I was sitting minding everyone else’s business in a hotel bar/eatery at Gatwick airport the other evening.

People watching is one way of describing it. I like to try and think what the story is behind people sitting there.

The Best Beloved and I were staying the night, before venturing to an unknown-to-us destination but more of that another time.

Anyway, I glanced over to the check-in desk and saw two women and two men.

The two men were clean cut, short haired and good looking in a kind of neutral way and likewise the women, though they had long hair pulled into glossy, and unsurprisingly, very tidy buns.

Mormon missionaries, I thought (instantly).

Going home to Utah having perhaps spent time in Crawley, Billingshurst, Croydon and for time off for good behaviour some of the villages of the Surrey Hills.

I speculated on their reports to the Elders’ committee.

How many times did they turn up on someone’s doorstep, say their spiel, get invited in for a cup of tea and hear, ‘ This is such a revelation, I had no idea. Where do I sign and when can I join?’

Meanwhile, a large group had been gathering in the seating areas around where we were sitting.

People joined in twos and threes and fours and all seemed to know at least a few other people.

At first I thought it would be a family gathering, but as more and more people arrived, that didn’t make sense.

There was no obvious common factor – older, younger, men, women, rather smart, not so bothered about that sartorial nonsense, tall, short, all white and middle class. 

Indeed one of the women who seemed to know everyone and as I watched morphed into the woman in charge, was dressed in an ill-fitting tracksuit.

Not that there is anything wrong with that but if you had asked me to pick out the leader it wouldn’t have been her. 

However, the trim looking young man – well, in his 40s which was young by the group’s standards – I would have earmarked into the role and indeed he was joint organiser.

Assumptions/prejudices all my own.

They were bussed out to the terminal to check in with their passports and luggage and then came back for a group meal which a few of them declined in favour of a beer and an early night.

Several women had been sitting next to us and one – in her late 60s and very elegantly casual had declared it is past six o’clock ‘ where we are going’ so lets order some wine.

So, who were they and where were they going?

In the end curiosity got the better of me and I gently tugged at her sleeve as they stood to go to check in and asked her.

It was an amalgamation of three golf club’s members going to Portugal for 10 days of sun and teeing off.

I was a bit disappointed.

I had already mentally tried on a group of witches and wizards based on one person’s green and pink hair and the off-beat religious theme which I had already got going in my head.

And I really liked the idea there wizards in slacks and colourful.

In a widely optimistic thought on behalf of the Best Beloved, I had hoped they might be the inaugural convocation/convention of peripheral neurology specialists from across the country who were looking for people about whom they could do an in-depth study and treat at the same time.

Retired stand-up comedians, the world-renowned group who between them decided on all the bizarre paint shade names we have these days – remember elephant breath?

Graham Greene super fans.

Or a jolly and interesting group of people who might end up in the same resort and hotel we were going to.

Anyway, golf in Portugal it was, and I hope they are having a very good time.

Once they had left, I was left with a group of Chinese looking young men sitting on stools around a table and eating a mix of pizza and dumplings.

They looked as if food was a fuel rather than a culinary delight and they were dressed in T shirts with random slogan and decorations. 

They were, I decided some kind of manual workers, eating and then going to get some rest before they had to start again on whatever they were doing.

I wondered what workers they were, and why Chinese – on the basis that you don’t see many manual Chinese workers in Britain.

But they, and we, had eaten and gone before I got much time to speculate.

Well, dear reader imagine my surprise when my Mormons turned out to be an long haul aircraft crew and likewise my Chinese workers appeared in uniforms with lots of gold braid (and I noticed on the departures board there was a flight to Shanghai).

It was a Gatwick airport……