The Family

I’m reading a new book (this should be a familiar introduction by now) and ran across this funny little anecdote that made me feel much better about myself.

It’s a book on memory.  Starts with stories of people forgetting things, like names and dates and such.   Tells the story of one Sir Thomas Beecham, conductor and founder of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

So … Sir Beecham is in a hotel, evidentally a nice hotel, and happens to meet an elegant woman that he recognizes but doesn’t quite identify.   She knows him, obviously, and they start chatting.   All the while, he’s trying to remember who this charming lady is, and then he dimly recalls that he thinks she has a brother.   So, hoping to jar his own memory, he asks how her brother is and if he is still in the same line of work?

“Oh, he’s very well”, the woman replies, “and still king.”

(direct quote from the book there)

So I laughed and laughed.   I have forgotten the names of many important people I’ve talked to, but so far none of them have been royalty.

But I suppose it worked .. I suppose it jogged his memory and he remembered who she was.  And then presumably excused himself from the conversation, the hotel, and the city in an attempt to find a deep enough hole to crawl into.   That’s what I would have done, in any case.