One year ago today, which happened to be Easter Day, my father Clive Brown died aged 82 in the early hours of the morning. I have written about this in three previous blogs – “48 Hours: my father and I“, “48 Hours: postscript” and “That Was The Year That Was“. But, if you will indulge me, I have a few more thoughts to offer on this poignant anniversary.
It is a truism to say that time passes more quickly as one gets older but the past year seems to have raced along. Perhaps it is to do with being “over the hill”, a phrase meaning past one’s best which is not heard so much these days (maybe because I am older people whisper the words out of my earshot). Anyway, if I am “over the hill” and careering out of control down the other side that might explain time rushing by.
In a previous blog – “It wouldn’t be a show without Punch” – I recorded some of my late mother’s expressions but I would also like to recall a few of my father’s favourite sayings.
Two of his regulars were “muck or nettles” and “all hair and teeth”. The first means “all or nothing”, though I have no idea why, and the second indicates a particularly lively situation, for example, a frantic and barely-under-control football match.
He also liked to refer to a situation being “a right schmozzle”, meaning chaotic. I understand schmozzle is of Hebrew or Yiddish origin and I once surprised an Israeli work colleague when, without thinking, I used the word. I don’t know where my father got it from, perhaps it was common parlance when he was young or perhaps he picked it up during his National Service in the Army.
When I was a small child my father sang in a male voice choir and he continued to enjoy choral music throughout his life. But his favourite genre was West End, Broadway and film musicals. He loved going to see musicals and I chose the Prologue, or Carousel Waltz, from Carousel, performed by the John Wilson Orchestra, as the music at the end of his funeral service. He also loved watching this orchestra when they appeared on TV from the BBC Proms.
I used to reflect how a few years’ difference in date of birth could have made a big difference to my slightly old-fashioned, though fairly enlightened, father. He was born in August 1933. Less than 18 months later, in January 1935, along came Elvis Presley and just five years or so after that John Lennon was born. They helped pioneer a form of music which largely passed my father by.
But, of course, it is not just when we are born which governs what we like or dislike. The society and family around us, our own peculiar tastes, are probably more important. Being born a few years later would not have made my father a rocker.
He was a big consumer of TV programmes, particularly live football (especially Arsenal) and political programmes.
In terms of reading, it was mostly biographies and autobiographies (of historical, political, newspaper and sporting characters) and railway books – but definitely not fiction. Fiction was something of a blindspot for my father, he could not see the point of reading made-up stories when there were so many real stories to read.
I would like to close with some passages from one of the letters I received after my father died last year. You may know that his last job before retirement was Editor of the Spalding Guardian and of the Lincolnshire Free Press, two local newspapers in Spalding, South Holland (south Lincolnshire) which were effectively operated as a twice-weekly.
The letter I have in mind came from someone who was a journalist in the same company, but not at the same newspaper. She made some fascinating observations in her thoughtful and heartfelt letter.
Not everything she wrote struck me as true but we all have different experiences of people – for example, she felt he was reluctant to allow others “access to his treasure of experience and talent.” I would have thought differently, but I did not work for or with him.
But among her observations which ring true about his approach to journalism and work…
“Clive’s often inscrutable responses were a breath of fresh air when set against sometimes fawning contributions from individuals desperate to succeed in the cut-throat world of print publishing.”
“He did not suffer fools and hilariously described one [company] director, for whom he had no time whatsoever, as ‘Being at the back of the queue when couth was handed out’.”
“He consummately detested all things ‘corporate’…”
“He largely loathed”… “experimental promotional ideas”.
“His talent as a shrewd and eloquent newsman always shone brightly.”
“Unquestionably his own man, he commanded the Spalding Guardian by the shrewd application of qualities that made newspapers successful at the time: honesty, integrity and accuracy delivered with a genuine attempt at social responsibility and true reader value.”
Graham Brown
Graham Brown Orkney 