Hancock's Half Heard

Typing this while listening to another classic episode of East Cheam's finest export on BBC 7. This is the one where the lad himself was unwise enough to entrust his tax returns to Sid James and ends up owing more than ever due to the latter's rather too creative accounting. Pity I missed the beginning of Hancock's Half Hour, but at least the BBC's digital archive station now gives you no less than four chances to hear it during the course of a day.

This particular show also had a classic Sid James "fluff" when struggling with a particularly tongue twisting script, and a woman in the audience who'd obviously lifted a canister of Nitrous Oxide from her dentist's. Clearly she subscribes to the view that Laughter is the Best Medicine, and I'd be the first to agree.

Having a good chuckle with the best of radio and TV comedy at the moment is proving very helpful in coping with the emotional traumas of this sad and difficult phase of life. It's even more welcome when I can share it with my "little" brother here at home. I hope too that when Mum is discharged from hospital soon, God willing, we will still be able to laugh together as a family from time to time even if our hearts are filled with hidden sadness and anxiety about the future.

Some TV comedies I'd recommend to cheer saddened souls are the new kid on the block "Look Around You", a brilliantly-observed and executed spoof of Tomorrow's World which currently airs at 22.00 local time on BBC TWO television. Last night's looked at the "future" of sport, including a football that is rounder than anything yet seen (which is why it had to remain unseen for legal reasons!), a betting prediction system designed by a carthorse called Championess, and a miracle fuel for athletes based on rocket science which enabled champion Ros Lamb (won't beef about that name!) to run between London and Dundee in under five minutes. All inventions which are bound to be commonplace soon, of course!

This Friday though will be the poorer without "My Hero", the wonderful comic fantasy centring on Father Dougal's altar ego, Thermoman/George Sunday. Apparently, he's been supplanted for one night for the second going of Den Watts on East Enders. Who cares: it was a pretty incredible piece of plotting to bring Dirty Den back from the dead in the first place, and some would say a desperate one.

However, we all wish we could turn back the clock and that bad things wouldn't happen, or that some superhero could save us from destruction, or even that we could swap minds or lives with someone else, or filter out the bad parts of ourselves- this was partly the premise of last Friday's brilliant episode, one of the funniest yet. Part of the appeal of the Ardal O'Hanlon characters is their childlike naievity. Our children are the font of all laughter, a reminder that God has the faith and the trust for our race to carry on despite all our awfulness and the terrible things that happen to us or we do to each other.
Observing Lent is proving particularly painful and difficult for me at the moment, as Matthew and I have had to face up to the challenges and the difficult decisions which what could be Mum's final illness bring. I say could, because laughter it seems to me is the twin of hope and the last thing any of us should give up is Hope.
Nobody really knows what course Mum's illness will take, or how long lies ahead of her. Of course, for our own sake I guess of having her with us to share, I hope it will be as long as possible, but the experience of others tends to make one think the worst in worldly terms-but ultimately only God knows.
Early Sunday morning brought the sort of phone call I had been dreading, at 04.15, to say that Mum was "not feeling very well". We prepared ourselves for the worst, raced to the hospital to find Mum indeed looking very poorly. But alleluia, she pulled through- and indeed, knew little about this happening the next day. 34 hours later, when I visited yesterday, I found her looking very much better, back on normal foods and fluids and even able to stand for a short while when getting out of bed. It may not be much but it mattered, and it made all the difference to my own piece of mind. Good days, bad days. Little things matter to a Bird's Eye Mum, as an advertising slogan of yore said! Let us hope that these good days will outnumber the bad for as long as possible.
Yesterday's experiences came after a half hour prayer session from me before I visited and no doubt added to by the cherished friends who I know are putting up their own requests before the almighty at the moment. God does not or cannot always answer our prayers as we would wish, but I am sure he does and he indeed brings the peace that passes all understanding.

That is my hope, and indeed, it is at the core of Christian belief. We will all have to face a final parting from this life at some stage-whether it be losing the ones we love and those who raised us, or our own exit from the stage show of life. When people laugh, they are allowing themselves to believe that despite the sad events which none of us can avoid eventually, there is always something to be cheerful about, to enjoy and to celebrate. Perhaps that's why Jesus himself was portrayed as a clown in Godspell- or was it Superstar? Like Hancock, sometimes the most brilliant humour can still emerge from tragic or unhappy events. Dermot Morgan, star of Father Ted, lost his life suddenly in West Middlesex hospital a few years back, but the brilliance of that show and its star will remain.
But this life is really just the warm up, albeit one that often fails to raise chuckles of the intensity of that woman on Hancock's Half Hour today. But the life which is to come will bring joy immeasurable and be worth the waiting and patient endurance.

ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
Thank heavens for the invention of the magnetic tape and its successors in recording technology. Without them, we could not have the authentic experience of enjoying again the brilliance of the performances of three comedy giants now dead or the laughter of that wonderful woman who made that show so memorable that night in 1958 that HHH was recorded. I wonder where she is now- she could well still be with us!
Thanks to the tape recorder, great voices and talents of old do not surrender their personality or their influence when they leave this mortal coil, but leave the most precious of legacies to future generations. Every word uttered or written, every poignant or profound song lyric, every stroke of brush on canvas of the genius of a Leonardo, or the balletic brilliance of a Nijinsky, reminds us that life is a continuity. Yes, what will be will be- that is the part we strangely find so hard to take sometimes- but equally, what has been, has been! Now what is the Italian for that, and why hasn't Doris Day sung it yet!

THIS SCEPTRED ISLE
Started my mid-morning BBC 7 listening today with This Sceptred Isle-the Twentieth Century, focussing today on the havoc-wreaking events of the mid seventies as the Heath government was nearing collapse.
History matters. Sorry, Henry Ford, but a bed is bunk, not the study of man's activities and his wonderful but also awful ways. When you are faced with the declining health of a loved one and have to accept their eventual loss, the living grief you experience is as much for the apparent departure of your past, of a way of life that is now "Gone with the Wind", to quote those classic lines from Margaret Mitchell's ever popular book/film.
I guess some of my own grief at present is as I now contemplate the changes that have to be made here at home. I well recall back in 1974, before the desperate measures of chancellor Denis Healey took VAT on luxury goods to a staggering 25 per cent, we bought our first hi-fi stereo, had a new carpet fitted and got a new gas cooker to replace our New World stove which had cooked around twelve thousands meals in my lifetime. And long before Carol Smilie got in on the act, we were Changing Rooms, as the lounge became the dining room and vice versa.

Now, thirty one years later, that Dynatron Hi-Fi still sits comfortably in place where Dad installed it back then, though the Toshiba tape deck with the incomprehensible instructions has long since gone to magnetic heaven. Whether the Hi-FI can remain there much longer than a week though remains open to question. It's rarely used these days anyway, but will never be dispensed with as long as I am around, I'm sure. But the space may be needed for a bedroom come sitting room for Mum.
The Dynatron from Pye of Cambridge: such a wonderful piece of cabinet making, creating a beautiful sound on FM even though the windings on the AM tuning dial have long since limpened to the extent that accurate tuning is now impossible.
For what was heard and recorded on this wonderful combination of equipment were the sounds and the songs of my adolescence and some of my parent's golden years. Hopefully, hearing these may still be able to bring some comfort and enjoyment to the eighty year old ears which sung many of those songs in the times when she had a lovely voice, and which I hope I have inherited albeit in the tenor variety.
This morning, we had a visit from the Occupational Therapists from Ashford Hospital, who were measuring our lounge for suitability of installing a hospital bed, hoist and chair, which it now seems would be essential for the safety of Mum's carers. It's hard to accept that Mum may- again, I always say may- never be able again to climb the steps to the first floor of our thirties semi and to her own bedroom and the bathroom. But it's still home, and I hope she will still be happy here.
I feel in my prime now at 45, indeed I probably feel inwardly about ten years younger. I guess that is what makes it hardest in some ways to accept what is now happening, all these changes and the sudden unwelcome intrusion into my own growth. But maybe this is part of God's way, and this is necessary. But it sure isn't easy, and my thoughts are with any of you who has ever experienced any similar life-shaking experiences or is going through them right now.
But right now I really need to hold to those words on the front of one of my notebooks: "God, grant me the courage to change the things I can change, serenity to accept those I cannot, and wisdom to know the difference". But as I said, it's often hard for me, because my mind seems to work in such an analytical way as well as being imaginative of things and experiences yet to happen, good or bad. It's that which produces anxiety.
Nevertheless, nothing can take away the past -it's there, another country, passport-stamped countless times in photos physical and mental, visited, enjoyed and sometimes endured but all part of our tapestry of life. The carpet in the lounge may have several threadbare holes right now, but the Lord is sewing up the fabric of time all the while. When this earthly garment is finally worn out, like my old raincoat finally about to go to a jumble sale, what a wonderful new clothing we should all see to replace it. So, as it's London Fashion Week- taking place in Battersea Park this year, another place I fondly remember, maybe it's time to update the wardrobe!

D-DAY REMEMBERED
In case you've wondered, most of these postings are written in "real time", with only the occasional bit of sub-editing to correct errors of grammar, spelling or dare I say the occasional fact! As a result, you're really getting the unfiltered, honest written outpourings of my mental processes at times. I hope you don't feel that you are being flooded with them, but as I said earlier there is something of a tsunami of emotion going through me at the moment, yet writing down my thoughts for public reading somehow helps. However, there are also the happier, more trivial reflections but my grasshopper mind is inclined to skip over them! Nevertheless, I couldn't conclude today's posts without another vivid memory of the seventies, this time of that "other" D-Day when Pounds, Shillings and Pence had to make way for decimal currency in Britain.

Is that when the rot set in? Mmm, some would say it was but at least we still have the pound- for the moment. My most vivid memory of D-day though is of paying for my school dinner (it was a Monday, you see). Suddenly, it was priced at 9p instead of 1/=10 (that's one shilling and tenpence for younger readers!). Hence, a shiny new penny in change from my converted two shilling piece which has suddenly become a ten pence bit. But what to do with that penny? Ooh, difficult decision: do we preserve it for posterity? Of course not! Straight down to C F Avery, the local sweetshop, against the rules of course, for two "black jacks", or was it half-penny chews, out of the sight of battleaxe and spare battleaxe, the revered dinner ladies of Feltham Lower School. Their real names have been disguised to avoid any nasty legal actions!