How Great is Late?

According to Debrett’s ‘the recognised authority in British etiquette’ founded in 1769, “failing to be punctual is the height of bad manners because it disregards the value of other people’s time.”

​Personally, whether or not it still counts as the height of bad manners (there are quite a few contenders for the top spot) I’m convinced that we’re divided roughly into two camps - latecomers, and early birds.

Of course there are subsets. On the latecomers’ side, there are those who always cut it slightly too fine, arriving flustered, apologetic and confused, often genuinely distressed. There are those who believe that it is quite acceptable to be five, ten or even fifteen minutes late, and there are those who text you just as you arrive at the selected destination, to tell you they've just left their house.


On the early bird side, there are those who aways arrive a few calm and efficient minutes early, those who somehow always manage to get it exactly right by working out just how late the host or hostess has assumed you will be, and there are those who routinely spend at least half an hour in various displacement activities, or in moving round all the seats in a coffee shop, gradually succeeding to the best table in the window just as the others arrive.


I am in the latter camp. I'm not alone. The marvellous poet Ian McMillan, in his recent Radio 4 programme I’m Here, Where are You? says he actually aims to arrive at least an hour and a half early, for a train, a meeting, even a social get-together. He’s a real expert. By his standards, I'm an amateur, with my usual half-hour window, my immensely heavy sackful of books, papers and other useful things to do to fill the time, and my tendency to look seriously sinister as I lurk round corners or duck down in the front seat of my car, trying not to be spotted by the people I am supposed to meet quite some time later.


Why would it matter? So what if I’m early? Debrett’s goes on to suggest that ‘being punctual always scores bonus points. You will come across as someone who cares about other people, and is efficient, organised and reliable.’ Debrett’s doesn't mention how you come across if you are spotted, circling the block for the third time pretending to be taking an important phone call, or crouched underneath a hedge feigning interest in wildlife.
Because of course arriving that early would just cause confusion. It would risk you turning up to find your hosts still in previous meetings, or perhaps even talking about you, Or in various states of undress, or in the middle of a blazing row, or just popping out to get a takeaway because they had forgotten you were coming at all until another guest just texted to say that she would probably be five minutes late because she lives an hour away and is just leaving the house.


I have on occasion become seriously fed up with being the one fending off all comers at a table for six in a crowded coffee shop for twenty minutes, ignoring the sighs and glares of disbelief as I sit, alone, while they circle, trays aloft. And I have, deliberately, tried to be late. I have stopped myself at every stage of preparation, from the hasty grabbing of the last mouthful of coffee at home, the collecting of the books and papers and phones and pens and everything else I always need. I have unloaded those books because I won’t be needing them. I will be arriving just after - (not long after, but just after), my companion.
I wander about at home until my traffic app tells me I have exactly the right number of minutes for my journey, bearing in mind the time of day, probably traffic, weather and so on. And then I have actually managed to leave it a few minutes more before leaving the house. Priding myself on my new, casual approach to timekeeping, I set out.


And then I run.


I feel tension rising as I carve up fellow motorists, or cut across station concourses, leap bravely onto moving buses, or step out as traffic lights turn. Risking life and limb I throw myself wholeheartedly into the desperate effort not to be late, and I arrive, about fifteen minutes early. With nothing to do because I've left all my reading material at home.


And as I sit there, alone at a table for four, reading coffee-ringed copies of Caravan Monthly, or Wedding and Home, my phone beeps and my friend advises me that she's just running a wee bit late. With appropriate sad face, ‘duh’ and running woman emojis.


I think, especially as I am not Hugh Grant’s Charlie, in Four Weddings and a Funeral, of whom the fabulous Fiona says affectionately, ‘There’s a Greatness to your Lateness’, I’d rather be on my side of this. After all my earliness is the habit of a lifetime. And if I seriously did manage to be late, to arrive even a minute after anyone else, they would surely call the emergency services immediately. Because I’m never late. So if I’m not there, scowling and gritting my teeth behind my book, something terrible must have happened to me, right?