Joy – Getting On

I will not be going into unnecessary detail today because a) it would not benefit anyone and b) I’ve only given myself five hundred words to play with, but I went to a Year 6 (10-11 year old) school leavers play/concert yesterday and it just might have changed my life. To say that it was a joyous occasion seriously undervalues it. The roles, allocated I presume by someone in authority, were assigned with a breath-taking abandon: the lispers, the whisperers, the stutterers, the mumblers, the painfully shy, the bouncing off the wall’ers, the tone-deaf, the scratchers, the nose-pickers, the ‘I definitely do not want to be doing this’ers, the ‘everybody look at me’ers, all given the most inappropriate roles possible. The tone-deaf were front-rowed to sing the big solos, the introverted were tasked with performing the comedy duologues, the extroverts were given scenes to shift, yet every single one of the kids appeared to fully embrace the task they had been given. Every child was fully engaged. Every face wore a smile whilst perfectly good jokes were lost in the telling and painstakingly constructed songs were crucified. Somehow the sweetest of voices were flattened by the big finish, the atonal were always the loudest.

The audience of siblings, parents and grandparents sat in their miniature chair semi circle, craning their necks to see past the head of the man in front, eyes on the spot occupied by their own family member, the main action taking place elsewhere on the stage becoming nothing more than a distraction. Each hastily delivered just-slightly-too-old-for-the-kids-to-understand joke receiving pleasing laughter from the cast and a bemused ‘What did she just say?’ raised eyebrow from all but those involved in interminable bedroom rehearsals. It is the universal sanctuary for the nervous when given something to say: say it quickly, say it quietly, look at the floor…

The main cast had head-mic’s which contributed to all manner of heavy breathing confusion during the delivery of the short explanatory scenes whilst the rest of the cast had to take their turn to dash for one of the two microphone stands set either side of the stage, the massive size differential obvious in children of this vintage ensuring that the shortest kids always got a laugh when they had a line to deliver. A far cry from the Junior School productions of my own youth when, unencumbered by technology, the instructions were always simple: ‘Speak loudly dear, and slowly. Try not to pick your nose and if you really must, try to wipe it on your own trousers and not those of somebody else.’ My recollection is of singing a few hymns to the assembled mums (the only dads who could make it would have been unemployed and, therefore, unwilling to show their faces) and trying not to giggle if Miss Sellars was looking. I don’t believe we were ever given jokes to deliver. The best way to involve the whole year was to let us all sing at the top of our tuneless voices – and put the ugly kids at the back…

At the end of last night’s show, the entire year assembled for a gustily delivered version of The Monkee’s ‘I’m a Believer’ and the Head Teacher made a little speech about ‘inclusion’ which called for more rounds of applause than the average University Graduation ceremony. She said she was proud of every one of the children and she was right to be. They were all heroes. They made my heart sing for ninety minutes – and it is so out of tune, it could have been a member of Blue*…

As I think about it now, I suppose ‘life changing’ might be stretching it a bit, but it did make me very happy for a while, and that’s a decent start…

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them just for one day… Heroes – David Bowie (Bowie/Eno)

*A truly dreadful Noughties Boy Band.

It is traditional for people to list all of the things that one supposedly gains with age: wisdom, patience, humility, tolerance, but to forget all of the things you lose: strength, flexibility, dexterity, car keys, the ability to remember why you’ve just gone up the stairs, and above all, fun. As you get older, ‘fun’ becomes an ever rarer element in your life. You do things to ‘make a change’, to ‘challenge yourself’, to ‘pass the time’ but seldom simply because they are fun: no jumping in puddles; no having sex when there’s a reasonably high chance of being caught at it; no dancing in the rain; no using a made-up language in conversations on the bus; no roller-skating, no playing cricket with a Rounders bat and a golf ball, no trying to make a playground swing ‘go over the top’, no drinking coffee until your eyeballs vibrate… Invariably ‘the price’ becomes too high, the ‘tutting’ of children too loud.

I believe that the government needs to institute an annual National Make a Total Tit of Yourself Day just for the over sixties. Do it in the summer and the beaches will be full of sexagenarian skinny-dippers, or do it in the winter when the parks will be full of snowmen, sledges, snowballs, hot-aches and broken hips. Do it any time and there will be wrinkly skin on show, cigarettes being smoked, weird cocktails being made from anything found at the back of the drinks cupboard: “Oh yes, it is one part cheap vodka, one part fourteen year-old Ouzo, one part Sanatogen and a small dash of that fluorescent green stuff we got from the Spanish monastery on our honeymoon. You should try it: I’ve just seen the inside of my eyeballs…”

And I’m not sure why, but old people will use any excuse to take clothes off: we are the “H & E*” generation. Naked volleyball may no longer be on the agenda, but what could possibly go wrong with naked Uno? Exposing genitalia at inappropriate times is so much more fun when nobody in their right mind could possibly find it in any way alluring: “Why have you got no clothes on gran?”
“I’m going to have a shower.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow… possibly.”
“Ok. And have you remembered that you are currently shopping in the Co-op?”
“Oh… There was a time when men would have died for this you know.”
“And?”
“Most of them died before they got it unfortunately… Now, where’s the Vapo Rub?”
It is the only reason that we oldies keep our houses so warm…

As joy becomes harder to find, you start to look for it a little bit harder, and you find it in different places: in non-matching clothes, in a tub of cockles on a freezing cold seashore, in beating the contestants on a TV quiz show, in eating baked beans for 365 days a year, in drinking red wine with fish fingers… The wisdom of age simply tells you to take joy where you can find it and bugger just ‘passing the time’, there’s not enough of it left…

*Health & Efficiency (H&E) was a naturist magazine back in the day, and the nearest thing we ever got to pornography.

I just do what I want to do
All aboard for funtime… Funtime – Iggy Pop (Bowie/Pop)

FYI – I have just completed this piece fuelled by red wine and a packet of Honey Roasted Peanuts which the packet describes as “Sweet and savoury nuggets of delight”: what’s not to love?