MY FATHER - TRIVIA

 

My father, for a short while, was a tailor's assistant,
not a job that suited him, if you'll pardon me,
but some nights he'd bring home triangular chalk,
the sort that marked cloth, the sort that was a toy to me.

It was velvety to the touch, not like stick chalk,
but great fun on a black or purple writing pad.
I remember little of importance about him
but I recall odds and ends, the trivia of my father.

SHAKING HANDS - A PLAY - WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT

 

A few years ago, while researching my memoir Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?, I thought I'd have a go at writing a short play based on aspects of my family's history.

The play was written as a 45-minute radio drama, but it has not been performed or broadcast - yet.

It is fiction, based on several facts from my life. 

A 60-year-old son tracks down his 89-year-old father to question him on why he left the family home, a wife and seven young children. In the quest to find out about the 'missing years', the son finds it hard to suppress simmering anger and the father clings to hope of reconciliation. 

In mid-2015, I sent the play to BBC NI radio producer, Heather Larmour, who declined it because a daughter/father drama had already been commissioned. She said: 

 

“Thank you so much for sending ‘Shaking Hands’, it’s a very thoughtful, emotional and intelligent script which I very much enjoyed reading.  I thought your treatment of the relationship between father and son was very interesting and viscerally drawn - you really could feel the anger and frustration and hopes and vulnerabilities of the characters as they negotiated the stages of the meeting.  Although I was secretly hoping for a happy ending, I also very much admired how you left the piece, with no resolution possible given the past, but perhaps some understanding for the characters. Unfortunately however, we have recently had a piece commissioned, which tackles the story of a daughter tackling her father about the secrets of his past, and although the two pieces are of course very different, we just felt that the subject matter was too similar at the moment and that Radio 4 would be unlikely to be looking for another piece in the same territory.”

I post this because I love these words of encouragement.  Makes the writing effort worthwhile.

 

 

WHEN JFK WAS SHOT IN DALLAS, I WAS DELIVERING GROCERIES IN BELFAST (1963)

 

I had an after school job at the Mace supermarket on the Glen Road.

I can answer that question “Where were you when JFK was assassinated?”  

I was on one of my delivery jaunts, on a “Granville”* bike. 

I remember overhearing a passer-by telling a man across the street what had happened.

“Kennedy? Shot? Where?”

“In the head.”

“No, where was he?”

“Texas.”

“Seen that in cowboy pictures. Lot of gunslingers there, you know.”

I knew it was fairly important news but I was preoccupied with my own fate at the jaws of a yapping dog behind the railings of a house in Fruithill Park.  

I was scared stiff and could not pluck up the courage to open the squeaky gate.  

Luckily, after tense minutes the owner joked:  “His bite’s worse than his bark.”

She called off the dog and beckoned me up the driveway.  I delivered her box of groceries, she put a half crown** tip in my sweaty hand – big money back then - and I scarpered before the dog was let loose again to bite lumps out of my arse, legging it, knowing that oil-free hinges would squeal the mutt back into action.

Phew!

I had escaped with my life.  Unlike the poor President.

*Granville is a delivery boy character in a UK sitcom called Open All Hours.  He rode a bike with a big metal frame on the front that held boxes of groceries

**A Half-crown was a hefty financial tip in those days

STINGS - A POEM BASED ON TRUTH

 

I've been told that I was stung in the face by a wasp
When I was a baby in my mother's arms.
She was on her way to the shop across the road
When the swift assassin struck me unawares.
I've been told that I screamed and my mother was frantic,
That I developed a slight swelling in the cheek
That Germolene or some such magic calmed eventually.

But I've had my revenge on hundreds of the little bastards over the years,
The stings of the father, you might say, swatted and squashed
By tennis racquets, rolled-up magazines, Irish News copies
And whatever else came to hand in duels to their deaths.

I have been stung many times since the first incident,
stings not so easily dealt with by racquets and magazines,
stings that didn't even involve the angry evil of wasps,
stings from shallow acquaintances and false friends,
stings that leave me with thoughts of vengeance, of loose ends.

 

 

10 QUOTES ATTRIBUTED TO ALFRED HITCHCOCK

 

 

"If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking 

for a body in the coach."

 

"Television has brought back murder into the home, where it belongs."

 

“Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.”

 

“Conversation is the enemy of good wine and food.”

 

“Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, 

as well as contributing to the need for it.”

 

“Puns are the highest form of literature.”

 

“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

 

“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the bladder.”

 

“I’m a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately 

be looking for a body in the coach.”

 

“There is nothing to winning really. That is if you happen to be blessed 

with a keen eye, an agile mind and no scruples whatsoever.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BLETHER & BLAH MORNING TV SHOWS

 

As a younger man, I was an avid watcher of news and current affairs programmes on television.  I couldn't get enough of them.  But as I have grown older and television has moved on too, I find myself avoiding most news output mainly because of the ever-increasing amount of time allocated to opinions and analysis.  There are genuine experts and self-appointed experts, the latter group pointless padding in some broadcasts.  And don't get me started on presenters asking long-winded questions and interrupting guests who are two or three words into their answers.

I have a particular dislike for what I call the "blether and blah" shows on morning TV in the UK.  Some (most) of the presenters are annoying to me.  But my biggest bugbear is the never-ending caravan of boo-hoo celebrities "reaching out" and "opening up" about some trauma or other in their "journey" to fame.  And the ones who become famous only to realise they don't like the attention, that fame is not what it is cracked up to be.

Within the aforementioned caravan of celebrities are the really, really annoying ones who tell their sob stories whilst simultaneously promoting a latest project.  It seems if you want to be famous, you must have a heart-tugging back story, real or invented, it matters not.  The PR team's job is to ensure punters buy whatever is being flogged if there is emotional baggage involved.

So, for most of the morning and early afternoon, the TV is off.  

From this self-appointed expert, think about reducing your "blether and blah" intake.  

It works for me.

WILLIAM SHATNER'S SUMMARY OF HIS CAREER CHOICES

 

In his wonderful 2008 autobiography “Up Till Now”, William Shatner gives a summary of his career choices: 

“I’m concerned about being overexposed, so I’ve been very careful to limit myself to acting on the stage and in dramatic television programmes, hosting documentary-type programmes and game shows, appearing in movies and commercials, endorsing products, doing voice-overs, charity appearances, radio programmes, Webcasts. videos, Star Trek conventions, horse shows and dog shows, writing books and songs, making albums, creating, directing and producing television programmes, performing at concerts, appearing on talk shows, competitive reality-type and award programmes.  But that’s where I draw the line.”