I was looking at a memento from a recent wedding – a funny caricature of my wife and me, drawn by an artist as we sat in a deserted hotel reception room.
About 20 minutes earlier, it was heaving with almost 100 guests, rubbing shoulders at dining tables; now they were in the disco downstairs.
It was a joyous occasion and the father of the bride stole the show with a brilliant speech, which was comical and tender.
Unknown to everyone, I basked in reflected glory during his thunderous applause as I played a minor supporting role in his performance. Months earlier, I offered my brother a jokey line after a sneak preview of his speech – and I beamed with pride when he used it on the big day.
Just for record, I’ll tell you what it was. He talks about the bridegroom’s qualities at one point and says to him: “I have two pages of notes about your wonderful attributes…”
I suggested he added the line: “…but I can’t read your writing.”
Get it? OK, it was funnier when you heard him say it.
But he polished the joke to make it much better. He accomplished this by surreptitiously acquiring the crayon scribblings of a four-year-old and pretending the little one’s work was the groom’s notes when he held up the infantile scrawl for all to see as he delivered my proposed quip. It went down rather well.
A killer was hiding among wedding guests
Yes, it was a happy memory. As were the caricatures created by an artist booked for the occasion. They are never supposed to be flattering, but I wished they actually looked more like us.
He was somewhat hit or miss with his “victims”; just like Covid.
As we drank and laughed – and kissed and hugged – people blotted the virus from their minds. We didn’t realise that this demonic killer was sitting among us all day long.
A few days later, I discovered that 11 guests had gone down with Covid. How it got there was anyone’s guess; that’s the problem with coronavirus.
The bride was distraught: Covid had already forced two postponements of the wedding over the past 18 months, but it still found a way to leave its mark.
It’s not her fault; as time passes happy memories will drive away the bad. The fact they succeeded in marrying in a horrific pandemic will always give her a sense of pride and achievement – like war brides of 80 years ago.
When people gather for weddings, and funerals for that matter, they pray guests exercise some personal responsibility. It’s like dodging an invisible enemy, of course, but personal hygiene, social distancing and reacting quickly to symptoms are essential.
We travelled the length of the UK for the wedding and were struck by the difference between mask-wearing in Scotland and England
As we travelled home, we stopped off to visit my wife’s frail, highly vulnerable mother, who is 89. Hugs and kisses all round; this was before we heard of the outbreak. It makes you shudder to think what might have happened.
But, relief all round, as it looks as though we are in the clear after a week of negative home testing. Luck plays a part, but vaccines and boosters are keeping more people alive with protection to fend off Covid altogether, or enabling us to get better if infected.
Don’t think it’s all over
Some people think it’s all over, but it isn’t.
I spotted six people in two different groups strolling around an Aberdeen supermarket the other day without a care in the world – and without a single face mask between them. I asked a shop assistant about it. She shrugged and said they were “probably exempt”; I suspected she was probably wrong.
We travelled the length of the UK for the wedding and were struck by the difference between mask-wearing in Scotland and England. Just south of the border, my wife reckoned you could spot the people from Scotland in a motorway service area as they were still wearing their masks, but were clearly in a minority.
I was reminded of Scots Covid chief, Professor Jason Leitch, who told an interviewer how he doggedly stuck to his mask in a London theatre audience, even though he was the odd one out.
It’s vital to make everyone have vaccinations or boosters, whether they like it or not; I was calling for this in January when politicians were still dithering about human rights.
I’ll grab my vaccination booster without hesitation at an appointment a week from tomorrow.
It’s just as well really – I’ll have just returned from a funeral after another 1,000-mile round trip into the unknown.
David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal