Conference Sketch/Dan Keenan:They are sometimes called "garden centre Prods" - a non-voting majority of decent unionists with a small 'u' who have disengaged from the party of Carson and Craig and got on with the business of life, centred on home and hearth.
Hundreds of them drove past oblivious as the centenary UUP conference got under way. Not for them the badge of the party, but rather the colours of Cook rugby club.
It was Saturday morning and the next generation of budding Trevor Ringlands were being collected from training on the immaculate rugby pitches of SDLP-controlled south Belfast beside the conference hotel.
As dozens of SUVs and substantial family cars jostled to get out of the rugby ground, greying UUP members and the odd 20-something headed in the other direction to celebrate the party's "century of service".
As outgoing party chairman James Cooper acknowledged, the celebration was more than a little tinged by "our current demise".
No one shied away from public recognition of last May's electoral slaughter, but glaringly obvious by his absence was the former leader and any mention of him.
Stalls sold mementos of former leaders and prime ministers - but of the First Minister and Sir Reg's immediate predecessor there was barely a whisper. No David, no Daphne. It was as if they never existed.
Col Tim Collins was something of an instant success in the role of conference darling. Speaking in defence of the home battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment, he got away with telling conference what it didn't want to hear.
Their disbandment, declared after the IRA's formal announcement of the end of its campaign, had to be seen in the widest context, he warned. The British army was up against it in Afghanistan and pushed to the pin of its collar in Basra. Where do you place the activities of a couple of smugglers in south Armagh against that, he mused.
It was as near to heresy as you get at a polite Ulster Unionist conference. Yet, like every contribution, it was warmly applauded.
In fact, politeness reigned supreme. Sir Reg read a fine leader's speech somewhat flatly. David Burnside almost destroyed his reputation as a conference barking dog by making a speech in favour of party policy. The calm now resting over the electoral ruin of this once monolithic party suggests something darker.
There could be an imminent dawn for the UUP, but on the basis of this conference it seems hard to believe.