Forty Years On

As 2018 slips over the starboard horizon, I note that it finished happily, with Christmas spent safe within the womb of a boys' boarding house in Hampshire  --  just like olden times. Presents were blessedly few in number but I had a novel fallback position anyway in the form of a message from Nematodes with details of the ideal surprise treat, one of their highly prized gift tokens. You know of course that Nematodes are the country's leading producers of slug repellents. One can imagine the faces on Christmas morning, smiling sweetly on receipt of the priceless voucher and adopting the response of that old [ now very old ] friend, Tom Lehrer, ' Just the thing I need; how nice! '.

So we have rolled on into 2019 and ' I'll remind you to remind me, we said we wouldn't look back ', although I have had to delve into the 1950s froth of Salad Days to find that sentiment. No longer do we cast a furtive look over our shoulders to grumble about the misdeeds and lack of perfection in our children as the boot of responsibility is now firmly on the other foot as they gather round, tut tutting on the subject of their parents' inadequacies and eccentric behaviour.

For those who might improbably choose to dwell on my lifetime anniversaries, 2019 is a year of significance. April 7th will mark forty years of marriage; what I believe is known as a Ruby Wedding and I do hope that doesn't mean that unreasonable expectations are raised around the theme of the provision of precious gems. For the other protagonist there is possibly a sense of triumph as we recall a breezy spring day in 1979. Facing unemployment [ notice foolishly given to the current employer with no new job obtained ], there were no stags, hens or even churches in this act of union. Those were the days, my friend, of deep thoughts  --  not getting married in a church as we felt our levels of belief were inadequately shallow. Oh where did that integrity go?

 Instead at the Lewes Registry Office we were ' done ' by a substantial, earnest lady with food remains all too apparent on the front of her heavy red jacket; an offence which was ameliorated by my father wearing a smart bowler hat throughout the proceedings [ loyal to the protestant traditions of Northern Ireland ]. Then it was a quiet reception in Jenny's family home by the sea; a much noisier meal in the Bistro Byron in Eastbourne with strong willed people arguing stridently about not very much; a brief free honeymoon in a cottage in Dittisham, Devon, where the daffodils were emerging, the Triumph Herald Vitesse broke down and the ghost of Agatha Christie was stomping around not far away.

And now here we are, forty years later with the in between areas, many eminently forgettable or craving to be forgotten, waiting until another time, while we perhaps just remember the words of Gabriel Oak to Bathsheba Everdene in Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd: ' And at home by the fire whenever you look up, there I shall be  --  and whenever I look up, there will be you '. That seems to me a pretty good basis for a marriage. Anything more is a bonus.

That was all forty years ago and very fine too. However, remembering things still with us, the events of 1979 are trumped [ how important it is to continue to employ that word normally so that it does not become completely hijacked by him of the yellow hair and very long red tie ] by fifty years of membership of the Marylebone Cricket Club. As Neil Armstrong stepped on to the moon's surface, I eased myself with a barely disguised self-conscious swagger into the Long Room at Lord's. This was one giant step for me and not noticed by anyone else at all. It is rather a pleasing accident of fate that in this year of 2019 son Robin gains full membership of the MCC after seventeen years on the waiting list. Those applying today face thirty years gazing at the valhalla from outside. On the terrace immediately in front of the pavilion there is a bench where those over 75 can reserve a seat for the day. When the weather is fine, all over the world aspiring young members are praying hard that it will be the hottest day ever so that at its end there will be a few found sitting on ' Death Row ' for whom the summons to play for the eternal test team in the sky has finally arrived, thus creating a few spaces on the current MCC membership list.

And so much has changed in fifty years. There used to be gentlemen and players, while now there are just players but the female species has at last arrived which is a major bonus. Five day test matches slip into oblivion as the immediate bang bang style of cricket takes over but I suppose the longer version was a Victorian invention in any case and a hundred balls is better than no deal at all. Nowadays your shirt is blue, your stump is purple and your balls are pink; will that halcyon era of cream clad cavaliers musing gently at deep square leg against the background of the green sward ever return? Meanwhile three cheers for a wonderful sport that encourages patience, application, sportspersonship and an interminable battery of meaningless statistics.

However, even this significant milestone of fifty years ago finds itself overshadowed by a Damascene moment in 1964 when I began listening seriously to The Archers. I do not know why, as I approached the climax [ Lilliputian variety ] of my school career I should become an addict to this particular radio show [ my mother was committed to Mrs Dale's Diary ]; perhaps it has something emotionally in common with the overtly undemanding poetry of the late eighteenth century. There are more daffodils than you can imagine in Ambridge. Fifty five years later Peggy and Jill remain as characters and actors from that time with June Spencer, who plays the former,  reaching her hundredth birthday this year.

We have been somewhat crudely translated from ' An everyday story of country folk ' to ' Contemporary drama in a rural setting ', which really means a bit more sex and violence to maintain the interest of the ' EastEnders ' audience as they dream in the early evening about crude and dastardly acts to follow a little later on TV. It is extraordinary that The Archers features twice every day with the omnibus edition on Sunday as well. And, assuming the current editor and script writer are reading this blog, you are at your best when (a) you are not obsessed with one story line; (b) you are not furiously driving a social or political bandwagon of feminism, social consciousness etc; (c) you keep up the agricultural content  --  keep telling us about turnips and milking machines; and (d) you encourage us to smile every now and again.

Another year thus bites the dust;
Less time to achieve what we must;
Forget all that stuff,
It's more than enough
In cricket and Archers to trust.

So on we go, burbling like a bunged up brook in a peat bog and January has already passed. A very happy February to all our five and a half readers.

28th January 2019