Stage Fright
I am often amazed at human kindness. One of the scariest moments I have recently experienced was when I had to press a small green button in front of a bank-teller on Mid-Street in Keith. Keith, I hear you say. For the uninitiated, it’s a town in Moray just over the border from Aberdeenshire. Known as the friendly town – and I can vouch for that accolade – the inhabitants are in the habit of saying hello at every opportunity. Even if they don’t know you from Adam, an upbeat ‘hello and how are you today?’ followed by a reassuring pause to discus the weather usually interrupts any High Street jaunt. A selection of traditional shops, including a butcher who, alongside selling the traditional range of animal body-parts also sells local-history books completes the picture. But I digress. That scary moment involved the purchasing of a house and the button in question would, given the press of a single digit, send untold thousands of hard-earned pounds into the ether of the banking in...