Mentioning any ailment in my blog is a bit like posting a medical bulletin on the gates of Buckingham Palace. I had so many people contact me yesterday concerned about my eyes and thank you all very much. Wasn’t clear if they were worried about my sight or my ability to write blogs, but good to know that for one reason or another you care. Always good to have friends. I always say you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family. So, if your family are your friends you’ve got a result.
Continuing the theme of friends…. and as far as the tv series was concerned, for me, the theme was the only good thing about it… on breakfast radio today the discussion was whether or not it is possible to make new friends at a certain time of life ( in my case in my ‘early’ 70’s ) Don’t hit mid-seventies till week after next so I thought I would get that one in now.
When we are younger there are so many opportunities to make friends. Nursery ( my younger son, Paul met his best buddy David there and even though David now lives in Israel and Paul lives in Harrow they are still mates today) school… I am still friends with some of my chums from the two primary schools I attended. In fact, Pamela from my second primary school ( I wasn’t expelled from the first… we just moved ) was on my zoom talk last Thursday and sent me a message whilst I was speaking. Bit spooky that, to be sort of spectrally stalked by somebody you haven’t seen for well over sixty years, in the middle of a reading. Secondary school. That’s where I met a hard core of my current long term friends including regular reader, Roger.
Then there is university for those of us who went there. Not a fertile time for me as I went to King’s in London and stayed at home. Youth clubs ( I only went as it gave me a chance to play cricket on a Sunday ) charity committees ( remember them?) I chaired a committee for cancer research called “ Top Hat “ and brought along a lot of my school mates to that. We ran dances and the like. I always listened to up and coming bands and tried to book them for a song ( well, more than one song, actually ) as you can’t have a band at a dance playing one song over and over again. I did well with that. Got ‘ The Hollies, ‘ Dave Berry, Lulu, Long John Baldry and the Steam Packet ( remember them Isabella aged 94? ) and I would have had Manfred Mann had I not been outvoted at a meeting when everybody at Top Hat said they’d never heard of them!
After that we get married and go to work. Our friends Colin and Angela ( Colin went to school with me and met Angela at a charity committee dance, as I recall ) still go to a local group called “ The Young Marrieds “ even though there is practically nobody involved under seventy . My parents ran a group at their synagogue called the “ Over 30’s “ and it was still called that when all its members were pushing eighty. I suppose, technically eighty is over thirty.
We do meet people communally. Im my case at synagogue and at synagogue events and we make friends. We go to work and we make new friends. We move houses and befriend new neighbours. We buy second homes and make friends with new people ( Steve and Jo who read this are a good example ) We go on holiday and meet folk we like. We still get Xmas cards from a couple we met on one of the two cruises I took in my lifetime ( never again… nothing to do with the couple who send us the card or, indeed a couple we met on a river cruise who we see for dinner a few times a year, David and Miss. I call her Miss because she is a music teacher and I was never very good at music so am a bit scared of her .
There’s Daphne in South Africa who we met on our travels. There’s Stephen and Erica who we met on several trips abroad with a Jewish cultural group. They also came to Ecuador with us and Steve only packed long sleeved work shirts and had to buy the most ghastly t-shirts from market stalls. He’s a high flying lawyer and very vague and she is from Venezuela and an accomplished artist. Then, there is another couple we met in South Africa where my wife insisted I shove over and offer them a seat at our table and I said, but that means I have to talk to them, and he turned out to be a Newcastle supporter and a lawyer and we go to dinner with them too.
But, that’s it. They were the last entry into the friendship circle. And I fear that the circle is pretty much complete. I am all befriended out. I can’t keep up with all the ones I have and particularly in these times of the Big V when we feel obliged to call and email it’s pretty stressful keeping in touch with everybody. So, if I don’t and you read this, then apologies.
Andrea will now say but what about people you met because you spoke to them on the train going into town? And she’s right. And Jim will say what about the people you met when you had hard contractual negotiations with them? And he’s right too. So, if anybody out there does have a friend of less than say, five years standing, I would be interested to know just how that came about. And how you found the time to develop a new friendship. But, if anybody read these blogs who has never met me in person then maybe, just maybe, I can squeeze you in.
Wow, wrote more about than I thought possible. So only a little time to talk about a bit of culture. I do hope you are all watching “ Talking Heads, “ which is the Alan Bennett monologues re-visited. Great performances so far from Imelda Staunton, Harriet Walter (shed a tear at the end of that one ) , Sarah Lancashire and Jodie Comer. If you haven’t watched yet, then go to BBC I-Player.
And a performance I can’t wait to see is Sir Ian McKellan as “ Hamlet “ And no, that’s not a typo. He’s not playing the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father, he is playing Hamlet. We saw Sir Ian in a one man show at the RSC a year or so ago when he worked his way through an extract from every play by Shakespeare, but this is totally out of left field. Is the ghost going to come on stage in a wheel chair? Who is going to play his mother? The centenarian who plays Peggy in The Archers. And what about Ophelia? Is the 81 year old Hamlet going to get arrested and be put on the sex offenders list? It’s going to be challenging casting that’s for sure. Will he follow that up by auditioning for Romeo, I wonder and set it in am Old People’s Home, with a stair-lift instead of a balcony ?
Forgot to mention yesterday that we actually went out for tea on Sunday afternoon to our friends Ann and Jeff. Strange feeling to have to make conversation and even stranger to have somebody other than my missus present a plate of food to me. But, a nice experience for all that. Shame I had to go back home and watch Newcastle exit the FA Cup, meaning that come next year, it will be sixty-six years without a domestic trophy. Maybe that team who lifted the cup at Wembley in 1955 could totter on to the stage alongside Sir Ian.
Anyway, it’s raining out which has put paid to my sis-in-law and brother-in-law coming over for lunch. A day for working and writing and zoom meetings instead. Which is pretty much the same as the last 110 days or so.
Stay safe and if we are spared I will see you all tomorrow, particularly as my eyes are much better, thank you very much for asking and caring.