At the museum we used to have a staff room right at the very top of the museum up narrow attic stairs which would never pass health and safety for the general public. In it we would sit and eat lunch, make tea or coffee and enjoy the civilised habit of keeping two tins of biscuits on the table - one savoury (Cheddars) and one sweet. Most of all it gave us all an opportunity to meet and talk with those other members of staff who beavered away in their own little offices.

That staff room is now the Museum Education Office. Museum Education staff still eat there, but it is no longer a meeting place for the whole museum.

The other day Hilary said to me "Does Dave T. still work at the museum? I haven't seen him for ages."

I was able to say that I had passed him on the stairs a few days previously, but it is sad that we see him so seldom now that the staff room is no longer a staff room that we could not even be certain he still worked at the museum. I have picked out Dave because he is a shy, reserved man who works quietly in his archive and is unlikely deliberately to seek out colleagues on a purely social basis, which is a shame because he is a really nice person.

Several other people have mentioned that they find it quite lonely eating lunch in their own offices.

None of this is a criticism of either the council in general or of the museum heirarchy in particular. The museum is small. The space was needed. The socialising of colleagues may seem very low on any list of priorities, but it seems to me that it is the daily social intercourse over coffee, lunch, and the traditional tea with cream cakes on Friday afternoon rather than the formal meetings and training days which melds individuals and the separate departments into one team.