In Good Company: Looking Back
Four decades ago the inimitable Enid Blackburn found herself reflecting on the year that was gone.
I always feel that looking back is slightly unhealthy and should not be encouraged. Having put one’s hand to the plough, what’s the point of raking up the muck you’ve just trampled through? Yet standing here at the portals wondering if you dare risk a resolution or two, passing judgement on the old year is like most wholesome habits, too fascinating to resist.
This 1980 was not a successful year for the film industry and J R Ewing must take some of the blame. Those exquisitely furnished Southfork breakfasts around the pool which no one ever ate – the beautifully coiffeured ciphers and their unflagging services to the lip-gloss industry, JR’s indelible constitution, his superb dental care, his daddy’s denim blue eyes and momma’s homely cardigans – all added a hypnotic dimension to Saturday night viewing.
On the home front, redundancy and short-time, Metro buses cut down on staff and raised the fares so high even those lucky enough to be in work can’t afford them. Meanwhile, British Rail lower their fares and regular passengers complain at the standing room only effect this has.
Writer Tom Sharpe has a lot to answer for regarding my neglected house-work and high spirits. His books were the funniest I read during the year. One hilarious paragraph can lighten the load for a fortnight. Almost as efficacious was Douglas Adams’ ‘A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,’ originally on radio and also on record. Saw one film last year ‘Airplane’ – a send-up of airways everywhere, a belly-laugh from the first take-off.
I was pleased to receive a letter from famous television personality, Katie Boyle, who kindly pointed out a spelling error in my column. ‘Be a darling and if you write about me again please spell my name correctly,’ and even more delighted to correct the mistakes in her letter.
My sympathies go to Princess Grace, whose daughter, Caroline, obtained a divorce – daughters just won’t be told. Was proud to see Mary Martin show her son Larry Hagman on the Palladium stage what professionalism really means.
My favourite sonnet of the year came from gardener Geoff Smith, who compared one of his flowers with ‘a mug of bedtime cocoa.’
Thanks to Bjorn Borg for showing us that it pays to keep your mouth shut and to Alex Higgins for taking the starch out of snooker viewing.
Other notable events – son’s engagement, he and fiancee are now happy co-supporters of a mortgage, wall-to-wall Scalextric and a sandwich toaster.
There seemed to be more deaths than I ever remember. One day you read some famous figure is dead, next day everyone has been in love with him at a profit!
If I could have one moment of 1980 again I would choose the three seconds of our television debut on Bob Monkhouse’s Family Fortunes. That tortuous void when all the war leaders ever recorded in my memory decided to go AWOL. I would shout the name ‘Montgomery,’ our winnings be doubled, but most of all, I wouldn’t look such an idiot at the beginning of March when we go on view!
