VOL. 67, NO. 3 - AAFI-AFICS, Geneva - UNOG

The NGO now has over 100 national member associations in different regions of the world. This global
people’s movement represents a Legacy to Geneva through its work for the United Nations by past and
present generations and those to come.
In the words of former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan “WFUNA’s work is to make the United Nations
more present, more relevant, more responsive and valuable in the lives of the people it exists to serve.”
Ita Marguet
Acknowledgement is given to all sources used in the preparation of this text. In 1964/65 I worked as a staff
member for the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA). The secretariat was in Villa
Rigot and I stayed briefly in the Jan Masaryk Study Centre. IM
OF CABBAGES AND KINGS
When Sorrows Come, they Come not Single Spies…
Dear Mr. Editor,
You remind me that it’s time to submit my next Cabbages and Kings. You are quite right. It is quite
unprofessional to have to be reminded of a time limit.
But, Mr. Editor, on this occasion you will have to excuse me. It is quite impossible for me to write of
Cabbages and Kings, or even of Beans and Barons.. I will tell you why and I will a tale unfold Whose lightest
word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like stars start from their
spheres, Thy knotty and combined locks part, And each particular hair to stand on end, like quills upon the
fretful porcupine..
Well, that was Hamlet’s Ghost-father; but you remember how his uncle-father, beset by the death of
Polonius, the madness of Ophelia, the misbehaviour of Hamlet and the revolt of Laertes, pointed out to his
wife: Oh, Gertrude, Gertrude, when sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.
Well, alack and alas, that’s how they have come upon me.
They began last autumn when I was cleaning my teeth - or at least what I thought were my teeth –
when there was a loud clatter and I found my teeth grinning up at me from the bottom of the wash basin.
(Good heavens, I thought. Is that how I look when I put on my disarming smile?)
I wrapped them in a Kleenex (how did we manage before Kleenex was invented?) and hied me to
my dentist, who happily, has his surgery two minutes away from us. He fixed them up temporarily, told me he
would have to make a new bridge It seems I had had a bridge for so many years I had forgotten it and it was
now a bridge of sighs.
A week later I was on a walking holiday in the Provence. As all true walkers know, the main purpose
of a walking tour is to try out all the gastronomic restaurants in the area. The third restaurant we were
enjoying proved too much for my delicate dentures and out they popped again. I wrapped them in my hanky
– reasonably clean – in lieu of a Kleenex and brought them safely back to my dentist.
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