Ian Whitwham revisits the village where he grew up...
In those days Family Values wore us out - did us in. Especially Father. He had a Mistress in the next village. When he left, I hid in my room for a year. For shame. It crippled me with Girls, but was good for the A levels. Mother made Woolies by the mile.
I walk down the road - there's the top house where my best mate lived. I lost him when he failed the eleven plus. He became Eddie Cochrane. I stayed Nigel Molesworth. Then he got killed in a bike crash and I lost him for good ... and that's where the little Dumpling lady lived who only ever popped out if we broke her greenhouse with a cricket ball. The next house was all secrets - there was a glamorous girl who looked like Alma Cogan. She was far too sexy for our road and went with a spiv from South London. He had a flash car with Mouthorgan Bumpers - father said it was vulgar. Just like Alma Cogan. The spiv was often in jail. Then he came back to our road and crashed his Bumpers through the neighbour's privet and left huge tyre scars among the tulips. Mother nearly died laughing, the solace of malice was big in our street.
And now the last house. The owner sold anything and was a bit of a wide boy. His son was clever and troubled and had a quiff. And he was a suicide. And no-one came out.
Only now do I realise our road was out of The Last Picture Show ...
I finally get to the Garden of Rest to look for my subsiding mother. Her headstone is a bit wonky. The heastone next to it is much neater. It is my fathers. They died a few days apart. They lived their whole lives apart. They are buried apart.
Mother was most emphatic on this.
"I've not had him on top of me for thirty years, and I'm not going to start now!" she yelled through the Morphine.
Separate graves didn't come cheap. "Same again," said my brother to the dominatrix in the undertakers. "And don't let your men play snap in the vestry this time."
I must find my stonemason - and make the grave neater. That's what my village has always semmed most interest in - appearances. Whatever might be rumbling below.
I zoom off back to the urban blight, where you don't have to be quite so...Neat.
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