Sixth sense

The last carnival organised by Brighton Lions Club was 15 years ago but I still remember the reaction of some people when we were selling programmes from door to door.

"We always support Brighton Lions. You spend so much of your money locally." We still do. In fact, more than 90% of our charitable expenditure is for the benefit of people in Brighton & Hove.

"Brighton Lions are careful how you spend money."

It was that second comment that came back to me this week. A local group asked us for financial support (I don't propose to go into detail - you will see why in a moment) but for some reason my antennae started twitching. A sixth sense was warning me that we should be careful.

Another memory came back.

(That's one of the things about getting old; life gets interrupted by memories!)

It must have been 40+ years ago that my wife and I and our two young sons spent a few days with my brother, his wife and their son. My brother was then a policeman living on the edge of the New Forest. He and I drove into the forest to walk the dogs. As we set off, he commented on a car parked some two or three hundred yards away, just outside the car park. He felt there was something wrong. When we returned some time later, his hackles rose again so we walked across. It was only as we got much closer that we were able to see the hosepipe from the exhaust into a window. An example of the sixth sense that so many policemen develop.

Anyway, the more I dug into this application for money, the more questions needed to be answered. In my opinion, anyway.

I am probably being over-cautious. I hope so. But we do need to be mindful of our duty of care to those who have trusted us with their money.