I am about to be involved in a dramatic reconstruction of the Wannsee Conference.

("Please, sir, what’s that, sir?" "The Wannsee Conference, in 1942, was when the senior state officials of the Third Reich decided, under the direction of Reinhardt Heydrich, on the exact nature of the final solution of 'the Jewish problem'. Now pay attention, Couldry, and stop drawing Messerschmitts on that girl's blouse.")

This prospect made me start thinking about the nature of professionalism. One of the remarkable aspects of the final days of WWII is that, as the Red Army rolled inexorably west, the cattle trucks continued to rattle in vast numbers beneath the wrought iron words 'Arbeit Macht Frei'. Despite the annihillation of exhausted German troops starved of fuel and supplies, Adolf Eichmann continued to perform miracles of organisation to grease the wheels of the extermination machine.

It was a remarkable display of professionalism.

Professionals carry out a brief, as instructed, to the very best of their ability. They use all the skills in which they have been trained, and get paid accordingly. So do the girls who hang around King’s Cross, to whom one should pay equal respect.

But if you're looking for someone to admire, I say save it for the gifted, driven amateur. It is amateurs who change things, who invent things, who are unafraid to argue with the system that is, in favour of the system they believe should be. If that amateur can bring professional skills to the task, so much the better: but the fire in the boiler will always be the amateur's.

And as I was thinking these thoughts, what should pop up in my in email inbox but another endearing collection of homespun wisdom. Sometimes, in all that sugary, tooth-sticking marshmallowyness, there's a nut to bite on:

Remember: the Titanic was built by a large group of highly trained professionals. A lone amateur built the Ark.

The views expressed above are those of the writer, Barry Evans, and not necessarily shared by other Whitewater staff.