For the Forum’s meeting held on the 7th of November the guest speaker was a retired nurse Denise Adlard. Her talk was titled You and Your Mattress and started with a description and the history of that basic item of domestic life.
The name comes from an Arabic word meaning something thrown down, mattresses being brought into the western world by returning crusaders. Denise described the various types of mattresses developed over the years and her difficulties encountered when trying to buy a replacement, a process recommended doing every eight years.
The subject of the talk then turned to sleeping and Forum members were invited to reveal their sleeping habits such as the length of a night’s sleep, single or double bed and the need for a daytime nap.
Denise stressed the need for plenty of sleep and compared man’s sleep pattern with that of other creatures. She ended her talk with the well-known saying – sleep tight and mind the bugs don’t bite – which refers to the design of old bedding and has no connection to insects found in beds.
Deputy Chairman Duncan Verity thanked Denise for an informative and amusing talk.