Friends of the TRNC Emergency
Services
Afternoon Tea Talk with James Butler
By Margaret Sheard
The Friends of the TRNC Emergency Services (112) held their monthly Afternoon Tea Talk on Wednesday 9th October and we were treated to another visit by James Butler who was to give us a very amusing talk about his profession as a dental technician.
These tea talks are always very popular so as usual there was a packed house with around 50 people to 
enjoy the lovely sandwiches and cakes and coffee or tea and catch up with the other supporters of this very worthy charity.
While we were enjoying our tea, Mike Plant brought us up to date with what has been happening and forthcoming events. On 26th October there will be the 60’s Night, 7th/8th December a Christmas Grotto for all children including local schools, 10th/11th December there will be the popular Christmas Singalong. All of these events will take place at the Mountain View Hotel in Karaoğlanoğlu who do such a lot to support this charity. Mike and his crew will be decorating the Grotto which will be quite a large area at Mountain View and he desperately needs a large amount of pine cones so if anyone can help with supplying these he would be very grateful.
While all of this was going on, Jenny was circulating with raffle tickets for the draw which was to come later along with Mike’s goodie bag. Later Mik
e announced that 540TL had been raised that afternoon, another brilliant result for the charity.
It was time for James to give his talk and he told us he had been involved with dental technology since he was 16 and was very lucky to enter the field of implantology when it was in its infancy in the 1980’s. He spent time in the USA where he was welcomed and he held a green card which seemed to indicate that he was a Nobel prize winner, which of course he added, he was not.
We were told all about the procedures of implants and that there are 4 different qualities of jawbone and James explained in an easy way that we should imagine hanging a picture on a wall and the type of fixing used depending on the structure of the wall. The same principle applies to the jawbone and if the wrong procedure is used it can cause severe problems. James told us that there were implants as far back as the Egyptian era from which time a jawbone had been found with a very early type of implant. A question was asked and James replied that an implant is an artificial root.
James explained many things of a dental nature, including crowns, veneers and many things relating to both our natural teeth and dentures, then he said I think I will play my guitar and we we
re treated to a jazz version of Autumn Leaves which received a huge round of applause. James said that he could not really play the guitar, he just know the notes, but it sounded very good to me. You under-estimate yourself James!
This was a very entertaining and interesting talk and James demonstrated another skill when talking about his dealings with Americans – he could imitate the American accent brilliantly and this again had the audience in fits of laughter.
After the talk, Mike started the raffle where there were some very nice prizes and this was followed by the goodie bag. One of the audience, Val Gregory, who has accumulated quite a collection of the famous salt & pepper shakers, was presented with a few more from other people who were “lucky” enough to win one and passed them on to her.
So we came to the end of another excellent Tea Talk. The next one will be held on the 13th November and the speaker will be Steve Sydenham who will be continuing with his previous talk “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and this will cover the topic of “The Ugly” giving some accounts of the not so nice people and celebrities he met in the motor racing world.
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