Jimmy; the man, the legend

You won't remember Jimmy because I met him before I started to blog. Jimmy was the second American we met after we landed. The first was our very friendly cab driver who used to live in the UK and who told us that we wouldn't be needing our clothes here, and that if we wanted anything, anything at all, to give him a call. He meant of course that the weather would be so different, a new set of clothes may be in order. He must have lived in London before I was born, when people wore long johns, snow shoes, greatcoats and mittens in the summer.... or maybe he just feels the cold more than I. Needless to say, our clothes have be more than sufficient, and we never did call him. Forget about him though, it is Jimmy that I want to talk about.

Jimmy opened our bank account for us the day after we arrived. He laughed and joked the whole time and made us feel extraordinary welcome in a way I certainly have never experienced in a bank before. He patiently answered all our questions, even when we struggled to contain our surprise and some scorn when we were told about the direct debit system here - someone in the bank gets a message when you want to pay a bill, writes the cheque for you as per your online banking instruction, pops it in an envelope with a stamp and posts it on your behalf. I do have a image of a lovely little old lady (Mavis?) with a stack of envelopes and a younger boy, possibly called Geoffrey, handwriting the electronic details and putting them on a paper spike for Mavis, no, Gladys. Yes, Geoffrey and Gladys; they make a formidable team.

Back to Jimmy. He made a real impression on both Mike and I and we left happy that we had a bank account, and it had been such a lovely morning.

So, when Dan came over and needed to open a bank account, imagine my joy when Jimmy walked up, beaming from ear to ear as ever, to shake his hand and welcome him to the bank. Before this time, I had met Jimmy once, three and a half months ago, so imagine my standard joy quickly turn into utter high-pitched-squeak-producing glee, when he said to me that not only did he remember me, but, a mere second later, Jimmy, the amazingly happy despite working for a bank and memory manipulator extraordinaire, produced my name from out of his mouth, and into the air. I was stunned. I cannot even imagine how many people have passed through this man's office in that amount of time in this main city branch, and yet, the man did not only remember my face, but my actual name.

Bank account opened, card activated, frivolity exchanged, hands shook and I assured Jimmy that if any more of my family decide to come and work in the area, I will of course recommend him and his bank highly, at length, and perhaps rather too enthusiastically to them.