Author Archives: Tim Lenton

At some point in your childhood you and your friends went out to play together for the last time, and none of you knew it.

I read this sentence out of the blue recently and found it profoundly sad, without knowing quite why.

I suspect that this supposed event – I don’t know when or where it might have occurred, or who the other characters were – had been given some previously unthought-of significance by being commented on. And since it now had significance, I wish I had been aware of it. It obviously must have happened.

In fact it would have happened several times, with different characters in different places. After all, I moved house at the ages of five, seven and ten, and two of those moves were to different cities.

We often do not know when something is going to happen for the last time. Some things happen like a bolt from the blue; most things creep up on us. 

Those of us fortunate enough to live in a relatively comfortable part of the world at a relatively comfortable time proceed through life often in an unthinking way: no-one is going to drop a bomb on us, probably, and if we had fish and chips last Friday, we will doubtless have it again next Friday. 

Then something happens that changes everything. My father died when I was ten. Obviously I did not know this was going to happen. It wasn’t my fault. 

But should I have been aware that some of my friends would soon disappear out of my life? Did I blink and miss it? Was that my fault? 

It should go without saying that those living in a war zone like Sudan, Ukraine or Gaza  will be all too aware that any day could be the last time they see their friends, their family or their house. I can hardly envy those people, or see them as morally superior. 

We all live in our own worlds. I have to deal with the world I have been placed in, but maybe I should be more aware that those tiny regrets sneaking from the distant past into the present are too trivial to be significant.

Maybe. But that sentence still hit me in the heart.

I met a guy in a wheelchair yesterday. We were at a funeral, and he had driven down from up north to Norfolk on his own, in his specially adapted van. I attempted to give him my place in the refreshments queue, but he would not permit it. He was, he said gently, perfectly capable of looking after himself.

He was right, too. Despite his disability (legs and lower back), he was cheerful and positive. He spoke about the place where he lived, and how more people were coming to worship with the community there. It was a tonic speaking to him.

Obviously I am going to make the point that most people pursue the negative in their conversations. If it’s not the weather (it’s turned cold; winter is here and the nights are drawing in), then it’s road conditions. Or technology. Or the Government. You see? It rolls off the tongue.

In my part of the world, roads are a special problem. Potholes? Yes, of course. But more irritating even than that are the constant road closures, where work takes months to finish, and the result is often worse than the road was to start with. Part of the problem, I believe, is that the council is given money for special projects that really don’t need doing – and they aren’t allowed to use the money for anything else. They certainly don’t want to give it back; so…

I don’t think it’s malice – just incompetence. 

I give a friend a lift home after church. The route goes along Angel Road, which you would think would get preferential treatment at Michaelmas. But no: it has been closed for weeks and weeks, together with adjoining roads (you have to guess which), and you find yourself bumping along excessively road-humped residential streets lined on both sides with cars until you reach another street that has been closed.

Some of these streets have 20mph limits. Obviously this is wonderful. Twenty is plenty: coin that phrase and you get an award. Except of course it’s not plenty: in many places it’s not enough, and often where it is plenty, you would be hard put to drive faster even if you wanted to, which you wouldn’t.

Who decides these things? People like the gentleman I drove past the other day, who shook his fist at me and made slow-down signals. At the time I was certainly doing less than 15mph round a tight corner, and he was walking in the road. 

Any kind of accident brings demands to lower the speed limit, but in fact slowness itself is dangerous. Dithering motorists are a risk. If people didn’t drive too slowly, overtaking would be hugely reduced. I would like to see 30mph raised to 35mph and 20mph raised to 25mph, where you can drive much more easily without losing concentration. Twenty-five keeps you alive. How about that? A knighthood at least, surely? 

All very negative, I hear you say. What would the man in the wheelchair say? Well, surprisingly, he said roughly the same thing. In a very positive way. With a smile on his face. 

Generations come, and generations go. I am now in the last generation – my family’s last, anyway. It is a strange feeling, looking down.

I emerged into this state a couple of weeks ago, when my last aunt died at the age of 95. If my calculations are correct, I have had 12 aunts, though not all at once. My mother had four sisters, and my father had two sisters and five brothers. All the brothers married at least once, and all but one had children. 

The aunt who has recently died is Thelma, my mother’s youngest sister. I can’t say I knew her well, though she never lived far away from me (except when I lived in London). She was not a great one for socialising, especially after her husband – to my eyes, a bit of a ringer for Robert Mitchum – died. For many years I doorstepped her at Christmas, and more recently still have been visiting her at a care home.

She was looked after pre-care home by a neighbour, and then by the neighbour’s daughter, to whom I’m extremely grateful. We will be two of probably fewer than half a dozen at her cremation this week. 

So who am I left with in my own generation? I’m pretty sure that this varied collection of aunts and uncles produced 14 cousins for me, and I had two younger brothers. Of that 16, I believe nine survive. The next generation is thinning already. 

It is at this point that I lose track. Although I have tried my hand at a digging up the family tree, I have trouble with the offspring of two uncles, one of whom lived most of his life and died in Africa, while the other moved to the south coast of England, where his children multiplied. In each case I know one cousin. Oddly the African-born one now lives in Liverpool. 

It is said that everyone now alive in England is descended from Charlemagne. You can see how that could happen. My wife has just discovered – quite accidentally – a branch of her own tree that runs to many pages in the North Walsham area of Norfolk. Her parents are Norfolk born and bred, but she was born in Glasgow. Someone, somewhere, will be trying to work that out one day. If you do work it out, please let me know – but you’ll have to make it soon. If you’re too late, tell my son. He lives in Canada. 

You may have missed the Olympics. If so, you must have been out of the country, or denied access to any kind of media. If so, I should explain that it is a recurring worldwide event that focuses on athletics and swimming but includes ever more bizarre activities that attract the description “sports”.

I wasn’t thinking of taekwondo in particular, but I would like to exclude sports where the observer can’t see what the participant is trying to achieve, or where you can’t see whether they succeeded or not.

Mr Grumpy – that’s me. To be honest, I watched a lot of sports, many of them several times, thanks to the BBC’s bizarre scheduling. But despite the brilliant achievement of Keely Hodgkinson in the 800m, I found myself more often than not rather irritated – and not just because the USA won so many medals because it has such a huge population. I think the states should take part individually, but I can see how this view may not be shared by many people. 

I also think it’s time we abolished all sports where medals depend on the opinion of judges, like boxing, diving or anything with artistic impression. Judges are too easily open to bias and straightforward error. I want to see someone clearly win or clearly lose. Of course trap shooting, where the judges don’t seem to be able to see whether a moving target is hit or not, might also have to be excluded. 

How about those sports where foul play is indistinguishable from good play, like basketball and hockey? The rules are so nitpicking that I am constantly amazed at how calmly the players react to ridiculous decisions. Or maybe it’s not the decisions that are ridiculous, but the rules? Someone should sort that out. 

Weren’t the opposing and closing ceremonies wonderful? Not so much. I missed the opening one, but I read that it was capable of unpleasant religious interpretations. In fact the whole ceremony thing is open to the criticism that it is a glorification of mankind, when we have a lot to be modest about. I guess it is part of the plan to exclude God from everything, or maybe I’m misinterpreting it? It was refreshing to see some athletes (particularly Americans, come to think of it) thanking God for their success. 

I did see the closing ceremony, which had some good points – although it achieved the near-impossible feat of making the French National Anthem sound boring. I do have to admit that the whole thing was very clever, in a way that reminded me of prog-rock: tremendously skilful but in the end not very interesting. Tom Cruise was quite interesting, though. 

One final thought about the commentary. Is it just me that likes to see unexpected winners? To listen to the commentators on the BBC, you would think that people winning again and again was what all the spectators wanted. Adulation of the top stars often just took over, especially if they were friends of the commentators. And I have to say I felt extremely sorry for those unfortunates who had to interview the athletes after their events. How did that feel? What were your thoughts? Are you pleased to have won? Sorry to have lost? Tell us that again, but in a different way… Don’t hit me.

What we really want is someone British taking a medal in a totally unexpected fashion and then seeing it again, with comments. Possibly a third time. What we don’t want is a favourite just going out there and doing what they were expected to do. Except Keely. Keely is wonderful. We love Keely. 

One of the greatest regrets of my life concerns my graduation from Birkbeck College, London University, back in 1969.

The surprising news that I had achieved an Upper Second BA Honours in German arrived with my birthday cards, which I was reading as I lay in bed with my wife. It was a Saturday. Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Upper Second, Happy Birthday.

It was a great feeling – a wonderful birthday present – because it exceeded my expectations. So what’s to regret? Well, being a shy and retiring type at the time, I wasn’t really interested in dressing up, speeches and people applauding. So I didn’t bother with the ceremony. After all, I had the paperwork.

What I didn’t realise until some time later was that my mother, a hard-working widow, would have loved to travel to the capital to see her eldest son formally awarded his degree. It meant nothing much to me, but it meant a lot to her. I wasn’t a great son.

This all came back to me last week, when my grandson received his degree (BSc, first class, in computer science) from Warwick University.

As you may know, Warwick University is in Coventry. Why wouldn’t it be? And as it happens, between the ages of 6 and 11 we lived in Coventry, just three or four miles down the road from the university which, being 20 years younger than me, wasn’t there at the time.

The campus at Warwick is pretty impressive, and the arts centre, where the degree ceremony was held, is a lovely building. I now live close to the University of East Anglia, which also has a memorable campus, but I have to say that Warwick, two years younger, probably has the edge.

The ceremony was scheduled for 11am; so we travelled down (or up, or across) the previous day, staying at my favourite Coventry hotel, The Old Mill at Baginton. With us we had our only son, father of the graduate, who now lives in Canada. So quite a trip for him.

Also present were the sister and mother of the graduate, and the grandparents – all four of whom felt we had done pretty well to have survived long enough to attend, and one of whom discharged herself from hospital in order to be there. It was a sunny day to remember. It included a tour of the campus and a meal in the Dirty Duck. Oh, and pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.

I suppose one reason I showed so little interest in my own graduation was that I had not gone direct from school to university, as is the norm. I had moved to London on my own to work, and then attended evening classes four evenings a week for two years at Birkbeck, followed by a full-time year to complete the course.

It was a normal internal degree, but it didn’t have the normal interaction and camaraderie that you get from campus life and joining in a variety of clubs and activities. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t drawn into the final ceremony. Who knows? It was a long time ago. Sorry, Mum. You would have liked it.

I should perhaps mention that in the middle of my degree course I got married. There was a wedding. My mother came to that. I think she enjoyed it. So did I.

I fell over yesterday. It was nothing. I’ve done it before, but I have to admit to a strong feeling of concern as my forehead hit the pavement rather hard, and blood started flowing. When I say flowing, I mean oozing.

I had been trying to avoid a young woman (not something I do often) and at the same time skip round a heavy road works item that had strayed on to the pavement. I know road works are designed mainly to obstruct cars, but clearly they’re expanding their repertoire. 

I was a bit stunned and lay there for a moment. Don’t let anyone tell you that people in distress are ignored: as I got to my feet I was quickly joined by several young women and a roadworks contractor, all of whom were extremely solicitous. One woman, who worked in the hospital, wondered if she should call an ambulance. I said no. I don’t like to cause trouble, especially for me. I’ve been to A&E before. 

My wife was if anything more stunned than I was, because of course she didn’t know what I had managed to achieve in the way of injuries and broken limbs. Happily my guardian angel had been alert; so I hadn’t broken anything. Nothing visible, anyway. I did have a bit of a headache, and one of my fingers was an interesting shade of black. 

My spontaneous care group decided against the ambulance in the end, and one of them located a nearby chemist on her phone. She thought I could get help there. I thanked them all profusely, and people began drifting away. 

So my wife and I strolled up to the chemist. I’m not sure if “strolled” is the right word, but it was fairly slow. Unhappily the pharmacist was on a lunch break, and no-one else could help in a practical way. One of them thought it might be illegal. However, they did sell us some wipes and some plaster and some painkillers. Oh, and some bottled water. They weren’t allowed to give me a glass of water, because, well, I’m not sure. But they clearly couldn’t. Possibly because it was a branch of a nationally known chemist, and… well, I’m not sure. Again. 

I don’t blame them. I expect they had rules. But their response contrasted sharply with those who had rushed to help me in the street. 

I was not feeling too bad by now. My wife was also starting to recover. So we wandered down the lane to have tea (or was it coffee?) with a friend, who had been waiting patiently and had kept us a seat.

I had a reasonable sleep, and today I don’t feel too bad, though I have to admit to feeling a bit dizzy when I tried to undo the trapdoor to the loft. My wife insisted on going up there instead of me. So that was all good. I do feel a bit tired, though. Back to normal, in fact.