Gina Davidson
THE
summer of 2003 could well go down as being one of the most surreal in history.
Freaky weather phenomena aside, there have been some strange goings-on that
have left countless members of the public truly bewitched, bothered and bewildered.
Not that there’s any magic involved, at least not of an other-worldly kind. These peculiar happenings have all been man-made. Take flash mobbing as one odd example. All over the world large groups of people, complete strangers in the main, have been gathering together at a specified point and time all because someone e-mailed them telling them to do so. For no exact purpose they have congregated at sofa stores, shoe shops or street corners, milled around aimlessly, then at another specified time have dispersed as quietly as they arrived.
Edinburgh is set to be at the centre of the next flash mob occurrence next week, with groups of people expected to converge at certain points of the city centre. And what is the point of all of this? Nobody knows. They just do it.
At least there’s a reason behind another of the summer’s peculiarities - Danny Wallace. Not that he’s peculiar per se, it’s just that this 26-year-old bespectacled BBC comedy writer and director has accidentally founded a movement devoted to spontaneous acts of kindness.
Feeling bored one day last year he placed an ad in a London magazine that simply said "Join Me by sending your passport photo to PO Box 33561, London E3 2YW". Two days later, an equally bored man called Christian Jones read the advert and, on an impulse, sent his photograph to Wallace. In doing so, he became Joinee Jones, the first follower. His flatmate, Dave Cobbett, followed suit. The two of them met Wallace, and a movement gradually took shape, known as Join Me.
Encouraged by Jones and Cobbett, Wallace placed more adverts and set up a website. Dozens of people sent in their passport photographs, the urge to join something apparently outweighing any doubts about what they were joining.
Within a month Wallace had a group of followers. A few months after that he had hundreds of people - Joinees - calling him The Leader. Teachers, mechanics, sales reps and even schoolchildren all pledged their allegiance to his cause - without knowing what his cause was. But then, he says, neither did he.
So Wallace decided he had to do something with his members, and that the cult should be for good rather than evil. And lo he created "Good Fridays", when his members - which he dubbed the Karma Army - would carry out random acts of kindness for complete strangers.
And as the first tenet of the movement is "make an old man happy", the majority of his followers now mainly hang around pubs looking for a pensioner drinking on his own and when they spot one, buy him a pint, then sidle out the door before they can be thanked.
Others give sandwiches to people on the street they consider look a bit hungry, or even put £10 book vouchers inside hardbacks in Edinburgh bookstores.
Yes, Wallace’s message has spread to the Capital and this weekend he will be in Edinburgh meeting members of his Karma army who have been carrying out unexpected good deeds, and leaving a slightly bemused public in their wake.
"We’re all meeting at the Pear Tree for our first get-together," says Wallace. "It should be interesting and probably attract more joinees.
"The only problem with all this is it creates a lot of admin. I thought being a cult leader would all be about women stroking my thighs and preaching from cliff tops. Instead, I spend all my time e-mailing people - and because there are now so many, around 3000, it takes ages and they get annoyed that I don’t respond quickly enough. Such are the trials of being a cult leader."
But this isn’t anything like the Moonies, he stresses. More the Moomins.
Wallace accidentally became a modern-day Pied Piper last February after being inspired by stories of his great uncle Gallus. Back in 1945 Gallus Breitenmoser, a Swiss farmer, decided to found a commune in the small town of Mosnang, near Zurich. He had plenty of land, and reckoned that he could realistically attract 100 people. He got three.
Wallace learned about the story when he attended the old man’s funeral. "It started me thinking," he says. "Why didn’t people join Gallus? What would have happened if they had?"
Wallace decided to take up where Uncle Gallus left off and see if he could start a movement of his own. Not that this was the first time he’s been involved in something so bizarre. He was the co-writer of the successful Are You Dave Gorman? television show and book and was part of the original team behind Dead Ringers.
So is this all about getting material for another book - a book actually just published? "Not at all," he says. "If that was the case I would have stopped it all by now. I still do it - last Friday I gave some baguette to some strangers, which was surprising for them, and I’ll do something tomorrow too.
"The reaction from people is varied. You would think most would run away, but most react quite positively.
"I think the natural instinct for most people is to want to help someone they see is in trouble or need, but society has turned us into people who don’t, because we don’t want to be thought of as odd.
"But if people think they’re part of something, which they do with Join Me, then they feel able to do these acts of kindness without any embarrassment. And I have to say I’m quite glad I’ve started that.
"I think people are generally good and want to do nice stuff - Join Me gives them a way of doing that without feeling too weird."
One of his Edinburgh devotees, Gareth Saunders, believes in the fundamental goodness of most as well - but then he is an Episcopalian minister who splits his time between the chaplaincy at the new Royal Infirmary, the Church of the Good Shepherd in Murrayfield and St Salvador’s in Stenhouse.
Since joining up, the 31-year-old has handed out boxes of chocolates to surprised strangers - including one Edinburgh policewoman he dubbed WPc Miserable - has bought a wedding gift for a couple he doesn’t know from their John Lewis gift list signed "Courtesy of Join Me", driven from Inverness to Edinburgh to deliver four Cadbury’s Creme Eggs to staff at Boots the Chemist in Corstorphine and hidden a £10 gift voucher inside the pages of Wallace’s book in between pages 118 and 119 - a chapter devoted to him.
"I know of at least four full-time joinees in Edinburgh," he laughs. "And my mum’s one too although she’s in Selkirk. I found out about it on the internet and as I’m a minister and obviously of a persuasion to put my trust in things I can’t really explain, it really caught my imagination and I thought it could be a good thing.
"Most Fridays I try to do my best to do something for someone. Last Friday I was working at the hospital but stayed on for a good few hours to visit people - and not just Episcopalians or Anglicans - meeting strangers and being nice to them.
"Most people react okay, a little surprised at first maybe and perhaps suspicious, but when I explain what it’s about they seem to be interested, and always ended up smiling."
He adds: "My congregations do know about it and think it’s quite good fun. One of my fellow ministers isn’t a joinee but he has done some things, like cut the neighbour’s hedge just because he was cutting his, which is typical joinee behaviour."
He adds: "When I was a student doing sociology and religion the lecturer would say people don’t join things these days, be it cubs or Scouts or political parties, but I think Join Me proves that wrong, and that people do want to be part of something. And to be honest it’s probably easier to get people to do this, than to join the church."
Like Gavin (sic) [ahem! you mean Gareth!], most people have joined thanks to the website, and Wallace has joinees all over Europe. In January this year he even received a letter from Prime Minister Tony Blair, offering his good wishes, which was closely followed by one from the Prince of Wales. "The world is a better place because of the work of joinees," he wrote.
Wallace is unsure how the Prince found out about Join Me. But what has been his favourite act of kindness yet? "I met this woman who asked me what I did for a living and I told her I was a cult leader," he laughs.
"I told her all about Join Me, and the make an old man happy rule, and she said I should make her granddad happy. I asked what would, and she replied ‘he quite likes peanuts’.
"So when I got home I e-mailed loads of joinees and over the course of the next three or four days that old man received about 80 packets of peanuts, and was very happy indeed."
So if someone offers to buy you a pint and a packet of peanuts at the Pear Tree on Saturday, look closely. You could be about to be joined.
• Join Me by Danny Wallace is published by Ebury, priced £9.99. The website can be found at www.join-me.co.uk. The Pear Tree, on West Nicolson Street, will be holding a joinees meeting at 1pm on Saturday.