For All Its Faults…
A detailed description of what happens when a man minding his own business collides with an Israeli air-strike in Gaza can paint remarkable pictures in the mind of the listener. I was exposed to just such a description when tuned-into ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ on Radio 4 a few months ago and the extent of the damage done by the weapons of war on one individual was vividly brought home to me in ways that a television news bulletin wouldn’t have been able to do so. Hearing the description of how a man was rendered disabled by being in the wrong place at the wrong time made the horror of his experience a profoundly intimate one, allowing the listener a greater insight into the effects of conflict rather than having the less digestible wider picture served-up in a stylised MTV manner.
‘From Our Own Correspondent’ is a marvellous little programme, utilising the BBC’s worldwide reach by giving voice to its various correspondents around the globe as they dispatch an essay in the manner of an old-school newspaper journalist, a purely subjective point of view without inserts from anyone else to maintain editorial balance. It isn’t promoted on primetime BBC1 with Kate Adie (the presenter) singing a tone-deaf version of some old REM song with mascara running down her face, nor is it given blanket coverage via endless plugs in other, utterly unconnected programmes. It’s just there – always has been, and always should be; if you want it, come and get it. Were I appointed DG in some parallel universe, this is the kind of thing I’d be pointing to as an example of why the BBC is so unique, not another ITV-esque beauty contest between crawlers in suits or dancing/baking Z-list celebs; and this is one of many ways in which the numbskulls parachuted into the BBC from the private sector to run it shoot themselves and the corporation in the foot. They’re utterly oblivious as to the modest, unassuming slivers of broadcasting magic under their noses, so here’s a small guide to some it’s hard to imagine any other broadcaster commissioning, and ones I’m happy to cough-up my licence-fee for – in no particular order.
BELLS ON SUNDAY If you’re in bed before 12.45am on a Monday morning, chances are you’ve no idea what ‘Bells on Sunday’ is. Well, it runs for approximately a minute on Radio 4 and airs before the shipping forecast. Basically, church bells from up and down the country feature each week, with a brief description of their location and how long they’ve been there, followed by the sound of them ringing. That’s it. What other broadcaster would even countenance such a concept? It’s bonkers, but it’s beautiful.
THE SKY AT NIGHT A programme forever associated with the late Sir Patrick Moore, who hosted it for a remarkable fifty-five years, ‘The Sky at Night’ has charted the progress of the planets and mankind’s attempts to reach them since the dawn of the Space Race in 1957. When he passed away a couple of years ago, many feared the show would disappear too, but it has recently resurfaced on BBC4 after over half-a-century occupying a twilight slot on BBC1. Few watch it, but most are glad it’s still there as one of many BBC beacons of unsung continuity that act as a reassuring thread connecting viewers to a simpler, analogue age.
THE FOOTBALL RESULTS Even if one doesn’t follow football – and yes, I know from past experience that very few of you actually do – the roll-call of strange names and obscure corners of the country that rent the airwaves for barely ten minutes on Saturday teatime has a kind of poetry that can be as nonsensical as a Lewis Carroll limerick, never bettered than when the late James Alexander-Gordon’s voice would rise and fall depending on which team had won and which team had lost. When Neil Gaiman named his characters in ‘Neverwhere’ after the bizarre monikers of London Tube stations, he could just have easily chosen some of the more memorable football clubs. ‘Allow me to introduce myself – I am Accrington Stanley.’
TEST MATCH SPECIAL Probably best heard on Long Wave, not with regards to sonic excellence, but with regards to evoking the fuzzy sound of bygone summers in which jolly old men with the kind of diction unheard since Ealing comedies described the sedate events taking place before them as though they were a couple of Chelsea Pensioners who had just met on a park bench. As with the names of clubs on the football results, the mysterious lexicon of cricketing terms lends itself to all kinds of fantastical interpretations. Most of them retain their mystery to me, and that’s how I’d like them to stay.
GARDENERS’ WORLD Monty Don potters about his garden while his dog watches; this resolutely tranquil premise is interspersed with reports from other gardens great and small, but the general shape of the show is much the same now as back in the day when original presenter Percy Thrower regenerated into Peter Seabrook. The only things that change in the gardeners’ world are the seasons; and like an old man attending to his allotment, this show doesn’t make a fuss; it just gets on with it.
THE PROMS Yes, the Last Night is essentially a platform for the oddest-looking Tories in the Home Counties to get their inbred mugs on camera; but it’s a shame that nauseating jingoism is misconstrued by many as all there is to the Proms. Even without the BBC’s patronage, the two months in which some of the finest orchestral music ever written can be accessed in person for as little as a fiver (take that, Glastonbury!) would still be pretty special. For the annual season to be transmitted across both radio and television is a public service commitment one cannot but admire.
TOP OF THE POPS It would have been unsurprising had BBC4’s inspired idea to rerun chronological editions of TOTP been utterly derailed by events 35 years on. True, these events have impacted on shows hosted by a certain ‘child-sacrificing necrophiliac’ ( Mark Williams-Thomas) as well as an alleged serial groper; but the reruns haven’t been abandoned altogether. And while it may seem ridiculous to praise a broadcaster for daring to repeat a programme with the 1979 incarnation of Cliff Richard at the top of the bill, such are the surreal times in which we live that an apparently innocuous act can appear to be a gesture of risk-taking bravery on a par with screening ‘Brimstone and Treacle’ on CBBC.
THE SHIPPING FORECAST Before I’d ever heard that immortal litany of maritime locations with my own ears, I already knew there was something so British about the shipping forecast that I feared it would have been swept away in a tsunami of satellite-tracking modernisation. I needn’t have worried. It’s still stubbornly sailing by, just like the other little gems that don’t grab the headlines but, against all the odds, make the BBC matter.
Many of the institutions that once embodied the BBC’s distinct identity have either disappeared from our screens or have been pruned to the point whereby they’re practically invisible; but the fact that the small number of stalwarts I’ve listed are still with us, not to mention numerous others that defiantly ignore whatever trend dictates the ‘market’, demonstrates that the BBC retains its distinctive eccentricities despite the best efforts of whichever double-glazing salesman is installed as Director General to turn it into just another broadcaster. If someone was to sit down and plan the BBC today, nobody would give it the go-ahead. It simply doesn’t adhere to the 21st century Murdoch model – thank God; and that’s why we love it, even if it sometimes strains our loyalties to the limit.
Petunia Winegum
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January 23, 2015 at 3:58 pm -
I’m with you on most of that – ‘Correspondent’ is classic Radio 4 – the sheer randomness of its features, opening up hitherto unknown, and unsought, facets of alien cultures always delivers dabs of sperendipitous colour onto the canvas of life.
(Extra points, Pet, for trying to slip in “sailing by” so cunningly).
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January 23, 2015 at 5:17 pm -
No argument from me, obviously, and lovely to find another From Our Own Correspondent fan.
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January 23, 2015 at 6:01 pm -
Somewhat off topic but only slightly, this was announced on Radio4 this evening.
Pet, I expect this blog’s man/woman/marsupial in Sussex to hot foot down there …..
Right , now I shall go read today’s post properly.
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January 23, 2015 at 6:32 pm -
Ah, Ladybird books! I sense a future post taking shape there. Thanks for the shot of inspiration.
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January 23, 2015 at 7:00 pm -
Ladybird and Clarkes Shoes were two of the defining features of my childhood (along with ‘S’ belts and the Tufty Club). Aged Mother read us pretty much the entire Ladybird Canon-providing the books were printed pre-1965ish before all the ‘rot’ started -as she would put it. So on Mothers Day I usually send her an appropriate self-photoshopped Moonpig. This was last year’s one…http://i61.tinypic.com/2cqbt5x.jpg
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January 23, 2015 at 6:02 pm -
“THE SKY AT NIGHT A programme forever associated with the late Sir Patrick Moore, who hosted it for a remarkable fifty-five years. When he passed away a couple of years ago, many feared the show would disappear too.”
I guess I could have watched Patrick for almost all of those 55 years. They should have ‘called it a day’ and started a new series of ‘The Sky for Schools’, because that is what the programme now is. Dubbed down to the ‘lowest common denominator’ in order to appeal to all ages. -
January 23, 2015 at 6:08 pm -
“I’m happy to cough-up my licence-fee for.”
May I just point out, that you no longer need a licence to enjoy the radio – only the ‘idiot lantern’ as my Dad used to call it.;-). -
January 23, 2015 at 6:14 pm -
Letter From America remains one of my favourite bits of journalism of all time…highlighting, as it did, the difference between ‘journalism’ and ‘reporting’. Actually that difference is probably why I like this blog so much, it is ‘journalism’ in the truest sense of the word. If I want ‘reporting’ I catch the ‘PM’ program-used to listen to ‘Today’ for the morning body count but hearing politician after politician squirming their weaselly way around a question meant either clicking [x] or throwing the laptop at the wall.
On a side note, and without meaning to sound misogynistic, there are precious few female politicians who do a good radio interview. The listener mentally chalks her squawkings up to PMS , her squealings to hysteronics. Mrs T was of course the exception that proved that particular rule.
From our own Correspondent is the other bit of REAL Journalism on the Airwaves.
Now excuse me while I go refresh my memory of the rules to Mornington Crescent – the 1912 edition naturally. I’m pretty sure there was no En Passant exception for Marble Arch….
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January 23, 2015 at 7:04 pm -
The Last Night bunfight is one half of one of over 70 Proms and it is a little odd. What is odder that in the time we were Arena season ticket holders the Arena last night was very international in scope. As the queue lasts all day it is possible to count them. Do I take it that your remarks in fact apply to the numbers of those from London and Home Counties Jewish and other refugee origins, one I recall was a survivor of Auschwitz? One time down by the front row we had company of Scandinavians, many Europeans, some delightful Japanese ladies, Americans and the rest. The Brit’s were widely drawn as well. Bluntly you are talking arrogant deeply prejudiced nonsense. As for the rest of the Last Night audience, there are two main groups, one the Debenture box and seat holders and then the bulk of the rest, again very many coming in from all sorts of places a good number on overnight breaks. Returning to the season ticket group, all of them will have been to very many of the other concerts and they are a very mixed bag both in origins and class who can be found doing the music round the year. It is all quite daft but done for the TV audience and originates with the post war audiences and is simply a bit of a party. If you take it seriously, how sad.
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January 23, 2015 at 9:13 pm -
For a supposedly ‘jingoistic’ event, it’s remarkable how many flags of different nations are waved enthusiastically at the Last Night celebrations. Long may they continue!
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January 23, 2015 at 7:06 pm -
Some parts of the BBC should be kept as they are but the whole bureaucratic empire needs a thorough overhaul and a return to the principles set out by the first Director General.
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January 23, 2015 at 9:09 pm -
I’m with A&TA on this one. With a few exceptions, the BBC is not what it was. Apart from TMS, Gardener’s Question Time and Gardener’s World, ‘Clue’ the Proms and the shipping forecast, and perhaps one or two more occasional gems on Radio 4, quantity has swamped quality. Auntie needs desperately to rediscover quality, quirkiness and depth.
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January 23, 2015 at 7:12 pm -
“with the kind of diction unheard since Ealing comedies”
Your Oompahs have been working overtime again., Pet.
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January 23, 2015 at 8:47 pm -
I have been making plans to retire to Europe and met with an (English) estate agent who sat very patiently with me questioning me about what he thought would be my requirements.
What about access to a golf club ? Most English who retire here want to carry on Golfing at a decent English type club. Do you know you need a special satellite dish to catch (very limited) British Television here? All my English clients install one There are supermarkets in these towns that stock English food and most of our clients don’t want to be too far away etc etc.
After equally patiently and politely saying that none of these things were important he asked me what my requirements were to which I replied none in respect of things British as the only thing I might miss about England would be Radio 4 but that is available now at the click of a mouse anywhere in the world ……but a special mention by me for how good ‘In Our Time’ is……’The Moral Maze’ …..just about everything pretty much apart from the dumbed down ‘Womans Hour’ and ‘You and Yours’-
January 23, 2015 at 9:02 pm -
One thing that strikes me (with deep respect to the landlady) is how many people who wish to leave these shores hail from the larger metropoli. I wonder – entirely without wishing to tread on anybody’s corns – whether some of them have considered retiring to Real Britain. There are still places in good old blighty where a ‘traffic jam’ consists of three cars at a tee-junction. Broadly speaking, the further you go from London in any direction without getting your feet wet, the better it gets.
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January 23, 2015 at 10:13 pm -
I’ve spent a little time living & working abroad and was offered permanent posts. Under 35, maybe an option, but older is too late was my view. There’s a reason so many want to be here; it’s easy to be here and just get on with your life; it’s unbelievably green in the summer trees & fields sense, and there’s no oppressive feeling of the millions of people around you.
But back to the BBC; Bloated, Bolshevic or Brussels Broadcasting Corporation.
There are gems to be found, I float between 4 & 4extra on my kitchen DAB. With 4ex I can avoid the monotonously predictable lefty droning of R4 alleged comedy programmes, and reminisce. My late wife insisted on Dave Cash with his real pop music on Saturday nights, not sure which BBC channel. For my money Garrison whatshisname’s voice is value alone.
I have picked up R4 long wave in the middle of Spain, where I also developed a SW habit about 25 years ago. I recall on a long lunch break listening to the momentous events in Russia, as it happened. Bocadilla jamon pais and a coffee, I recall. Sadly World service isn’t what is was, but then nor is SW listening as a whole.
Still think if the BBC is so good it should be on subscription. That’d sort out the fatcats luvvies & handwringers.-
January 23, 2015 at 11:16 pm -
@Engineer I live in an area of outstanding natural beauty in East Sussex …..lovely house I built myself with a fair chunk of land reasonably deep in the country …..no complaints on that count and I have chosen an area abroad that bears striking similarities to where I now live …..so why the move? Well actually its inherent in my answer above and that is that England is not the same country I was born in save in increasingly isolated spots physically and culturally …..true the food is way better but not quite yet up to standards in Europe and Education is good but my requirement for that has passed. But when I venture out (increasingly infrequently) it is into an increasingly uncivil Society and such dealings as I have outside of those I can control seem uncivil …..life has been pared back to the bone in the interests of cost and efficiency (or is it really something deeper and more fundamental about control over others). My postman has been told not to speak with those to whom he delivers ….he ignores it but looks furtively over his shoulder when so doing. Such infrequent dealings as I may have with the Police/ Council are conducted as if it is to be presumed I have breached the law or tried deliberately to so do ,young people I know have a good education and work hard and yet look at the minimum wage as a good aspiration when they should reasonably expect more and a measure of respect for who they are not as a unit of labour…..I could drone on like any old sod and I have had it easier than many for most of my life but its best summarised by the poverty of cultural ambition that seems to have descended since the 1980s —-an abandonment of any wish to extend courtesy and a total absence of grace —a sort of cultural reductionism…. and that causes me to think I can live abroad and be no worse off in terms of quality of life but that I can buy an identical house and grounds for 40% of what it costs here and have easier access to those places where I vacation. Its not mumble mumble groan groan ……immigrants, poor food , yobs etc etc just not adequate reason to stay
…perhaps its best summarised by saying I increasingly feel a stranger in my own land and so there is no reason not to be a stranger in someone elses. I am not angry about it just not so interested in what this country has to offer in the future to want to stay.-
January 24, 2015 at 1:36 am -
I first visited Germany aged 14 and fell in love with the place. German Youth seemed so ‘free’ -they could smoke and drink, they didn’t have to wear school uniform, the girls were stunningly adult and very liberal-they wore their sexuality with same chic nonchalance they wore they clothes. I contend to this day that only continental girls can wear jeans and a baggy sweatshirt and still look good.
I moved to Germany at the end of the 80s and very quickly realised that adult life there was, to my British mind, very restrictive in a way totally alien to an 80s Brit. Germans had to register where they lived and thought it wholesome to do so or as my late Mother-in-Law put it when I railed against registering; “But how should the police know where you live?” .She simply couldn’t understand why I should have a problem with it, why the idea of it almost made me physically sick .You needed to produce an Identity Card to do just about anything-even just to open a bank account or to buy a mobile phone, yet in ‘Free’ Blighty an envelope addressed to yourself was routinely accepted as proof positive of one’s identity. German police were armed and could arrest you just for calling them something nasty. There was no leeway with the laws-not like in England where you could drive round with a ‘tax disc in post’ note on your windscreen for a couple of weeks .I truly felt ‘trapped’ by the vogonesque bureacracy and restrictive laws and used to enjoy telling Germans how much ‘freer’ England was.
Then in 2002 I moved back to England and stood opened mouthed the first time a British bobby marched past me in his base-cap, bullet proof vest and Batman utility belt. My local council insisted I register my place of residence with them on pain of a very large fine, I needed not only a passport but utility bills and a note from my Mommy to open a bank account.
Since then Britain has become more and more restrictive and while I’m old enough to know that the grass is never really greener on the other guy’s grave, I look forward to the day I can leave England for good. German totalitarianism I can live with, but not what Blair did to this country.
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January 24, 2015 at 7:45 am -
@Blocked Dwarf I think you make the point I wanted to make far better than I did.. I am not so sure I object to the means used to regulate Society but rather the ends that are sought by them. I instinctively dislike identity cards but that is because I distrust the use to which 21st Century English ‘Democracy’ is likely to put them to rather than being identifiable. Interestingly though I think the means used but more how they are implemented in practice so often adumbrate the ‘utopia’ striven for. I cannot recall being treated other than with courtesy in Germany even though the blighters seem to speak English less frequently than any other lot of Johnny Foreigners I come across.
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January 24, 2015 at 9:07 am -
Fat Steve, the grammar, syntax , spelling of your posts and the style of your writing put mine to shame. Along with many others of the commentators here you make me feel rather inadequate. Just wanted to get that off my chest cos you never fail to mention in what high regard you hold my ramblings.
As to ID Cards, not long after moving back here, I managed to break my rear number plate (a trapped nerve at C2 makes reverse parking difficult…and PAINFUL). “No Problemo!” I thought and so I headed off to the nearest Halfrauds that I knew made up number plates-clutching the broken shards of my plate, my V-whatever and my passport cos I remembered hearing that the rules had been tightened to keep us all safe from TERRORISTS.
Halfrauds refused to make me up a number plate because my driving licence was foreign and paper. My passport wasn’t considered proof of identity.In other words, the Photocard Driving licence has become the defacto ID Card, the ID Card via the backdoor, with even Tesco Delivery men DEMANDING to see one (as happened to my adult son a while back) before handing over an order containing Everday Value weapons grade plutonium …or ‘cigarettes’ as we used to call them.
Don’t think I have ever met a German born after WW2 who didn’t speak some English, and more than a few German parents send their kids to English speaking schools or speak English at home so that their children have ‘better chances’- almost every job, however lowly, requires some English, requires ‘Internet English’ as a minimum. There is however one exception and that is people our age who grew up with Russian as their second language not English, those who were Citizens of the DDR.
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January 24, 2015 at 12:14 pm -
@Blocked Dwarf Fat Steve, the grammar, syntax , spelling of your posts and the style of your writing put mine to shame.
Balls…… but nice balls….. so thanks Blocked Dwarf -
January 24, 2015 at 4:04 pm -
XX the ID Card via the backdoor. XX
Quite.
Our Ausweis. You do NOT have to carry it with you, but you have to HAVE one.
However, if you get stopped by the Police or Ordnungsamt, and you have not got it with you, you will be sent, or even taken home, to get it. If that does nt work, you will stay in the cells until your ID can be proved.
Add to that, like you say (BD) you can not book a peacefull fart without some one asking for your Ausweis.
BUT! It makes sense.
Of COURSE a library needs to know where you live before yopu run off with their books. The same with banks, and collecting parcels from the post, or, or…
So, although it has, through the back door, become compulsory to have it with you, there is good reason. It makes YOUR life easier.
Second point, what is ON the document?
Photo, Name, address, Nationality, height, eye and hair colour, and your D.O.B. But Brits react as if we are going around with our prsonal “Big Brother” in our wallets.
Strange people.
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January 24, 2015 at 4:11 pm -
” But Brits react as if we are going around with our prsonal “Big Brother” in our wallets.
Strange people.”
I did say that my German Mother-in-Law simply couldn’t comprehend why the thought of having to register or have an ID Card filled me with despair. Very much the same way as She couldn’t understand my TERROR at seeing the sign “Tollwut” (Rabies) at the start of the woods where they walked very Sunday (it’s a German thing, DRIVING out for long Sunday walks in the Woods and ‘fresh air’). To anyone brought up in the 70s/80s in Britshire, “Rabies” was the big scare…that and Nuclear Armageddon.
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January 23, 2015 at 9:06 pm -
I used to listen to Radio 4 quite a lot. I liked almost all the output, the plays, the comedies, the regular programmes and, even as a male listener, “Woman’s Hour”. I can’t really pinpoint when I began to notice that there seemed to be a self congratulatory and rather smug element in the programming. Test Match Special started to become a caricature of itself, and other shows felt as if they’d passed their sell by dates. These trends coupled with the onset of vile political correctness, as witnessed for example in “The Archers”, turned me off completely. For some years noe I have niether watched TV nor listened to the wireless – the internet provides me with information, education and entertainment – not the BBC.
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January 23, 2015 at 11:40 pm -
Well said, Petunias reminiscences could be better an more cheaply provided by the BBC opening their vaults and playing archived material 24 hours a day. Instead of the dreck they provide for 23 January 2015 they could broadcast in its entirety 23 January 1955. My guess is that the listeners would even enjoy the sixty years-old news better and certainly not be any less misinformed.
Fire 99.99% of staff, sell-off the expensive real estate, return a dividend to the taxpayer, provide the service free.
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January 23, 2015 at 9:26 pm -
I think you’ve picked the best there. Some of the old favourites which are still going have been so dumbed down as to be barely recognisable any more (Songs of Praise, Pick of the Week, Radio 3, to name just three.) And the Beeb’s vast website of political correctness continues to grow, destroying all competition thanks to its vast war-chest of licence-fee cash with which to trivialise and slant the news.
The embarrassing thing for Auntie is that the sum total of all the good broadcast stuff, as mentioned by you and in the Below-the Line comments, would barely fill the schedules of just one radio and one TV station. We don’t need the rest of it – let the market provide that.
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January 23, 2015 at 10:50 pm -
“it sometimes strains our loyalties to the limit: it’s strained mine far beyond. Break it up, sell the bits off, and shoot half the staff.
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January 24, 2015 at 12:22 am -
Perhaps this says more about Britain than most would care to admit. A comment lifted from the BBC:
The Epilogue, a quiet moment of reflection to mark the end of the broadcasting day, was first heard on Sunday 26 September 1926. It initially comprised themed Bible readings but over time hymns were added. Amongst the BBC’s Sunday output – which was restricted to programmes that were deemed appropriate to the Sabbath – the Epilogue stood out and was greatly appreciated. By 1928 the BBC could report that the Sunday Epilogue was “the most popular single item in all the programmes”.
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January 24, 2015 at 1:21 am -
The programme I remember liking as a child was Down Your Way. On at tea-time, and for some reason the memory is particularly associated with roast beef and peas! More recently, there was Home Truths with John Peel. People would call in with personal stories and anecdotes, ranging from serious to entertaining or even downright weird, and it’s a shame it stopped. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hometruths/20041030_peel_tribute.shtml
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January 24, 2015 at 1:47 am -
Except for REAL fish and chips, and PIES(!) Radio 4 is the biggest thing I miss here.
Just not available on modern radios. (All that techy stuff, and my old valve set (Eddystone, Ex RAF, was in a Lancaster at one time during the war) could pick up more stations, from Liverpool to Istanbul, and when the weather was right, I even had New York, on occassion. Now you are lucky to get the town next door!)
“Just a minute” was my favourite. And that with the London Tube stations…. “Cressingham Terrace” or something. The afternoon play was also damn good.
I have tried getting Radio 4 on internet, but “not available in your location” is all I get.
BBC world service WAS similar, but all you get now is the same five or six programmes repeated time and time again, broken up by the news. And NO shipping forecast!!!
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January 24, 2015 at 1:51 am -
“I have tried getting Radio 4 on internet, but “not available in your location” is all I get.”
Doesn’t it work with a UK IP/via a GB ‘tunnel’ or simple proxy ? I don’t recall having any problems getting Radio 4 on my laptop last summer when I was there.
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January 24, 2015 at 10:53 am -
The European union are trying to ban UK IPs
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January 24, 2015 at 4:05 pm -
MOMENT BD!
I still consider Excel to be the work of the devil, you expect me to set THAT up, whatever it may be???
I would probably end up breaking it.
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January 24, 2015 at 4:14 pm -
Excel IS the work of the Devil, as is every printer ever made! Your standard disposable USB Jet printer (ie a fresh ink cartridge costs more than the printer did) makes WindowsME look positively angelic and MS Vista almost divine by comparison.
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January 24, 2015 at 5:50 pm -
IS is the work of the devil, excel was delegated to a lowly minion.
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January 24, 2015 at 8:20 am -
Regarding the Proms/
Now in my later 50s physically, I am still anywhere between 19 and 25 in attitude in the head. And I dress accordingly to that head age range, but my taste in music has expanded enormously (for which I thank Mr Green our music teacher, who played us the Clockwork Orange soundtrack and persuaded me classical music is not dull and there’s more to life than three minute ditties).
Hence, I go regularly to the proms, especially the late ones which will feature more obscure and strange pieces. But I still dress in the punk/glam/ new romantic/goth mish mash I have ever loved.
One even, ing, while sitting in the sun in Kensington Gardens awaiting the start of a late prom, a very elderly lady (and she was definitely a lady, not a woman) sat beside me and struck up a conversation. She was fascinating. She had been the daughter of one of the main ladies in waiting of the German Kaiser’s court. she told me stories and was lovely to listen to. At the end, she asked where I was going and I told her ” The Proms”.
She looked me up and down and beamed a huge smile. “This is why I love your country. You are so democratic. Everything is available to everybody. In my country, you could not go to a classical concert dressed like that. Neither would a major broadcaster pay for the music for you to listen to, dressed like that. You are so… DEMOCRATIC!”
It brought home to me how much we actually take for granted. I hope that elderly lady is well. And I hope the BBC remains strong enough to fight off the vultures.
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January 24, 2015 at 10:23 am -
Lovely little story that almost has one foot in the previous post.
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January 24, 2015 at 11:23 am -
Pat, your Oompahs may keep you in eminently quoteable quotes, my minions however supply me with a never ending supply of ‘almost fitting’ anecdotes (which actually happen to be true, although I do change details to protect The Cheeeeldren).
Growing up there lived next door to us an elderly lady who was our unofficial ‘3rd Gran’. MISS B…and God help anyone who tried to title her as ‘Mrs’, belonging as she did, to that generation of ‘gals’ for whom a ruptured hymen ruined far far more than bed sheets or car seats. She was a quietly determined, educated woman whose mind would have felt right at home in St.Mary Mead. Mind you, as she had trained her Labrador, her faithful-to-the-death constant companion, to carry her purse in its mouth I doubt she ever got mugged. She never spoke much about her life in London but she did mention that she’d been a top class secretary to some important people.
Returning to the UK to show off my German Bride and freshly baked First Spawn, we naturally called in on Miss B to ‘take tea’-yes really, with her one ‘took tea’ still. Suddenly Miss B started to talk to the Bestes Newly Wed Frau In The World in fluent German…and what a German she spoke! It was the German that Windsock’s ‘Lady’ would have spoken, a form of German diction not heard since Empress Sissy’s appalling doggerel, since the ravings of Ludwig II Of Bavaria (or “Louey The Loop” as he is known to historians ).
Obviously I put down my Petit Four and Earl Grey and inquired *politely* (“manners maketh the man, Blocked Dwarf”) where she had learnt such beautiful courtly German. Seems she wasn’t just a top flight Secretary but a Foreign Language Secretary to the sort of men who commanded the sort of men who could hit the Ace of Spades with a Welrod at 20 paces even when ‘squiffy’ and she’d been taught her German and French by just such a Windsockian ‘Dame’.
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January 24, 2015 at 11:25 am -
Pet not ‘Pat’, sorry -blame the Myxomatosis that means I have one eye bandaged up at the moment…poor little bunny that I am.
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January 24, 2015 at 3:45 pm
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January 24, 2015 at 10:25 am -
I’m Scottish and I’m proud of my culture and country. However, I used to have family living in England – Derby, Bristol, Stoke and Devon. I’ve worked and travelled significantly in England and indeed I’ll be working in London soon. You’ll remember the summer of 1976. It got a bit warm. Anyway I went down to Derby to spend a fortnight with my Uncle and one of my cousins came over from Stoke.
The days were long and warm and started off with a brisk walk to the local bowling green to help another relative to get things ready for the days bowling. Next it was a trip to the local shops which had staff that talked to customers. Lunch was the main meal of the day cooked using the Raeburn. I watched the test matches on TV in the afternoon and in the evenings I was taken to a variety of scenic pubs. It was England. It was the Shire. It was truly wonderful. Laid back. People getting on with their lives.
From then on I listened to cricket on the radio, usually in the car when I was travelling around to clients. Brian Johnson and various others just chatting and talking about the match. They talked about cakes also and answered listeners questions etc. so so English.
Nowadays we generally stay in a cottage just out side Chipping Norton for a week and enjoy being with the English. It’s a wonderful country. I just hope that the English can hold on to it. Please don’t let it go.
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January 24, 2015 at 12:12 pm -
” I just hope that the English can hold on to it. Please don’t let it go.”
In the spirit of not letting it go, of not letting standards slide, allow me to point out that the ‘cooked main meal’ of the day is ‘Dinner’ not ‘Lunch’ whatever time of day it is eaten- hence ‘School dinners’. Lunch is a light meal, cooked or uncooked, at ‘lunchtime’-hence the phrase ‘packed lunch’.
No, no, don’t thank me, just doing my job. :p
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January 24, 2015 at 9:53 pm -
TBF,
Tedioustantrums is coming from a Scottish perspective where the main evening meal is referred to as tea. -
January 26, 2015 at 3:20 pm -
Always preferred ITV myself.
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