost a year ago, 23rd January 2014, a date that will stay forever in my mind.
Seventy people had paid and were arriving at Tiggys expecting an illustrated talk to be given by me on the history of the Hospital.
My team had worked timelessly to set up all the seats, tea and coffee while I did my bit moving some of the furniture that was outside.
Shouldn’t have done it but, to my lasting guilt, I slipped on the timber walkway breaking my ribs in the process.
I don’t think the visitors knew of the problem until the ambulance, blue lights flashing, tore into the courtyard.
I was not going to give that talk but my team rallied entertaining all those seventy people to guided tours of the inner sanctum of the Hospital not normally open to visitors.
Both the team and the visitors were great and totally forgave me for my clumsy disaster.
I did recover enough to give that talk to those seventy people in April. And encouragingly this was shortly followed up by me presenting the talk to another seventy people.
The Trust took the proceeds into its coffers and my guilt was somewhat alleviated although my ribs were still painful.
We did make a film of the talk although my slip would have been a sitter for “You’ve been framed”.
The good film, no accidents, could be used to give presentations to visitors over the rest of the year.
We did make money for the Hospital and did manage to squeeze in those 140 visitors.
Now to plan more talks for 2015 with hopefully no broken ribs.
