EVERETT, STEPHEN (1958 - ) Museum Assistant, Oaf. Until the drab new age of 'relevance' was heralded by Liz Bishop I enjoyed a long and happy association with Drumfeld Museum. As a child, I was intrigued by its dusty rooms and gloomy corridors, the very aspects of the building so repugnant to Bishop and her cohorts, but particularly evocative to anyone of genuine sensitivity.

When my mother retired, she took a voluntary position in the museum's shop and later arranged for Billy to help as a guide while he recovered from one of his emotional collapses, a position he retains to this day. Around this time I renewed my own acquaintance with the building, keeping tabs on Billy's progress and helping to supervise the Hamilton Coe exhibition in the unused Scott room. With Everett's arrival, however, our sanctuary was spontaneously transformed into the set of some hideous 'sitcom'. An afficionado of practical jokes and sexual innuendo, Everett, impervious to the irritation behind the strained smiles elicited by his antics, gradually overwhelmed his colleagues. "He's quite a character," became the consensus, 'character' now being a routine defence of anti-social personality traits.

My letter to Everett's employers at Stirlingshire council's department of culture, however, explaining his unsuitability to the position, resulted in my being deemed an unauthorised person. For three months, in fact, until I was cleared by the officious nincompoops at Disclosure Scotland, I was barred from the building. By the time I returned, Everett had insinuated himself to the extent that I was made to feel like the outsider. Incredibly, I was refused access to the staffroom, an insult compounded by Margaret Semple's murmured comment that "he steals our biscuits."

 

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