Guess What

I have no idea how I do it, but often within half an hour of surfacing each morning I have put my mobile phone down somewhere. It is annoying for me but Geordie really finds it off the scale frustrating and instead of ringing it or helping me he just keeps saying “I don’t believe it!”
I then have to find a land line to ring my phone: it might be balanced on a shelf where I put it down as I was carrying too many things, or in the pantry and quite recently in a shed when I was collecting more tonic waters as Nanny was staying and we had run out of gin and tonic water. That was more challenging and I had also left Geordie's keys there too -  so a double whammy. 

This is further complicated by the fact it is not always easy to find a mobile phone signal here at Highclere. We seem to be in a bit of black spot. There is, however, a reasonable chance of two bars of connection by a low brick wall near the Coach House and thus also somewhere to sit.

For my own part, I am not sure that this is a huge disadvantage as it means you have time to gather your thoughts and make a proper phone call. On the other hand if it is one to the team here it means it may be better to go and find that person and speak to them directly rather than via that rectangular gadget that is permanently glued to hand or pocket – if not in my case.

If your mobile does miraculously ring, the connection is often so weak that I find myself leaning out of windows or standing on desks in an effort to hear. Being of ancient years, I obviously grew up pre the mobile phone revolution. As much as possible we were outside, climbing trees, building forts, building secret paths as well as playing tennis, looking after ponies or reading and playing games of racing demon. As a child I always enjoyed climbing trees and cartwheeling, so I suppose it all helped instill the necessary innovation and agility needed for mobile phone use. 

Everyone here has their favourite spot where they think they get the best signal. The Highclere team are regularly seen roaming the lawns waving their phones in the air whilst the gift shop ladies explore their own agility, climbing onto a chair by a window in the stockroom. I have to remind myself that times change but I think it is also always worthwhile evaluating change. Highclere is both ancient and modern. 

Mobile phones obviously give us the ability to communicate beyond borders but equally they have no filter unless we remember to reflect first. Like a fire which can give us warmth on cold winter nights they can be positive but, if they are the only thing through which we look at and listen to the world, they would seem to me more like a fire which has ignited out of control in the wrong place and can consume us. 

Certainly, it seems that attention spans have shortened over the last 20 years and there seems to be a growing body of proof that the more time a person spends consuming digital media each day, the more likely they are to struggle with depression and anxiety. 

Husbands (or partners) however, seem to have a unique relationship with them. I occasionally ask Geordie whether he would prefer to go for a walk round the gardens with his phone or his wife. Naturally there is no competition, and so the phone goes on the walk with him. 

Occasionally, I make the mistake of asking if I might borrow his phone to look something up which produces a near crisis of indecision and panic. With unbelievable reluctance I am allowed to hold it but, before I can find out what I need to know, he has grabbed it back saying he can look it up instead for me.

From time to time, I try to ring him on his phone as, in a rather old-fashioned way, I believe that apart from all its other functions, it is fundamentally a telephone with a person at the other end. It appears to be one of the miracles of the male sex (and also all children) that, even though he never seems to put his phone down, neither does he ever answer it. After 15 missed calls, I cannot decide what I want to do – moving swiftly from the options of divorce and/or murder to immediate worry that something has happened. 

In fact, of course he is either too busy doing something else or merely oblivious. I have found the best thing to do is send a text saying that I took his silence for acquiescence and have just ordered a few more sofas, paintings and hand blocked wall papers and sent it to his account… Miraculously the phone becomes a phone again.

However, the fact remains that at Highclere, the most useful gadgets are the old black radios that everyone here carries. The banter on “Radio Highclere” is a treasured part of each day, sometimes functional, sometimes urgent and sometimes just to remind each other we are all here. It is occasionally augmented by John with a megaphone, trying to get my attention as I am late for a meeting with him and naturally have neither my radio nor my mobile phone on me.