Page 6 - Oundle Life October 2023

OUNDLE’S HEART
Community spirit at its best
“Where’s my phone?” Most of us have had that awful feeling when we realise it’s missing, and disbelief verges on panic. It happened to me last month.
unforgiveable and put all my eggs in one basket. A son and grandson arrived two days later and took up the hunt enthusiastically. Like most
After visiting a plant nursery in
Grantham and having tea with a friend
in his Oundle garden, I got home,
kicked off my shoes and then it hit me: “Where’s my phone?” It was not in a
pocket or bag so “...perhaps it slipped
out of my pocket in the car.” I thought,
but a quick search yielded nothing. “Be logical.” I scolded myself, so made a phone call (via my landline, which I hate) to the friend. He was due to go away the next day but abandoned preparations to search. No luck. My other hope, the Nursery, was shut by this time.
Like so many of us I have come to rely on my phone for absolutely everything. It holds the contact list of names and addresses, my diary, and all sorts of information. Even worse: my phone case also contained my credit card and several other essential cards. Without them I was completely lost. I contacted the bank to freeze my card, searched the car and the house again and again, and went to bed that night with an increasing sense of desperation, convinced that I had lost everything. A call to Grantham the next day only confirmed my worst fears: they had not found it and I had done the
of his generation, the boy is a techno- wizard and after complicated and clever stuff via my laptop and his phone announced: “It’s in West Street.” With elation and disbelief in equal amounts
I saw him and his father march off to follow the trail, and there followed the most amazing sequence of events. It
was in the garden. It was still functioning (it could be heard ringing), but inaccessible as
of course the whole place was securely locked up. With heavy rain expected this was not good news. Over the next 24 hours, retrieving it involved many phone calls and a string of
11 local people, some of them unknown to me, but all determined to help. They included shopkeepers, neighbours, a local builder (good at ladder work) as well as the friend (now halfway across Europe on his holidays) who gave us permission to invade his property. On Sunday during a downpour, my phone was handed back to me, a little damp but none the worse for a couple of nights in a flowerpot.
To all those people who contributed to
the eventual recovery of my phone I give my heartfelt thanks for their kindness and help. Britain’s got talent, but Oundle has heart. MTK
It was still functioning (it could be heard ringing)
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