IF you haven’t had an event you were planning to attend cancelled or postponed over the next couple of weeks then you must already be a recluse.
I’ve had so many invites pulled that I’m already feeling like a trainee hermit.
To be honest I’ve avoided discussing the coronovirus in this blog up to now because I tend to be pretty light-hearted in the subjects mentioned and it is difficult to be flippant about a disease that has now been deemed a pandemic by the World Health Organisation.
Given one of the services our business offers is events let’s just say the phone hasn’t been ringing off the hook with new business opportunities.
If companies can’t communicate face-to-face with their clients and staff then there are other ways of doing it and that’s where we’ve been working with firms on content and communications to help raise morale and keep connected to their teams.
You don’t have to be an events business or public venue to have been hit by the effects of coronavirus
I think most firms in the UK have been affected, whether that is with cancelled business, staff made to work from home or just putting in place contingency plans.
It is a concerning time for business owners but people’s health and wellbeing are paramount.
We should expect the situation to get worse before we can even contemplate it getting better.
What we need is good doses of calm and common sense – admittedly that is always a challenge in the face of the unknown.
The panic buying of toilet rolls doesn’t suggest the adoption of any kind of Dunkirk spirit or mentality that saw the British survive the Blitz, but let’s be positive.
The next few weeks, months even, are going to be a tough experience.
But let’s work together and support each other to get through it.
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I’VE only ever been to the Bradford Club once before.
Earlier this month I returned for the annual dinner of the historic members’ club.
I was a guest of Tim Parr, bon viveur, Papal Knight and tax partner at accountancy firm RSM.
The arrival at the club is impressive – you ascend a staircase snaking up several floors, past busts of great Britons such as Gladstone and Cobden.
As I arrived in the plushly carpeted dining room I didn’t know whether to be pleased or shocked that I was the youngest guest there by a good 20 years.
Aside from a Charles Darwin look-a-like with huge mutton-chop whiskers, most of the rest of the guests looked like they were at a convention of Rowley Birkin impersonators.
He was the gin-sodden white-haired QC hilariously portrayed by Paul Whitehouse in The Fast Show.
When I asked Tim who the club president was, he nodded towards a corner of the room and said: “He’s the one with the white hair.”
It didn’t narrow it down.
But never go on first impressions.
Here was a room of people who are far from fuddy-duddy.
This was a collection of the Bradford district’s successful wool men, cloth manufacturers and merchants, property entrepreneurs and men and women of standing.
I met some fascinating characters, including Dennis, a property developer who told me he started his working life as a teenager.
“I worked from the bottom up – I was a gravedigger,” he said.
Then there was the charming and softly spoken Wilfred Shaw whose friend asked how he was after being diagnosed with cancer last year.
“Fine, fine,” replied Wilfred. “My doctor told me: ‘You have the life expectancy of an 87-year-old man.’
“I said ‘What’s that?’
“He said: ‘Eighty eight’.”
Given Wilfred was told he had six months to live when he was diagnosed with cancer last May, he has a measured but uplifting approach to his circumstances.
“I was given six months, I’ve been going nine months, so that’s good,” he said with a calm dignity and warm humour that I found endearing and very inspiring.
After a tasty three-course dinner guests settled back to listen to a speech from Geoff Walker, who began his working life in a bank in Bradford and went on to a career in international banking around the world.
Geoff told the audience that he remembered the telephone number of the office where he started work – Manningham 54749.
That was probably the highlight of Geoff’s speech.
He told lots of stories about his career, but for all of them, you probably had to have been there.
When he talked of taking a new role in the United Arab Emirates in the 1980s, one of the guests leaned over to me and said: “Christ, are we only at 1984?”
My gaze moved to the far side of the room and I spotted John Eaton, an urbane and very humorous individual – for a lawyer.
The last time I saw John was at this dinner a couple of years ago when I was a guest of recruitment entrepreneur Craig Burton.
John’s wife Margaret is Baroness Eaton of Cottingley.
A Conservative Party life peer in the House of Lords since 2010, Dame Margaret is a former Bradford council leader and chairman of the Local Government Association.
I discussed with John the reverse sexism when it comes to the honours system.
If you are the wife of a Lord, then you are called Lady.
But if you are the husband of a Baroness…then you remain plain Mister.
Back on my table I spotted a familiar face.
Adrian Berry, the former managing director of Bradford-based luxury cloth manufacturer J H Clissold.
After the speeches I approached him.
“Adrian, you won’t remember me, but many years ago when I was business editor of the Yorkshire Post I interviewed you and you gave me a lovely length of charcoal grey cloth,” I told him.
“I remember it, that was a very nice piece you wrote about the business.”
When I told Adrian I was pleased he was happy with the article, he replied: “Why do you think I gave you the cloth?”
And there was me thinking I had journalistic integrity.
I had the cloth made into a nice suit by Ossett-based tailors Carl Stuart run by the late Walter Grimes – he made up a name rather than putting his own above the door.
Of course, now my tailor is James Michelsberg in the Victoria Quarter in Leeds and I’ve introduced Tim Parr to James.
Tim, who is fond of a bow tie to complement his tailored pinstripes and tweeds, told me he is enjoying dealing with James.
I said there is nothing more uplifting than an appointment with Michelsberg and a full inside leg measurement.
But given Tim has received a knighthood bestowed by the Pope, I suppose he might have a different perspective.
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CHANNEL 4 has announced that Steph McGovern will host a new daytime show live from Leeds Dock.
The former BBC Breakfast business presenter will front The Steph Show which is set to air this spring and will be filmed in front of a live studio audience.
“We’ve chosen a brilliant location for our studio in Leeds. We’ve got a lush view over the canal and we’ll be able to have a good nosey at all the people out and about round the Docks,” said Steph.
I don’t know whether she’s visited Leeds Dock recently, but she’s more hopeful than I would be about seeing lots of people down there.
It’s not the Albert Dock in Liverpool where Richard and Judy used to present This Morning with Fred the weatherman that we can’t now talk about.
The last time I was down at Leeds Dock I saw a dog relieving itself against a rusty barge, a family wondering if visiting the Royal Armouries was worth the bother and several data techies in T-shirts munching on Ginsters pasties from the Tesco Express.
Have a great weekend.