In memoriam

I learned today of the passing of someone whom I had known for many years, up, indeed, until fairly recently. 

Upon leaving RADA, he spent the first half of his career treading the boards of repertory theatres and the floors of studios. As an example of the first of these, he took a leading role in Birmingham Rep's production of David Storey's 'Contractor' in 1988. As an example of an important skill from the second, he learned how to step across all the cables and such like left lying around a studio floor by the lighting electricians (aka gaffers) while keeping his head steady, the natural inclination being for it to bob up and down, which does not look well on camera.

Sadly, I did not manage to get him to the Gaffers' Inn in East London, somewhere near the Olympic Park, before it made way for office blocks or something. A converted shipping container parked on top of another container - of which I can today find no trace in either Bing or Google.

An important activity in the second half, was building up his skill in the reading aloud of, in declaiming, the works of James Joyce, in particular Ulysses (not so difficult) and Finnegans Wake (much more difficult). There was a project to stage a more or less non stop reading of this last in the Irish Club in Birmingham, not so far from his natal roots, but sadly that never came to pass. 

I could never manage even to read it to myself, perhaps not helped by my not being quite sure that the whole thing was not a very elaborate joke. Furthermore, was there any authorial evidence of it being intended for declamation rather than private reading? What about the scattering of side notes and foot notes? But I carp: it would have been a quality entertainment had it come off.

Other activities involving quality time were the Tooting Bec Housing Cooperative, the Rose Theatre in Southwark, Promenade Concerts in the Albert Hall, his local (Catholic) church and the Tooting Broadway branch of Wetherspoon's. This last being more or less unchanged in the more than thirty years that I have known the place, even down to the posters on the walls. Occasional forays into the Mitre up the road for one of their famous quizzes, an establishment which I had thought notable for being at the end of the 88 bus route, but I learn this afternoon that it is actually just near the end of the 77 bus route. Fond memories of him staggering back to his abode with his prize, a frozen turkey, tucked under his arm. I think it was wrapped.

Another occasional activity was the annual pilgrimage to the Hill, on Epsom Downs, to watch the Derby, more or less for free. In between times, he kept his hand with pencil bets on the racing page of his newspaper.

He will be missed.

PS: this contraband snap taken from Street View may once have been a wine bar we used for a bit, more or less opposite the Mitre, now called The Long Room. Contraband in the sense the Street View has a much more recent view of somewhere called the Goldfinch, but you get this old view if you approach from the right angle. Something that seems to happen from time to time.

References

Reference 1: The Contractor - David Storey - 1970.

Reference 2: Ulyssses - James Joyce - 1922.

Reference 3a: Finnegans Wake - James Joyce - 1939.

Reference 3b: https://hcf.education/bloomsdaymontreal/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/FinnegansWakeFullText.pdf. A text which I dare say is good enough for casual readers and aficionados of search engines. Speaking for myself, when reading a difficult book, which for me this one is, a search engine is a valuable aid.

Reference 4: https://www.birish.org.uk/.