I suppose I have been a professional event organiser for most of my working life, using the resources of an Opera Company and later a Chamber Orchestra as the excuse for events which had some meaning for potential audiences for both kinds of organization.
But strangely, perhaps the most interesting event I have ever organiz ed was one of the easiest. Suddenly today I thought of it, and how appropriate it would be to write about it, since I have been writing recently about some of the street closures in which I was involved when I lived on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.
In the historic street where we lived, and in which we were restoring a 17th-century house, we got to know almost all of our neighbors thanks to the way in which we closed the street to traffic, out of which came so much by way of good things from getting to know our neighbors.
On one of our first street closures, it was Easter and we organized quite a range of Easter type activities for children, such as rolling eggs down a gentle slope in the road.
But we did organize one or two events which were perhaps of more interest to adults, and one in particular appealed to everybody of all ages.
The gardens of our houses in the street must have had early origins, perhaps as far back as mediaeval times. In other words, they weren't straightforward square or oblong portions of land, but far more irregular in shape.
This meant that in our back garden our next door neighbor was in fact someone that lived three houses down the street, an elderly gentleman who had we learned bought his house, with several outbuildings, from the estate of the Rider Haggard's, in about 1945 and when he returned from his war service.
Sir Henry Rider Haggard, the important Victorian author, lived on the outskirts of this small town, in a rather grand house that was famous for being haunted.
I don't know anything of the truth of this, but stories did circulate concerning the apartments into which the large house had been converted when the estate was sold. Whether this was at the time that our neighbor purchased his portion I do not know, but there was something of romance in the idea that he had purchased something of history at a time when no doubt much was dissipated after the war.
This elderly gentleman's land had once been the site of the town slaughterhouse, which had apparently doubled as the place to which sick animals were taken for treatment, in other words, a vets in modern parlance.
There were several buildings on this site, which over the years had become filled with numerous items of historical significance locally, perhaps simply because they had taken the fancy of the elderly gentleman, and in effect the substantial yard soon filled with sufficient items to be of interest to local builders, and so it became a kind of architectural salvage yard, as well as a place where old things were brought perhaps simply to get rid of them.
The elderly gentleman himself lived in a house that fronted onto the street, the ground floor of which had been once upon a time a butcher's shop. You could see through the windows of this shop the white tiled nature of the building, but it was never open as a shop, although it became filled with the smaller items of historical interest, such as might be available for sale in an antique or junk shop.
It was never open as a shop, although many people would stop to look at what was displayed haphazardly inside.
The elderly gentlemen would never sell what he kept in the shop, but he did give things away to those people that he liked.
My best friend was one such person, and the elderly gentleman would deliver home-grown vegetables and leave them outside our back door, often in small bowls or containers from the contents of the shop.
Occasionally, he would leave flowers grown in his gardens, placed in a glass vase which had also found its way into his strange curiosity shop.
Similarly, in his yard over the years had accumulated numerous objects the use or purpose of which had perhaps been forgotten.
Along one wall of the yard the elderly gentleman had quite without thought placed many of these mainly metal items, and I suppose it was from this that the idea arose for something that would entertain people of all ages during one of our street closures.
Quite simply, we placed around 20 numbered tags to various items, and the game was entitled something like name this object, or describe what it was used for.
In other words, we simply fixed a time when people should gather in this yard, and armed with a sheet of paper, the object was to be able to name or describe the use of a range of objects. Many of which we guessed had some kind of old agricultural purpose, given the nature of the town in which we all lived.
We depended upon the long memory of the elderly gentleman to furnish us with either a name or at least a description of what the object had been used for, and that was it.
I myself took photographs of the event as it took place, and 30 or 40 people pondered over the mysteries of these bygones.
It was a fascinating journey into the past, and we came up with some kind of serious of prizes donated by neighbors for the first second and third best attempts at fulfilling the task.
It was astonishing at how absorbed people became in what was after all a rather difficult task to accomplish, but often whole families would make an attempt to answer what the object had been used for, or indeed what it had been called.
I can still remember the way in which everyone listened with great attention to hear the elderly gentleman describe how the objects had been used, and in many cases what they were called.
It was as if history were unravelled before us, and a glimpse at a life past were revealed.
It was a simple pleasure, but one experienced by all that took part.
I don't think anyone got above 15 or 16 items classified, but it wasn't simply winning that was important.
As they say, it was simply taking part that meant the most. And everyone gained from the experience.
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