President Bob Young opened our meeting on February 13 with the news that, for personal reasons, long standing member George Lewis of Stratford regretted he could no longer commit to attending. We wished George well. Bob also congratulated Clive Allen on our website and from a show of hands it was clear that most members regularly visit the site.

We then settled back to listen to our guest speaker, Rosemary Prosser, who entitled her talk ‘One egg or two’. As a farmer’s wife, and former policewoman, she regaled us with a humorous account of her experiences of setting up and managing farm guest houses near Worcester and in Cornwall. The one egg or two referred of course to her customary breakfast question. However, her regaling was so clear that our resident sound engineer, Ken Perkins, felt obliged to turn down the volume of her microphone, to much chuckling from the back row. She related the variety of tasks she had to undertake, like doing all the washing and cleaning, as well as herding the cows. She also described some of her early misadventures, particularly with her neighbours, as well as with one character that had the temerity, or perhaps bravery, of not only doing a runner without paying, but helping himself to some of her possessions as well! It later transpired that he was a serial thief. She went on to say her husband had once said she had carthorse legs. But none of us, not even Sergeant Major Jones, were brave enough to check if this was true!

She closed her presentation with the assertion that “people with clean houses lead very dull lives” and the instruction “don’t disturb the dust – it’s protecting the furniture”. A formidable lady indeed.

Trevor Reek thanked Rosemary on our behalf.

I’ll report next week our AGM on Thursday February 27 and on our own Stan Saunders account of his “Early years” which we heard on 20 February.

For more information about our Club, a look at our website (www.eveshamprobus.co.uk) or just turn up for a taster. We meet every Thursday at the Ecgwins Private Members Club in Evesham, starting at 10am for a couple of hours.

Chris Donough