friends reunited

Some of you already know I belong to the Oxford Union Society. I signed up for life membership when I was an undergraduate and now find it a very welcoming space in the city centre. Lots of good people there in term time and the comfortable Old Library open through most of the rest of the year.

Early in 2008 there was a notice on Facebook asking for someone to fill a Senior vacancy on the Library Committee. I volunteered. At the very first committee meeting of that term I enquired about the clock in the Old Library. It sits on the rail of the gallery and is contemporary with the rest of the building. For many months it had stood at five to one. I wondered why.

It took five or six weeks to find out that it needed repairing. The weeks went by. The weeks turned into months. Then one day last October a man came and took away all the clocks in the building that needed attention. At the end of the last committee meeting last term I commented that eight full terms had gone by since the matter of the clock in the Old Library had first appeared on the agenda.

Today I visited the library. Lo and behold! There is the clock merrily going on its way. It feels to me like the return of an old friend.

Wes thu hal!

Francis Cameron, Oxford, 12 july 2010

Posted via email from franciscameron's posterous