Post 373. BACK TO NORMAL THEN.

OR IN MY CASE

MOSTLY CYNICAL.
I have never been a party person. Don't particularly like dinner groups either. Small talk eludes me and I invariably find myself faced with the guy who knows twenty five alternative routes to Slough, or believes he makes the definitive cup of tea, and insists on sharing this joyous knowledge with a captive listener. I no longer drive and if I did there is no way I would be driving to Slough (come friendly bombs), no matter how charming it may now have become and, by the same token, I make most of the tea in this house for my Leader and I (hers 'gnats' - mine 'builders') so require no lengthy diatribe on boiled-not-boiling water, heated teapots, loose leaf or bag, standing time, bone china cups, or whether the milk should go in first or last. I try not to offer people unsolicited advice and would prefer they kept their dubious 'expertise' to themselves. That particularly applies to the plethora of know-alls on television. Ah, yes!
TELEVISION.
I avoid most chat shows now. They have become home to the vaguely journalistic 'broadcaster', failed politicians (which of them isn't?), any television face who has a book to sell, actors flogging their latest project, and people with a grievance about some -ism or other.
God what a pain they all are!
Among the morning offerings, Jeremy Vine (Channel 5) has been devoid of the man himself for the past fortnight (half term I guess). Anne Diamond stood in for him, so I watched it. She was good: the guests were the usual bunch. Nothing to get excited about.
Don't bother much with him since he started bobbing up and down to a blackboard like a demented schoolmaster: give him a schoolmaster's pay for a couple of months, that'd stop him short. He'll be back next week. I'll have something else to do.
TRYING TO ADJUST.
That bloody hour.
So now I'm up at eight a.m. making a morning cuppa. That's a nine o'clock job when you're an oldie. Why do the silly sods do it? Back an hour: forward an hour. Why?
Well the cynic in me says they do it because they can.
They make clocks change time simply to prove that they have the power to bugger the populace about.
But me no buts.
AND FINALLY
Forgive me if all the above has been rather negative. It has been a sad month and a particularly shit final week.
But we in this house are blessed with each other and three lovely animals.

If you're a friend, thanks for being one.
If you're not...well...y'can't please 'em all.

Post 372. A FINAL FAREWELL

TO A LIFELONG FRIEND.

HAROLD CHARLES ELLIOTT.
Shortly before the publication of my last blog post I received a phone call from Doreen and Harold Elliott's daughter, Linda, to say that Harold had died peacefully at home. He was ninety one and we had been firm friends since boyhood.
In the years that he and his younger brother, Brian, spent with my parents and I (Post 160 refers) he became an unofficial, much respected, older brother to me, too.
Never a big lad, but wiry and tough, he was a naval cadet, a fine swimmer and a formidable scrapper. Once, when we were youngsters on a family trip to the beach at Eastney, a bigger boy threw a stone that hit me on the head. Dazed and distressed, I staggered back to our family group. Harold reacted swiftly and decisively. He sought out the boy whose father later came complaining to my father: “Your boy has hit mine and made his nose bleed.” My father, a man not given to high drama, solemnly turned to Harold and said: ”Well done, son.”
It was 1930s England: another world.
Litigation was not a working class word.
After the Portsmouth blitzes we moved to Bognor Regis and Harold gained a place at Chichester High School. It was well deserved: he was the meticulous, brainy one of us.
His time at the high school and at Bognor came to an end when Harold Snr. (Uncle Tosh to me) remarried and the boys moved back to be with him in Portsmouth. We returned there shortly afterwards and lived not too far away from them. I had missed both their company and the second-hand high school education imparted to me by Harold: Thanks to him I can still quote the first few lines of P. B. Shelley's Ozymandias of Egypt and Charles Wolfe's The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna. (When, some years later, I told him that, he said: “Crikey, can you? I can't.”)
Our friendship pretty much took up where it had left off until Harold joined the army as a boy soldier. Apparently the navy, his first choice, would not allow boys as young as fourteen and a half to enlist. So he settled for the army and, no surprise, when his full time in uniform came to an end Sgt. Major H. C. Elliott, REME, was employed for many years as a civilian instructor at Borden Army Camp.
Clearly he was a successful soldier. He was also a contented husband and family man with an irrepressible sense of humour (Earwig O was never far away).
Somehow all three of us boys found the right girl to marry. Doreen was certainly the right girl for Harold and Linda a lovely daughter. Our heartfelt commiserations go to them and their entire family.
I shan't be at your funeral, Harry. Elderly diabetic lockdown precludes attendance at such gatherings. Just as well, perhaps. I can imagine your gently disapproving shake of the head as you perceived this old man sitting there with tears running down his face. Men of our ilk don't cry in public.
RIP dear friend.

Post 371. NINETY YEARS OLD.

AT HOME.

THE BIRTHDAY WENT WELL Thanks to family and friends.
No matter how blasé you may think you are there are times when the good wishes of those who are close to you mean a very great deal. My ninetieth last Sunday was one such. Being feted by all and sundry was very flattering. I'll try not to let it go to my ancient head.
Five days before, on the 22nd September, Mo and I celebrated our 58th Wedding Anniversary: an altogether more important occasion. Couldn't have a knees-up for any of it of course. Confounded coronavirus. But again, family members and staunch friends found ways of expressing their best wishes and we quietly enjoyed the ambience.
“You could have murdered her,” one wit told me, “and been released in thirty years.”
Well...yeah...or she me. It's equal rights in this house.
Anyway, thanks again everybody.
And every good wish to 'Anonymous' John Appleton, Phil Butler and Ian Dillow, good pals who have been going through tough times healthwise for far too long. Good luck and total recovery the three of you.
TELEVISION.
Two short series to remember:
The Third Day (Sky Atlantic) starred Jude Law, Katherine Waterston, and a supporting cast of fine actors (e.g. Paddy Considine). It was a miniseries the viewing of which will be remembered by us as a prime example of time we shall never get back. I trust the actors were well paid.
The Write Offs (Channel 4) starred eight adults wanting to learn how to read and write. They were mentored by the splendid Sandi Toksvig and proved to be a likeable, thoroughly worthwhile, group of individuals who, when I was a boy, would have been banished to the back of the class to be studiously ignored other than for regular canings or having the blackboard cleaner thrown at them.
Nobody questioned it at that time. Nor, apparently, on the evidence of these nice people, for many years after. What a bloody country ours can be. Thank God for a decent Dane and the occasional reminder that not all reality television is utter garbage. This was a heart-warming two-parter that will surely be repeated. Well worth watching.
NO MORE FOR NOW.
A sad, though not unexpected, phone call received here this morning. I'll try to write a little about it next post.