I suddenly remembered Geoff Lynne this morning lead singer of ELO, in the good old days, and thought of Telephone Lines a rave from the grave.  As M sleeps a lot these days one of the things I do is disconnect the land line.  If she is awoken by the ringing of our telephone it causes distress; particularly if the call is for her.  The last thing she wants to be doing when she has been woken up is to take a call on the telephone when she is trying to come round.  It is now evident that all telephone calls have the potential to cause distress.

Imagine, if you can, that your short term memory is poor and you have no recall over what has gone on in the last few hours.  The telephone rings and it is for you: with butterflies in your stomach you take the receiver.   You have to say something as the questions arise: so you simply provide detail rather than appear like a blithering idiot.  Confabulations flow and you build up a story based on something that you have done in the past.  The person at the other end of the phone may twig and hopefully does not let on.  Then it could get worse than that.

The caller decides they have to initiate conversation and shares some personal detail.  At the end of the call with the emotional memory still intact ‘bad news’ is often retained and dwelt upon as nothing else has been retained.  With this being a typical scenario it is tempting to leave the phone off the hook more frequently.  The alternative is to suggest some guidelines to callers.  I once read on Talking Point a suggestion that may fit the Bill that went something like this:

Keep calls brief

Open with: ‘Hi just phoning to let you know we are all fine

Do not pass on any bad news

Don’t ask any questions

Just say: ‘is there anything you want to tell me?’

All seems very straightforward but not that easy to pass on without causing upset.