The Mayor of Wetwang, RIP

So Richard Whiteley is no more. The tea-time icon of Yorkshire has died of complications from pneumonia and, having spent four years of my life subtitling Countdown on a regular basis, I have to permit myself this brief moment of nostalgia. I’d watched Countdown on occasions as a student who had nothing better to do in the late afternoon, but I never really came to appreciate its terribleness until I graduated into the world of work and started subtitling it for a living. “Right, well, okay, so, well, yes, erm…” would be a typical bumbling Richard introduction. Nonetheless typing in “Consonant, please, Carol” for the very first time did carry with it a certain frisson of excitement: the show had by that point elevated itself into Channel 4’s most popular programme and therefore had the highest viewer ratings of our work. The subtitles were watched like hawks by several hard-of-hearing elderly ladies, one of whom was head of the Deaf Broadcasting Council and she would not hesitate to haul us up in front of the powers-that-be at Horseferry Road if she spotted a mistake.

Of course, once the frisson of excitement subsided, subtitling Countdown became a monotonous task, only made worse when they increased the programme length from 30 to 45 minutes. I set myself up a series of shortforms: cpc for “Consonant, please, Carol”, vp for “Vowel, please”, tp5 for “One from the top and any other five, please”. The only advantage was that you could at least play the game as that irritating music played and the clock ticked round – for Countdown’s counterpart, 15 to 1, we received text files containing the questions and answers to import into our subtitles so were always one step ahead of the contestants. But you knew what you were getting, and there was something cosy and comforting about its familiarity, from Geoffrey Durham’s magic tricks, Susie Dent’s pinched face and Blowers’ cricket ramblings in Dictionary Dell to Carol and Richard’s increasingly outrageous flirting.

But all credit to the man: Richard was one of few television presenters who actually watched our subtitles and he used to comment on them regularly. “We salute you, oh people of page 888” he once cried. One of our number wrote him a poem in reply, which he read out on air. He was especially tickled by the fact that we used to highlight his dreadful puns in green text – so dreadful that I can’t even recall a single one right now. I do remember Richard claiming that Robert Mugabe must be a Yorkshireman because his name was “E-ba-gum” spelt backwards. I could never figure out just how much poor taste that particular joke was in.

So they’ve taken Whiteley out of Yorkshire, but no one ever succeeded in taking the Yorkshire out of Whiteley. He really was the face of Yorkshire Television: but then I do believe that he owned most of it by the end. But given his diet, weight and lifestyle, it’s no wonder that he died at an early age (though he was still older than my mother when he went). Colleagues who subtitled at Yorkshire television in Leeds said he would often pop into their office to use the water cooler and they were shocked by how terrible he looked in real life – hair on end, red skin peeling off his face and even wider than he appeared on screen. Perhaps he should have taken more leaves out of Carol’s book – as he broadened, she slimmed, as he aged, she botoxed, though you couldn’t really say that either of them had any dress sense.

Whatever happens to Countdown, one thing is certain: it will never be the same again. One fears that they will attempt to clone Richard like the David Dickinson wannabes who’ve taken over presenting Bargain Hunt during the day. You just simply couldn’t pretend to be that naff: Richard’s hopelessness came all too naturally to him. And let’s not mention the ferret.

REBECCA

Beautiful Day

Last night I fulfilled a life’s ambition and saw U2 play live, at Twickenham Stadium. It was a very special moment for Dave and myself. Long ago as friends in Newcastle we spent a drunken evening in the Fog and Firkin pub overlooking the Tyne river, eulogising about the merits of the Irish ones, with Dave leaving at closing time performing the intro to Zoo Station with full percussion. But we never imagined then that we would one day see them in concert together as husband and wife. Dave had seen them several times before but somehow I’d never managed to be quick enough off the ball to get tickets and had had to make do with naff cover bands in pubs.

It was a glorious summer’s evening, but this unfortunately also meant having to bear the brunt of London transport at its sweltering worst to get there. Hats off to Silverlink Metro for its Gospel Oak to Richmond service, which I would now officially rate as my worst ever train journey. ("Leaves you standing in the station, your face pressed up against the glass...") Anyway, we arrived as limp rags but soon rejuvenated ourselves with water and baguettes and let the evening’s entertainment commence. And at first I almost had to wonder if it was worth the wait. We felt a million miles from the stage; Bono, Larry, Adam and The Edge appearing as tiny dots on the horizon. They were blown up onto big screens for the benefit of those not in the mosh pit at the front, but it took another couple of seconds for the accompanying sound to reach us, so everything appeared out of synch. And the sound that reached us was from the second set of speakers, so it ended up distorted and buzzing. But then suddenly they launched into the poignant opening chords of I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For and my heart, seeing the tears in Dave’s eyes, melted into the summer heat. By the time they got to Pride (In The Name of Love) I was hollering with the rest of the stadium and would have waved my arms in the air had not my Mitchum Super Dry failed me in the Silverlink sweatbox and resulted in a nasty and lingering pong. U2 don’t just do a gig, they give you an experience, a slick set that lasts for over two hours where not a second is wasted, unlike the aeons of meandering faffing that bands like Belle and Sebastian subject you to. I’ve never seen anyone work a crowd like Bono can, but then his Messianic complex does give him an ego the size of a planet.

There is something to be said for the stadium experience, but I think it’s one more suited to sport. Looking at the crowds doing Mexican waves and singing along, I imagined how it must be at a packed England rugby match with choruses of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot booming out at full volume. The atmosphere must be staggeringly electric.

I was raised in a household of strictly classical music, so I’m used to concerts in staid concert halls, where everyone sits quietly (bar the occasional bronchial coughing fit) and applauds politely at the end of each piece, the music starts at the allotted time, and you don’t have to sit through two support acts before you get to hear your chosen group of musicians. And somehow, I always long for that when I go to pop gigs. I get sick of people leaping up and down pouring beer over my feet, of everyone shouting at each other over the songs, and of the mass karaoke session you end up with on the greatest hits. It’s Bono I want to hear sing, not the three pissed-up twats from Dorking behind me. I was going to say that classical concerts don’t have the same levels of discomfort, with everyone having their own seat in a relatively cool environment, but then I remembered the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. But, oh, to see U2 toned down playing an acoustic set at the Barbican!

But then how would all their many fans get tickets for such an event unless they performed every night for a month? What was slightly galling last night was that despite the concert being claimed a sell-out, there was a whole section of empty seats near us. Presumably ticket agencies had bought out the block but had failed to get enough punters to pay their extortionate mark-ups. (The seats would have cost £75 before commission, so the mind truly boggles.) So many fans missed out on tickets for last night’s gig, so it seems unfair that those seats were allowed to remain empty, with no stand-by system in operation for “no-shows”. Of course U2 will have got the money for those seats whether they had bottoms in them or not. Dave noted that U2 may want to end global poverty, but they remain obliviously happy to lead their fans into poverty with their enormous ticket prices.

REBECCA

Life On Earth

Mum believed in God, but she did not believe in life after death. I don't know if her faith wavered at all during her illness, or if her ideas on heaven changed. She seemed pleased when people said prayers for her, even if not one of them was answered. (Perhaps similar effort being put into reforming the NHS might have been more beneficial.) As far as my own religious faith is concerned, her death put the final metaphorical nail in the coffin for me. Occasionally I wonder if her being taken from me was some kind of divine punishment for daring to get married in church when any Christian activity of mine lies dormant a million years ago in the past. But if there is a God, what kind of shit must He be to make someone as kind, caring, innocent, wholesomely good and wise as my mother suffer so much, whilst evil morons like George W Bush are allowed to cavort around the planet, blowing it to smithereens and murdering thousands of innocent civilians in the process?

And who has thought heaven through properly? How could it work? Do we suddenly arrive there and find everyone we've lost in our lives living there in perfect harmony? What happens when the time comes for remarried widows to pass through the Pearly Gates? Are they suddenly expected to be bigamists? I think it's utterly ridiculous when churchgoers say to me, "Don't worry - you are just separated from your mother for a short while." I firmly believe I will never see her again. And besides, I loved her like crazy, but she could be bloody annoying, and she'd drive me insane if I had to spend eternity with her. But the other day, a Christian friend of mine told me that in fact the Bible HAS thought it through - it says that in heaven there are no relationships, you are content to be with yourself and with God, that you spend your days in glorious worship of the Lord. Fair point, but not really my scene, to be honest.

This week I had the great privilege to work on the subtitles for a BBC documentary about the life of Sir David Attenborough, or "Dave" as he is known to his brother, "Dick". I was quickly astounded by what a truly fascinating, amazing man he was and how erudite and witty he is in interview, so self-deprecating and modest despite all of his phenomenal achievements. He discussed God as part of a response to criticism of the often violent side of animal behaviour he portrays in his documentaries. "Quite frequently people say how...I never give credit to the Almighty Power that created nature... It's funny that people, when they say that this is evidence of the Almighty, always quote beautiful things... orchids and hummingbirds and butterflies and roses. But I always have to think too of a little boy sitting on the banks of a river in West Africa who has a worm boring through his eyeball, turning him blind before he's five years old. I reply and say, 'Presumably the God you speak about created the worm as well.' I find that baffling, to credit a merciful God that action. Therefore it seems to me safer to show things that I know to be truthful and factual and allow people to make up their own mind about the moralities, or indeed the theology, of this thing."

David Attenborough has done more than any other television personality to show the astonishing array of wildlife we have on our planet, from the undivided-leaf Arums of Borneo, to the bowerbirds' sculpture-nests in northern Queensland, to the symbolic, gigantic tail of the blue whale, the largest mammal on earth. He doesn't believe in preaching in any shape or form, and not just in the religious sense, even though it must be clear to him that if life on Earth is all we have, we're doing a pretty good job of arsing it up, as we slowly but surely wreak total environmental havoc.

Peter Krause, who plays Nate in Six Feet Under, was also the subject of an interview I was subtitling recently. He said that, when thinking of life after death, he remembered the fundamental law of thermodynamics, i.e. that matter cannot be created or destroyed, it simply changes in form. Therefore when people die, their bodies turn to dust, and their energies must remain around us. When I saw Mum's body half an hour after she'd died, it was so obvious that she, the embodiment of her soul, her character, her spirit and personality, had left it. But I like to think that this spirit isn't shut up somewhere far away like heaven but remains with us. The love she felt for us can still spur us on through what we have left of our lives. As Mary Elizabeth Frye’s poem says:
“I am a thousands winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there. I did not die.”

REBECCA

Island Railways

“The island of Sodor is surrounded by beautiful blue sea…”

So begins the latest video release of Thomas The Tank Engine and Friends, which I had the dubious honour of subtitling today. Irritating theme tune aside, the one thing that has stayed in my head is the strong belief that Sir Topham Hatt should relinquish his Fat Control of the island's railways into safer hands. There are so many train crashes on Sodor it’s really rather disturbing and makes Railtrack, Jarvis, Thames Trains and the like all look very harmless and innocent in comparison. Giving an engine a mind of its own that can operate separately from its driver’s is never going to be a good idea. Couple said engine, “really useful” or not, to some cheeky trucks, get the diesels and the steamies in a fight with each other, and you’re asking for serious trouble, as trains plunge into mines, jump red signals, fall into snow drifts, tip ice cream or paint on each other, get pushed off bridges, fail to get up Gordon’s Hill or hurtle into dockyard walls. Are the holidaymakers on Sodor aware of what they’re letting themselves in for as Thomas or Percy or Henry peep-peep and wheesh into the platform? Why doesn’t some hard-hitting journalist hack turn up and expose Sodor Railway for the disaster it really is?
Of course, most of the crashes must surely be the product of the bored model railway operators’ imaginations. It’s no fun simply letting James or Gordon chug round and round the same old circuit in front of the cameras day in, day out; not when you can knock them flying, send the film into slow motion and create lots of extra smoke. Presumably it’s the same imaginations that lead to the vast amount of innuendo in the Liverpudlian narrative (now no longer Ringo Starr, alas, but Michael Brandon) that I certainly don’t recall being in the Reverend W. Awdry’s original books. Consider, for example, “Thomas crashed hard into a great big bush”, “One ball even knocked the coconut out of his funnel” and Trevor the Traction Engine’s virtually paedophilic “Mm, I love giving rides to children”.
Of course, when all’s said and done, there is also the possibility that the innuendo is simply the product of a bored subtitler’s imagination…

Missing You

On Friday, 3rd June, we buried Mum’s ashes, as she requested, in Grasmere cemetery. It was a meagre gathering of folk in comparison to the packed church at her funeral, but the event was intentionally kept small and low-key. Those present who lay outside the immediate family were the few who could not make the original service. We huddled under umbrellas as the rain lashed down in truly Biblical fashion, the vertical stair-rods that only Lake District skies can produce. We placed the casket in the ground with a solitary pink rose on top that contrasted starkly with the greyness of the day. It’s impossible to comprehend that my mother and everything she meant to me had been reduced to a little heap of dust enclosed in a tiny wooden box.

Strangely, though, finally giving Mum a grave has made me feel that she is now limited to a particular place and is no longer all around us. This made it very difficult for me to leave Grasmere this morning to head back to London. A certain element of this was simply the fact that it was too nice a day after a weekend of rain to trudge back to the smoke. The sun was shining and the fell-tops were clear; at last these were hills to be climbed and views to be gasped at. Virgin Trains seldom offer the same inspiration. But much of my melancholy and desire to stay was that I want my mother, I ache for her, and have so much I want to tell her.

I was always so fortunate that I could always open my heart up to Mum, that I could tell her anything I needed to, and that our relationship was completely free and uninhibited. We weren’t emotional or lovey-dovey in this closeness, but in later years we never had disputes or disagreements beyond minor moments of irritation. At least I can be relieved that there are no unresolved issues between us and that we did not part on an argument. Mum’s brusque honesty and total lack of false pretences are traits that I admire above all others. And she loved to talk. I can’t even begin to imagine that she has now fallen silent for good. I can still hear her voice so clearly, rabbiting nineteen to the dozen about a myriad of different things, interrupting her partners in conversation whether or not they had paused for breath. I fear above all else that one day I may forget the sound of it.

It’s the little things that make me long for her; all the things I feel she’s missing out on and the things she needs to know. Does she know that she died on the same day as the Pope? That Barbara Vine, who fuelled Mum’s addiction to murder mysteries, has a new book out? That her favourite actor Tom Wilkinson, whose picture she carried round with her in her purse as opposed to any of her husband or children, is in A Good Woman, a new Oscar Wilde adapation? Will someone let her know what happens to Harry Potter, whose sixth instalment she was so eagerly awaiting?

For now, the big things, such as her never knowing her grandchildren, should there come to be any, remain too grim to contemplate. But I do wonder, does she miss us anything like as much as we miss her?

REBECCA