It is so nearly time for your return. Hooray! I send hugs, kisses and much, much more as usual. BTW There's been a dreadful rumour that you are leaving the calendars with rude messages for the next chaps - Royal Marines, I gather. You'll have to say I was part of the Starlight Foundation or they'll wonder why you chose such a minger! No comments about High Tower please - well, only if they're incredibly witty!
Here is a piece of prose by a fellow Everyman Theatre writer, Kassel 'Kate' Ibbotson. It was recently broadcast on BBC Radio Gloucestershire.
I spent most of my teenage years making sure my father never taught me anything. Let's face it, parents are always too old, too out of date. He never had the puff to play any running about games. He was overweight too and he said it was from playing the saxophone in his dance band but we had our suspicions. Then he died and that's when I realised he had taught me a few things. I'll start with the most important.
My father taught me the value of chips. My mother spent most of her time, enjoying being ill. This meant Big Sis and I spent lots of school holidays with Grandma, in Portsmouth, in the rain. School term meant father's cooking, which was chips. Yes, bless him, chips. In return, Big Sis tried mince in many ways - spaghetti bolognese, shepherds pie, stuffed peppers but always cheered up by a side order of his excellent chips.
He taught me the value of achievement through perseverance. This can come in many forms. For example, DIY, better known as JKG – just keep going. If you're going to point the house, then accept that it's going to take eighteen months. Fit the sheer slog into your life. Set yourself goals. Today, I will clear out and re-point one square yard. Then do it. Don't stand there clutching at your arse, saying, no quarter past two is far too late to begin. My father came from a generation that came home at six, had tea, put down in front of him by appointment by mother, and then out on the ladder for that square yard of work. Result – the achievement of a repaired house.
But DIY isn't all there is to life. My father also taught me that never one door slams in your face but another opens. My father's father died when he was ten. Frank, that's my father, ah, we'd better go for a touch of background here. In Norfolk, at that time in history, everyone was either Frank or William. My father had the double problem of being both Frank and William. So, if Frank, to show which person you were talking about, Frank became Francis. Francis became Frano. Therefore Frano must have become William, or maybe even Frank. So, my father Frank, was called Francis to show he wasn't Francis and Uncle Francis, here's the turn in the Norfolk logic, remained Uncle Francis. Uncle tops a change in name. You had to leave the county for more exotic names like John or Henry.
Anyway, as we were learning, my father's father died when my father was ten. My father persevered, tried his best. He helped his mum look after his two younger sisters and then his mother married again. This taught him that sometimes you have to cut your losses. His mother married a Londoner called Sam, though they had met in Great Yarmouth. What was Londoner doing in Great Yarmouth? Probably avoiding the First World War, good for him but, downside, Sam was bone-idle. My father could not take to him but instead of the complete Eastenders shouting match, father left home. You could back then, even if you were only twelve years old. He took himself to Uncle George's in Hull and Uncle George gave him a job. This taught him the randomness of luck. Uncle George recognised my father's musical talent and paid for violin lessons. If father had stayed in Great Yarmouth, he'd have become a farm labourer, not a musician who travelled the world. However, Uncle George was also a cautious man and made father take an apprenticeship as an electrician, “in case the music thing didn't work out.” My father wired up spitfires during the war and so met my mother who was in the Aircraft Inspection Department. I have their wedding photo. Her glamourous movie-star hat dwarfs them all. My father is wearing a suit with stripes so broad, it could once have been a deckchair.
He taught me that authority is inconsistent. It reacts mostly when its own dignity or power base is threatened. Now, my big sister could not climb trees. She never hesitated to play the sneer card. “No, I'm going out to play with my friends. You can't come. You're too small.” I realise now that I was and at many years her junior, it matters as it' s her street cred at stake. But the sheer unfairness of it all caused a red mist to come before my eyes. So what you do is, you climb a tree with her copy of some nauseous celeb mag in hand and out onto the garage roof. Hold the stuff dangerously over next door's garden. Taunt her, it so makes your soul feel good because hers isn't.
“Dad, Dad, it's my stuff and I haven't finished with it yet.”
Her subtext: Even if I have, you can't have it.
My subtext: Don't tell me what I can and can't do.
He didn't do a thing because he couldn't climb trees either and it meant fetching the ladder. It was, apparently, all a fuss about nothing. We were to sort ourselves out. Of course, your father has to clip you round the ear when you come down, in the style of the casual violence of the 1950s, for form's sake. But Big Sis had failed through the inertia of authority. Result.
So that's it. My father taught me other people's motives aren't always to your benefit, so recognise your enemy; the randomness of luck; the ability to annoy is an excellent life skill; just keep going; don't give up. And over and above all else, always eat chips. They are truly a comfort food sent to make this world bearable.
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