Thursday May 1st 2025
Christine Grahame MSP writes her monthly column for Midlothian View
Well It’s not often at my age you receive an invitation from a group of senior male constituents to share afternoon tea with them at Peniucik’s North Kirk though I did have a chaperone in the form of your provost Debbi McCall.
The invitation was from the Kellock club. I have to tell you tables were beautifully dressed with table cloths, napkins, dainty sandwiches, sponge cake and even cheena cups and saucers.
My late grannie Grahame would have approved of the quality of the hospitality although if I am being picky what was missing were the doilies and antimacassars. But even then it’s nine out of ten, gentlemen.
We were there, Debbi and me, to talk about our work as politicians but it was too sunny an afternoon for such a dull topic though we did touch on it off and on. Mostly we charted our accidental way into politics, neither of us starting from a burning desire to be politicians. My journey started with an all night and into the morning ceilidh and if you want to know more, you’ll need to join the Kellock club.
Of course I teased them that I was disappointed that it was not the speed dating I had anticipated (by the way I am just too content to be and to remain single) but we all had such a laugh so much so that two hours flew by.
Seriously though, it, like the Men’s Shed movement, fills a gap where men, used to the chit chat and back chat at work, in retirement, over a cuppa, blether their hearts out and believe you me, they cannae half blether, though Debbi and I soon put a stop to that.
Anyway, my thanks to you all at the Kellock club for a hilarious afternoon interlaced with the occasional serious comment, and all that, just drinking tea!
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