Dinner-table discussion is just a torch too much

I ATTENDED a lunch last week and for the first time in about 18 months was in the company of strangers, all feeling slightly uneasy about the situation.

Isn’t it remarkable how the world has changed? Masks on to walk to the table, masks off to eat and drink, masks on to go to the loo and approach the bar to pay, and masks off to chat.

And more alcohol rubbed into the hands than was consumed by mouth.

What hasn’t changed, however, was that after discussions about James Bond and the near threehour film, current Covid restrictions and the upcoming COP26 (which I discovered actually stands for Conference of the Parties and will be the 26th such meeting), someone turned to me and asked, “What do you do?”

There is always a pause at this point and I look at my wife and she cringes.

She knows that if I think I can get away with it (sitting beside a random person on a plane, for example), I will say “fireman”, “binman” or “delivery driver” as all these occupations, admirable though they are, don’t generally prompt the questioner to tell you about every pet they have ever owned in their entire life, then complain noisily about veterinary fees in general, then tell you the horror story that befell a friend of a friend.

But this time, I simply said, “I am a vet.”

My wife shuddered and I surrendered herself to the inevitable purgatory of the next 10 minutes.

This time, however, the response was different.

“Oh, I just love my vet.” said the lady sitting opposite me. “He is so interesting and always lets me come out on calls with him, or go into the surgery to watch.

“I’ve held a torch for him to help him stitch a horse at night and I’ve held instruments for him when he has been operating on dogs and cats.

“His biggest problem is, he can’t get veterinary nurses for love nor money.”

Being me, I started on one of my usual diatribes about how veterinary practices that have never bothered to spend the time, money and anguish actually training veterinary nurses always end up moaning about not being able to employ any.

You need to put something in to get something out.

Instead, I argued, they use any untrained Tom, Dick or Harry and pretend they are nurses.

“When, in fact,” my wife interrupted, “they are torch holders.”

Quite.