"No problem" … well, I didn't think it would be

“TELL you what,” said Alf, swirling the last inch of beer around his glass before downing it and returning the empty vessel to the table in that emphatic manner that can only mean it is someone else’s round. “Tell you what – I don’t know about you, but, just lately, I’m finding life particularly irksome.”
I was pleased that Alf had used a word like “irksome”. In these days of texting and tweeting, when any old word, or indeed spelling, will do, it was gratifying that such good solid English was still being employed. And in the four-ale bar, too. But then the Rowditch is a place where you will always find stimulating conversation and profound scholarly knowledge. There aren’t many pubs that provide books to read with your quiet pint; and dictionaries and reference works for settling friendly arguments.
Actually, as the conversation progressed, it crossed my mind that Alf didn’t mean “irksome” at all. He meant that life had become irritating, not boring. At least that was the way the debate went, after I’d been back to the bar to top us up, of course.
We began listing things that annoy us as we go about our daily lives. Like when you enter a shop and ask for something and the young shop assistant says: “No problem.” And you want to say: “Well, I’ve just asked you for a newspaper and, as I’m standing in a newsagent’s, why do you think that I would think that there would be a problem?”
Or when you’re in a restaurant with your wife, and a serving person young enough to be your grandchild greets you with: “What can I get you guys?” That is if you are lucky enough to have attracted their attention in the first place.
When you can’t get served at a crowded bar, at least there are options available, like using your elbows and waving aloft your empty glass. But what are you meant to do about servers who float past, staring firmly on some point in the middle distance, looking neither right nor left in case a customer should attempt to catch their eye? Rugby tackle them?
I’ve just remembered: the last time I criticised restaurant staff here, I opened myself up to abuse from someone who must have been a disaffected server. I don’t know for sure because every broadside was delivered anonymously through this newspaper’s website. Which was unfair since I’m a big tipper when the service is good. Anyway, I’m braced and ready.
But look, I can’t use the privilege of writing this weekly column simply to enjoy a good moan. So I’m not going to mention people who ride bicycles on pavements, people who park cars on pavements and grass verges, people who chuck litter out of those cars. By the way, last month I was considering returning to the Royal Derby the NHS-issue rubber gloves I found outside our house. But you never know where such things might have been. So I scooped them up (using another pair of rubber gloves; mine were from Tesco) and dumped the lot in our bin. Having admitted it, I await a midnight knock from the refuse disposal police. Now that would annoy me.

Actors, chip shops … and a touch of Richard Wagner

BACK in 1964, it was. I met a young actor called Bernard Holley. He was in rep at Derby Playhouse, when that theatre was in Sacheverel Street. Bernard and his wife, Jean, lived on Burton Road, just around the corner from where I lived in Gerard Street. We sometimes bumped into each other on Sunday lunchtimes in the Durham Ox, then run by Joe Kent.
Actually, something – albeit quite trivial – is bugging me here: I can’t remember if that was when, just opposite the pub, butcher Ted Barker still spluttered cigarette ash over Sunday joints; or whether it was after his place had become a chip shop which, last time I passed, was still doing a roaring trade after being highly nominated by visitors to this newspaper’s website.
Anyway, never mind fish and chips, for the moment at least. The future Mrs R and me were great theatregoers in the days when – funny what you remember – before every performance at Sacheverel Street they played Kenny Ball’s The Green Leaves Of Summer. Bernard was one of our favourite actors and recently our paths (Bernard’s and mine that is; I bump into Mrs R quite regularly) crossed again.
After Derby, he moved on to greater things in theatre, film and television. Especially television: Z-Cars (remember PC Newcombe?), Dr Who, The Bill, Holby City, Doctors, A Touch Of Frost – he’s done them all and a lot more. And he is still working.
Bernard fondly remembers his time here, even if it was almost half a century ago: “My year at Derby was invaluable to me as an actor because of the variety of plays we did and parts we played. Young actors don't have that ‘rep’ training any more, sad to say.
“I kept in touch with Ian Cooper, Mary Laine and Michael Hall from the Playhouse – all sadly now deceased – with Michael being the last to go, at 93, a few years back.
“I’ve been one of the lucky ones – always worked in one field or another, and always earned a living – not a bad boast for an actor. What’s more, I’ve been married to Jean – we were wed just before I started my year at Derby – for 47 years, and we’ve lived in the same house in London for 40.”
I loved the old Playhouse, with the resident company constantly turning their hand to different parts. Performing this week’s play while learning the lines for next week’s – how did they do that? What a pity that repertory theatre has died, in Derby at least.
Now a final thought on chip shops because, as you know, I rarely miss an opportunity to stroll down memory lane. When I was a lad, we patronised either Askin’s – “Askin For Chips” was their motto – on Burton Road, near the Little City; or an Abbey Street establishment run by a middle-aged couple, the wife a stout woman with plaited blonde hair who reminded me of the female half of Tristan und Isolde.
Not that I was a particular fan of Richard Wagner operas – more a Guy Mitchell sort of person, really – but our wireless was sometimes tuned to the Third Programme. And that kind of exposure can leave its mark upon a small child.
Anyway, thanks for the memory, Bernard.

Why I said goodbye to the doorstep milkman

THIRTY-TWO years ago today, milk went up. No, cows had not lost their sense of direction. But there was still a commotion. Because overnight in May 1979, at 15p per pint, milk became 10 per cent more expensive. And three times the price it had been five years earlier. Five months later, milk went up again, to 16.5p. The nation hovered over whether to abandon cornflakes for toast and be done with it.
But here is the thing: although prices slowed down and today the cost of your pinta is much the same in real terms as it was then, nowadays only about one in five pints is delivered to the nation’s doorsteps. In 1979 it was four in every five. Which brings me to my point (regular readers will know that in this column we generally take the scenic route to get anywhere).
The other day, a milkman called at our door. He wondered if we would be interested in a daily doorstep delivery. Alas, much as it pained me, a believer in all things traditionally British, I had to tell him that, having abandoned our milk delivery some years ago, we found no reason to reinstate it.
We had clung on to it for far too long anyway, given all the problems it had presented. First, there was the fact that you never knew when the milk might actually arrive; once you’d run out, you could be hanging around for ages before giving up on a mid-morning cuppa. And there were times when went out, and returned to find that your milk had arrived minutes after you'd turned the key in the lock and it had been sitting for five hours in blistering sun.
Then there was the milkman who came humming down our street (well, his float was humming; he was whistling) at half past one in the morning, delivering what was, as far as I as concerned, yesterday’s milk.
So I had to tell the missionary milkman that, sorry, while no one more than me would love to go back to how Britain was in the 1950s, we now get our milk from the supermarket when we want it. So we never run out and it is always fresh. Although what was wrong with a quick “Does that smell OK?” and fishing the lumps out of your tea on a hot summer’s day, I do not know; use-by dates, eh?
In Gerard Street, we had a Co-op milkman called Albert, who provided all manner of social services. For a start, his daily helper wasn’t even employed by the Co-op. He was a 50-year-old chap who had learning difficulties but who knew better even than Albert what house had what milk. Today, there would be health and safety and employment laws against it. More is the pity.
Albert once acted as wedding chauffeur when a terminally ill neighbour decided that, for the sake of her three children, she should marry their father. One Friday lunchtime, after he had finished his round, Albert drove her, bouquet and all, in his float to the register office. His regular helper wasn’t best pleased because he had to walk back to the dairy. But that was life then. Uncomplicated.

Early morning tea, the monarchy, and AV

THE rest of the family had gone their various ways and I was enjoying an early morning cup of tea in the garden, watching a motor-cycle gang of starlings bully the other birds to grab the food for themselves. And my mind drifted back to a morning just like this, and to the Royal Family.
Not that I’ve ever shared an early morning cuppa with anyone boasting blue blood (although – name-drop alert – I did once breakfast with Hilary Clinton in Chicago when she was First Lady and regal in that peculiar American way). And not that I was drawing a parallel with that avian raiding party and the fact that the origins of all monarchies lie in having, long ago, pushed aside those weaker than themselves.
It was just that the concept of a royal family was something that I often debated with Peter Hampson, a former Derby Telegraph reporter who was my good friend, Rowditch drinking buddy, and best neighbour anyone could wish for until he was taken from us, far too soon, a few years back.
During one of our many Sunday morning yarning sessions over the garden wall (older readers please try to eliminate thoughts of comedian Norman Evans here) when I was trying to make sense of the idea of a royal family, Peter said: “Better a pantomime monarchy than a pantomime republic.”
And every time I have doubts, I think of the alternative. Politicians are insufferable enough without making them feel even more important. A better alternative might be to elect an apolitical president, someone universally popular who can simply be the nation's figurehead. Or they could just give me the job; like everyone else, I know best how to sort things out. I do it every Friday in the pub.
Talking of alternatives, here is a final thought on the now-dead Alternative Voting system. On the eve of the referendum, I was discussing AV with a friend now retired from his job at Derby City Council. Working at elections had given him a jaundiced view: “The most powerful argument against AV is the Great British Public. I’ve seen it all. When the majority of those who bother turning out are capable of doing so (1) on the right day; (2) during the allotted hours; (3) being on the register; (4) finding their way to the polling booth; (5); putting down the correct number of crosses; (6) in the right places; (7) not folding the ballot paper down to the size of a postage stamp; (8) finding the ballot box; (9) and the slot in the top; (10) putting the ballot paper, not the poll card, in the box; (11) finding their way out again; (12) and not coming back to ask how they voted so they can inform the teller, then maybe we could accept AV. Until then … ”
In the meantime, did you know that it is 20 years today since Helen Sharman, from Sheffield, became Britain’s first astronaut? When she emerged from the capsule back on Earth, she said: “Smell the flowers, they’re wonderful.”
That makes you think. Worrying about the world at large? Sometimes I’d rather just sit in the garden, drink a cup of tea, and remember a dear old friend.

"It's what we're fighting for," said Captain Mainwaring. You know what? I think we lost.

THEY say you should never go back. But sometimes you must. Last week I revisited a boyhood haunt, deep in the heart of the Fens. My last surviving aunt had died. She was 95, so nobody could feel too sad. Certainly not in the way that you would if you’d been saying goodbye to someone that should have had a full life ahead of them. She had already lived that.
But it was still sad enough. We walked behind her coffin, up the path towards the Norman church, a few hundred yards from the farm where I spent childhood summers. The sun was shining, spring blossom bejewelled the trees, the crows cawed, the church bell tolled. For that brief moment, it was another England. It was the England that you’ve always wanted to live in. The England that would have prompted Captain Mainwaring to tell Sergeant Wilson: “This is what we’re fighting for.”
Of course, it was but a brief snapshot. Drive a mile or so in any direction and those narrow Lincolnshire country lanes of distant memory are now dual carriageways. Once sleepy crossroads are now thundering roundabouts. As is the natural order of things, Macdonald’s and budget hotels litter the flat landscape. Everything has to change. Alas, not always for the better.
I am the odd one out in our family of country folk. Thanks to my father seeking employment elsewhere, I am a townie, born and bred. And back in Derby, it got me thinking about how our way of life has changed here, too. Not least in New Normanton, where we had our first married home, and raised our daughter. Forty years ago, it was a safe, welcoming area where people of different races and cultures – incomers were then mostly from the Commonwealth – got on just fine.
Now I read in this newspaper that legislation allowing many more immigrants from European Union countries to claim benefits and housing further threatens social harmony in an area already suffering more than its fair share of problems in that regard.
In the early days, when it was explained that all that would happen would be easier trading with the likes of France and Germany – presumably that was why they called it the Common Market – I bought the idea that EEC (as it then was) membership was a good thing. I did believe that we’d all still need passports.
But that was then. Now I would be grateful if someone would explain what benefits Britain enjoys through the EU being expanded to include countries whose nationals use freedom of movement to cause the kind of problems that oblige Derby City Council to finance a task force to deal with them.
Back in Lincolnshire, they told me that the agricultural industry there would collapse if it weren’t for migrant labour. But with it, they say, comes all kinds of social problems unimaginable even a few years ago.
And that is when hitherto tolerant, liberal-minded people start to experience uncomfortable feelings of anger and lingering resentment that they’d rather not have.
Captain Mainwaring was right. Between 1939 and 1945, Britain was fighting to save our way of life. History tells us that we achieved that. Looking around in 2011, I’m beginning to wonder.

Solutions more important than party political dogma - but don't forget to vote anyway

IT’S that time again. But this year, predicting the outcome of tomorrow’s local elections isn’t something on which I’d wager so much as a shopping trolley token. Not since we got entangled with coalitions. It seems that, come Friday morning, anything is possible. Especially since I can’t work out the mood in these troubled times.
Personally, I’ve never been one for strict party politics. Most problems can be sorted out with a dose of common sense. And, wherever you look, that seems in short supply these days. Solutions are more important than immature, often outdated political dogma. Those who think that the other lot all have two heads and are the devil’s spawn? None of them are thinking straight enough to get their minds around our mounting problems.
On a lighter note (pun intended) my mate, Terry, is trying to lose weight to save himself the cost of an extra helicopter seat. It’s like this: he’s booked a flight into the Grand Canyon and the tour company has told him that unless he slims down, it's going to charge him double. He tells me that he is within a few pounds of achieving the goal, although I’m not convinced. Not unless they’re using a Chinook.
Actually, I sympathise. I’ve spent a lifetime trying not to be the gentleman with the fuller figure. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve promised the nurse at our surgery that, the next time she sees me, I’ll be a svelte version of the man who discards everything that decency will allow before stepping on to her scales. Or tries to distract her by asking her about her holidays, in the hope that she’ll forget that I’m down for a weigh-in. So far, that hasn’t worked.
In the meantime, what am I going to do with Saturday afternoons now the football season is almost ended? I’ve renewed my season ticket because, as Alexander Pope wrote, hope springs eternal … Then again, he didn’t follow the Rams.
But while we wait and wonder, these Saturdays need to be filled, because the thing about following football is the routine. Albeit these days that is constantly interrupted by the needs of television. Years ago, once the fixtures came out, you knew exactly where you’d be 16 weeks on Saturday.
Back in my Gerard Street boyhood, Colin Shaw, who lived opposite, was my regular Saturday afternoon Baseball Ground companion. We had a routine – call it a ritual – in which I would call at his house, his mother, Dolly, would yell upstairs: “Anton’s here.” And he would shout back: “I’m just looking for a white shirt in case they’re short.” Well, it always made me laugh.
Given a half-decent summer, while Nigel signs up a promotion-winning team, I expect there’ll be a few trips into the Peak District. As I get older, I do find them far more agreeable than hanging around airports. You don’t get many terrorist alerts on the bus to Bakewell.
I’ll also be strolling around Derby, taking in the latest alterations and wondering if the day will ever dawn when you don’t run the risk of tripping over a bulldozer.
Anyway, whoever you favour, don’t forget to vote. It’s important. And you can still complain later.

Life is still full of characters … if you know where to look

THE couple on the bus were pulling a neighbour to pieces. Or at least the wife was. Something to do with the neighbour and his fancy piece. And I’m assuming here that it wasn’t a particularly gaudy necktie that was giving offence.
Anyway, the husband couldn’t quite place whom it was that he was supposed to dislike. Not until it was explained to him that it was “the chap who gave you the cabbage plants”. Then he nodded weakly. I got the impression that he quite liked the purveyor of buckshee brassica. And probably wouldn’t have even minded going for a pint with him. But he was too afraid to say.
There followed an account of a friend who worked in an old people’s home where the cook had locked himself in the laundry room. And there was someone called Eunice (name change here, so don’t worry if your name is Eunice; it isn’t you) who was “no better than she should be”.
The dialogue could have come straight from an Al Read script (for readers not yet of pensionable age, the Salford sausage maker turned comedian was a well-known radio voice in the 1950s with his observational humour about northern working class life).
Actually, the bit about the cook locked in the laundry room was more Fawlty Towers. Whatever, it was marvellous to be so royally entertained on a hitherto unpromising journey.
It is surprising, though, how today people can have such indiscreet conversations in public. That said, in the 1970s there was a local shopkeeper who was probably the most indiscreet person I’ve known. He’d tell you the most outrageous gossip about someone, then say: “I can’t reveal his identity. But he’s got red hair, lives at Horsley Woodhouse and rides a zebra.” Well, not actually that, but enough to blow the cover of the person he’d just slandered.
At least he wanted to talk. In the bank, the cashier, who had been staring into space, suggested that it might have been quicker if I’d paid in at the machine rather than bothered her.
“Quicker for who?” I asked. “There’s no queue. You aren’t serving anyone else.” To which she replied: “No problem.” “Well, I didn’t imagine there might be,” I said. And the transaction continued in silence.
Nowadays, it’s all serve-yourself, press number-one, leave a message … Life is greyer. When we were kids, there were colourful characters everywhere. Down our street there lived a professional boxer who possessed a pair of wonderfully mangled cauliflower ears; and a man who left his wife to set up home with a lady midget who lived directly opposite.
There was a feisty little pensioner who took in washing, laid out the dead, and spent every evening in the pub before, several milk stouts later, returning home bouncing off walls and singing maudlin songs.
And there was the 40-something who terrorised local children with a homemade bow and arrow. No one ever reported him. We just remained vigilant.
There was even a neighbour who had a fancy piece. I don’t know that he ever gave away cabbage plants, though. Or locked himself in a laundry room. Maybe the characters are still out there. You just need to know where to look.