Do you copy?

I was in a meeting yesterday and a colleague who I’ve known for years reminded me that we had written something together about seventeen years ago and, as is often the case with the Church of England, they could do with reading it right now, as the issue is still current and has hardly changed, or even gone backwards since then. Where would we find a copy? I don’t have one; neither does he. Anyone else from that time? I almost said what about checking your computer, but, of course, this is the Church and the voluntary sector; we didn’t have computers seventeen years ago. The best chance we have is someone having kept a dog-eared hard copy in their archives. So then we went into this little thing about office equipment; when we put in computers, and when we first used email and stuff. I remember the first time we used a photocopier. Everyone came in to stand around and watch. And then, back further, we all remember the aching arm from turning the Gestetner handle. And the chemicals you had to put on stuff to make it work; you had to use it with the window open or go outside every now and again, otherwise you had hallucinations and got cancer. And if you tell young people today they don’t believe you.