Deborah Forster

The 18th-century Englishman Samuel Johnson once wrote, ‘He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.  

I read this in a piece by Susan Chenery in ‘The Guardian’ (which I subscribe to, she said dully). There are dull men and plenty of dull women too, I believe, all over the world joining clubs and deciding if things are dull enough to talk about. It’s a kind of safety in chatting. Women don’t seem to worry about it as much though, perhaps we just don’t have to strive for it. One man saw a lesser spotted woodpecker in his garden and thought it was too exciting for his Dullness Club. Others talk a lot about whether toilet paper should face front or back. Weather used to be a good topic for the tedious.

I like videos of trains crossing orange deserts dotted with round grey bushes. Or barges bumping to new levels though skinny locks. This, I find soothing and interesting, if not exactly dull. Who says we all have to be explorers anyway? There’s something in the minutiae of life that is us and we are it. It’s there in the number of times a day a neighbour walks a dog and says hello! It’s there waiting for the leaf eating machines descending on the street. Doing washing requires a kind of acute dull attention. And it all adds up to peace.

My grandson, after getting his first pair of Blundstones, went for a walk through a dry scrappy forest with low hills like the backs of turtles. He’s tall now and beautiful. He’s always liked quiet things. He liked the boulders. Maybe that’s too interesting for the Dull Clubs. Being intrigued by bugs would probably get you banned. I’m very fond of crickets, so that could be tough.

As I was writing this, my husband urged me to watch the quiz show ‘Pointless’ with him. Well, that’s the epitome of dull! He settled for ‘Tipping Point’, but which is the dullest? My vote goes to ‘Pointless’ obviously.

Susan Chenery interviewed Australian Dullness Club member Andrew McKean, 85, who became dull by accident, though I don’t think he’s really dull at all. In the Dull Men’s Club, he’s unusual. Three years ago, he had a heart attack and on recovery, the hospital’s social workers thought he would not be able to care for his wife, Patricia. They moved to a nursing home in New South Wales. This is just sad, but he has elevated the dull institutional days into something poetic and moving by writing about them and posting ‘To You Strangers’ in The Dull Men’s Club.

He sits on a park bench, an old man with a stick, invisible and inconspicuous to the people rushing past ‘watching the world’s parade, its wealth and hurry’. He observes it all and reports back to the Dull Men’s Club. ‘Though the world may not stop for me, I will not stop for it. I am here, still breathing, still remembering. And that, is something.’ If not that then what is there? While he usually posts daily, other dull people get concerned if he doesn’t post for a while. They miss him, his wisdom and his beautiful writing.

His life before moving into a home had been anything but dull.  He did many things. He was an electronics engineer; in 1967 he was connected to the Apollo moon mission. Then a career in the television broadcasting industry took him all over the world.

He lived in a house at Pittwater and spent his days in the sea, now his life is reduced to a single room – ‘Every trace of my existence is contained within these walls.’ Sitting in his worn armchair by the window ‘watching the light shift across the garden, he writes about ageing and ‘the slow unfolding of a life’.

He’s surrounded by the ‘faint hum of machines and the shuffle of slippers … the squeak of a wheelchair, the smell of disinfectant’.

With the club, McKean has found his people, within this self-deprecating community. At 85, he has found fans. Even if they are proudly dull.

He lives for the bus and a few hours of freedom in a life that has shrunk. On the bus ‘something stirs in us, a flicker of youth perhaps’. He treats himself to KFC, ‘the sharp tang of a small rebellion against the home’s bland meals. He may think he’s dull, but I think he’s gentle and talented.

In his introduction to the 2024 Dull Men’s Club calendar, Grover Click (one of the founders) wrote: ‘What they [the dull men] are doing is referred to in Japan as ikigai which translates to ‘a reason for being’. It gives a sense of purpose, a motivating force. A reason to jump out of bed in the morning.’ The Japanese have the right word for everything. Maybe dull men (and women), like all of us, are interesting. Susan Chenery says millions of members are connected in Facebook groups to cause and enjoy their dullness.

This could be seen as just another quirky story, but I see it as more than that. It’s about a human need to be heard, and to hear others, and to gather with them in some way, anyway. We are not alone, we are a wilderness of need, and we need to hear and be heard, because we’re human.