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Another very upsetting death of one of my comedy heroes, feeling more like a family member than an occasional work colleague. I’d been listening to a fairly recent Just A Minute yesterday and had marvelled as always at the control over this format that Nicholas Parsons had. Incredible for a man of 96. It couldn’t go on forever, but it felt like it would. It’s very unusual for someone to die at 96 and feel that he had more to give, but I felt that today.
I’ve written about Nicholas before on this blog and in the Metro and was lucky enough to interview him less than a year ago. It's not a bad little run down of his career either if you're in the mood to find out more about him. He was on fine and spiky form, genuinely upset about the lowness of the fee (even though I am practically the only podcaster who pays his guests) and annoyed by a mix up with his car, but professional and on scintillating form. I was happy to play his straight man. He was annoyed or pretended to be, if I got laughs. But he understood the game.
Getting to appear on Just A Minute was genuinely one of my career goals and highlights. I hope it will continue without him, but it will never be the same. That show started in 1967, as did I. He would have been 44 when he began and no one would have predicted he’d still be at the helm 52 years later.
The son of my school history teacher (the one who wasn’t related to the Cheddar Gorge skellington) today sent me the draft of the letter that his father had written for my application to University. I don’t suppose you’re ever really meant to see these things, but I’m 52 now and the teacher concerned is dead, so I reckon we’ll get away with it. We often take our teachers for granted or see them as aloof figures, which ideally they will be, but they are of course, pretty much all gunning for you, hoping to push you forwards in life, having to discipline you for your own good. Mr Elvins was a good teacher, who recognised that History was my subject and helped me move towards it when I’d always assumed I’d do Maths at University. He had to put up with some stupid crap from me and my friends. We thought that we were funny and we were only partly correct and occasionally the humour was personal and cruel. But Mr Elvins didn’t seem to hold it against me, giving me a fine write-up, bigging me up to the Oxford nobs, explaining why our school wasn’t equipped for the entrance exam and helping to propel me forwards in my life. It’s a thoughtful piece that must have taken him some time to put together. Here’s my favourite bit “Richard is a sturdily built, neatly dressed young man with a fresh, open expression, a cheerful disposition, and a direct manner of address.â€
He really wants me to get to University, something that in my stupid head I have always viewed as my solo achievement, but of course without my teachers I’d not have made it and I suspect this letter helped sway things in my favour. Had I not got to that University then obviously my life would have been very different and I might well not be doing what I do now. All those people pushing you up the hill, selfless, kind, forgiving and generous. Thanks Mr Elvins. I don’t think you’d have envisioned it all leading here, or have guessed what a slob I would become, but that letter that has lain in an attic for thirty or so years (or the second draft of it) helped light the spark.
First snow drops of the decade were out on my morning walk. Life is good. Make the most of being alive.
