Late on Parade
First of all, a belated Good New Year to one and all. I am a
bit delayed with the seasonal wishes and with January’s blog, as I seem to be a
bit busy just now despite my being a gentleman of leisure. Number two son is in
the process of becoming an owner-occupier, and we’ve had to pitch in on various
fronts there. The purchase of the property was a bit like the old saying about
war service: long periods of boredom followed by short bursts of pure terror. Nothing
seemed to happen for six months and then on the 14th of December, we
were told that we needed to complete the purchase on the 19th,
prompting a flurry of activity. That’s all done now, and we are now helping
with furnishing, getting the place wified up etc.
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The title above reminds me of a story my mum once told me,
about her time as a primary school teacher. Forgive me if I’ve told you it
before.
The bell rang for the end of the lunch break, and the pupils
were lining up at the school doors, each class with its own line. The teacher
on lunch duty, in this case my mum, would stand facing the lines of children
and admit them, one class at a time. Behind the waiting children, mum could see
a few stragglers, reluctantly making their way to their respective lines. One
six-year-old boy could be seen looking with an expression of distaste at the
lined-up classes. My mum said that she could see his judgement of the situation
as clearly as if it were written across his forehead in black felt tip pen:
‘Bugger that.’
The little lad turned and took to his heels for the school
gates, with my usually sedate mother galloping after him. She caught him before
he reached the gates and made excellent his escape, as Flann O’Brien once put
it. All ended satisfactorily, except you might say for the little boy who was
unceremoniously oxtered into his classroom for the afternoon lessons.
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The title also reminds me of Big John. I have told you
before about when I lived in Wembley in the early 1980s and was a valued
customer at the Harrow Tavern (see my January 2022 blog, https://mrduffychangestrains.blogspot.com/2022/01/before-we-go-toparadise-by-way-of.html),
where I took my customary place at the end of the bar known to the staff as
Animal Corner. The gang who traditionally stood there were well-behaved and the
nickname was undeserved. The stalwarts were Fast Eddy Debreuque, Del, myself
and Big John.
Big John had been a career soldier, having seen service in
the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya and the Korean War. Whatever you think of the
UK’s military involvement in these fields of conflict, John, who is no longer
with us, was a lovely man. He was built like a tank, but gentle as a lamb. My
habit was to turn up in the pub for the last hour of opening, 9.30 to 10.30. If
for any reason, I was delayed and arrived at Animal Corner at ten o' clock, say,
Big John would remark, ‘You’re late on parade tonight, Steve.’
He once told us this anecdote about his parachute training
in the army.
‘The first jump in our parachute training was from a hot air
balloon. In the basket there were nine of us squaddies and the instructor
sergeant. We all put our chutes on and then I noticed something.
“Wait a minute,” I said to the sergeant, “you’ve got a
different parachute pack on to the rest of us”.
“So I have,” he said, “I’ll swap you”.
Well, we swapped, and then he said, “That means you have to
go first.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, but the sergeant ordered, “Chuck
him out, lads.”
Well, the other trainees chucked me out of the basket. Thank
God, the parachute worked and I landed safe and sound. Later, the sergeant told
me that on most of these training sessions for first ever jumps, the first guy
has to be thrown out of the basket by the others.’
Linda and I gave up smoking on New Year’s Day 1988, and I
have often had cause to be thankful that we did. However, in the early 1980s I
was a smoker, and I had a very attractive Zippo cigarette lighter. Etched in
the steel was a picture of an oil rig inside a Maltese cross, with the legend
‘Uncle John’ printed below it. It was quite clear that Big John was fascinated
by this piece of smoker’s artillery, and coveted it, because of the name.
When I left in April, 1985 to go to work in Singapore, I had
a last night in Animal Corner, rather a long and boozy one. When leaving I
shook hands with Big John, and in doing so slipped the lighter into his hand.
He was almost in tears when he realised what I had done.
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This is a complete digression. For Christmas, Linda gave me
a sound system which means that once again I can play my CDs which clutter up the house. We had hoped
that we could connect it by Bluetooth to a Bose speaker in the kitchen so that
I can listen and sing along while cooking, but so far this has not been
possible, despite efforts by my son Bill who is something of a music technology
expert. However, it is great to be able to play my CDs again, and today I was
listening to Procol Harum’s A Salty Dog. Because of the shit singles, Whiter
Shade of Pale and Homburg, we tend to think of Gary Brooker’s piano
playing as their signature. We forget
Robin Trower’s brilliant guitar playing and just how good the band was as a
unit. Anyway, here is the title track, A Salty Dog. Isn’t it magnificent?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOj3kJKy-_U
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With apologies for continually banging on about my
disgusting health issues, I had a dental check-up this morning. This should
have caused minimal stress, but I have noticed that since my prostate business
last year, every contact with a health professional feels like my turn at
Russian roulette: what are the bastards going to spring on me this time? Welcome
to my world, says Linda, whose coping with health issues over the past three
decades has been inspiring to say the least. Anyway, for the past few days I
was fretting about what might turn up at this dental examination. All this
worrying (needless as it turned out, the dental check-up was all clear) is because
I don’t feel ready to be the other sort of late, that is, the late Stephen
Duffy.
Once again, a belated Happy New Year to everyone.
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