Men with sticks

Picture the scene. A pavement just wide enough for one person. Person A, on crutches, is heading down it in a southerly direction. Person B, on sticks, is heading up it in a northerly direction. Each has a decision to make. To make contact? Or to sidle past? The distance is narrowing. Each person looks up. Eye contact is made. Both start smiling. Then wider grins. By the time they meet, these two strangers, with nothing in common but a pair of NHS sticks, are laughing out loud. They stop to chat. Sharing their grim tales. He's from the medical profession. South African. Ex rugby player. Hip problems. Her story is already well known.

The next day they meet on the bus. The following day its the beach. She tests his anti apartheid credentials. Remember the Springboks boycott in New Zealand? Tore the country apart. On the fourth day she accuses him of stalking her. And offers him a croissant. The spare one that she bought, rather greedily, to eat in the sun on the Promenade.

If this was Cosmo, this chance meeting of sticks would become a love story. But this is no glossy mag. And of course there is no love story. There is, however, a strange but burgeoning friendship between two people who, on paper at least, should never have met. And certainty never have spoken. Funny old things these sticks. It may be worth hanging on to them for just a bit longer.