July 6th 2017
14 of us met at Jane’s for an evening of Donalds and Theresas. It was nice to see Jenny well enough to be there. One of the party was disappointed that we had excluded Trump and May.
We heard about Donalds “Duck” Dunn 1941-2012, great bass player with Booker T and the MGs; Sinden, theatre/film/tv/radio actor with the lovely voice; McCleary, who worked with The Royal Ballet for 48 years; Campbell, the only person to hold both the land and water speed records, before his spectacular crash in Bluebird; Osmond, the 7th son of the singing Osmond family; Tusk, born 1957, once President of Poland and now of the EU Council; and “Donald – Where’s Your Trousers” (cue for excellent singing).
The Theresa /Teresa crew were (Tessa) Sanderson, champion javelin thrower; Barclay, 19th century brothel keeper who patented a machine to beat customers; Hsu Chih 1989-2011, “Singapore’s Mother Teresa”, who was still doing charity work at 101 years old and was NOT religious; Blake, of Rossetti Couture, designer of ballet/theatre/opera costumes for all the big companies (and theatrical wedding dresses); Maria-Theresa of Vienna 1717-80, Queen and Holy Roman Empress; Sackler, philanthropist – many art galleries and museums have Sackler rooms or buildings; and two Carmelite Nuns – St Teresa of Avila, canonised 1622 (who founded monasteries, was a visionary and a Doctor of the Church) and St Theresa the Little Flower, canonised 1925, who was too sickly to do any Big Deeds but made small daily sacrifices and showed there could be holiness in ordinary lives.