Rural Gangsters

Thinking of the last years of my parents

When the last of your parents dies, if you are lucky to have seen them into their old age, you soon realise the world is now changed. You are the older generation, the next to fall. There is more behind you than ahead.

Mum and Dad. Rural Gangsters

I have been thinking of the last years of my parents. My mother, though ten years younger than my dad, died first. The last years of her life were not happy ones. Though undiagnosed until the death certificate, in hindsight it is clear that she had dementia. Due to brain damage experienced in a car crash when she was thirty two, some of her erratic behaviour was put down to her depression and her brain lesions. She had long periods in hospital where she would be quite out of her mind. Her delusions would often manifest themselves as hatred, something that never defined her.

It could be very hard to know when she was really ill as her anxiety and depression would often cause panic.

What can be hard towards the end, especially if it has been a long decline, is to find the memories of the full personality and possibilities of who they once were. I still struggle to recall that happier person, that person who could have such joy in between her battles.

At ten, I remember we would often play Cricketer Top Trumps. Mike Brearley was one of the best cards to have.

Despite having lost her sense of smell after the accident, she loved to entertain, to make those lurid and colourful dishes in 1960s cookbooks and on The Galloping Gourmet TV show. She was always lovely to my friends.

The last photo of my Mum before the accident

When she heard that my friend Sophia had come out as a lesbian, she recalled that everyone “was a little like that, especially when you are are young”.

When my friend John split up with his partner, he came and joined our fam ily Christmas and she would always ask after him.

My friend KP would always be “that nutty girl”.

She was full of love, but often battling fear.

While writing the other day, I remembered one of her last joys.

In the last few years, longer narrative became harder.

The last film I remember watching together was The Dresser, a film we all knew well. Shortly after she died, I was fortunate to host an event with Tom Courtenay and gave me a chance to thank him for all the joy he had brought.

We did try and watch Theatre of Blood later on, but it had all become too confusing.

What she continued to love until the end was Rising Damp, a sitcom that I consider to be a masterpiece. A perfect cast bring ing life to wonderful characters and a script with a magnificent energy.

We would watch it over and over again.

Sometimes, I feared it would kill her as she wept laughing.

Here is a poem, remembering those happy nights, before the sadness forced its way in as the night got darker.

RIGSBY

Rising Damp still does it

She laughs like a drain

Same episodes

Over and over again

Not enough recall for TV detectives now

But Rossiter’s Rigsby brings out a happy asthma

Through life, her breathing difficulties floored her

Oddly, she increasingly forgets that

As she loses herself,

so she sometimes forgets her worry

Barely able to walk by day

A knee that creaks like timber

At night, in the mental dusk between sleep and wake

She takes herself to the bathroom

With fully functioning joints

Though consciousness will stiffen her again

Knees disappoint, resolve resigns

And then another darkness falls

Like a child, emotions are binary

Joy or Despair

So often despair

Until we press play again

And Rossiter’s Rigsby is there