The Kindness Of Strangers

 

The film lecture and discussion was animated and informative. It was also fun and three hours flew by like a swift in summer. I was put into three break out groups , the last of which was dominated by a very chirpy lesbian from London who stopped us in our tracks by inviting us all to an on line meeting directly after the  class was over. Her reasoning was to celebrate the birthday of one of our “classmates” a chap called Paul whose 68th birthday it was today.

He’s on his own and if you you are free for a bit , grab what drink is in your fridge and pop along she yelled excitedly 

And that’s exactly what 35 of us did, much to Paul’s tearful surprise.

Various hastily opened bottles of wine, gins, a few coffees, and one very indulgent bottle of bubbly from a rather exuberant chap from Buxton were decanted and I found a tin of espresso martini in the fridge which I emptied into one of my antique champagne glasses before we logged in to meet again. 

Even the lecturer joined in and it was the silliest and sweetest thing I have done in a long time.

At one point Paul, ( who was a retired charity worker from Wimbledon ) made an impromptu speech sharing how depressed he had become over the winter and how cinema in particular had kept him going in the bleakest of moments and he asked us to raise our glasses when he quoted Jean luc Goddard and said“ Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world” 

And from all over the UK came the chink of glasses.