One of my grandmothers used have the local evening paper delivered and the first page that she would turn to was what she referred to as the 'hatched, matched and despatched'. She showed no interest in the 'hatched' and she only gave the 'matched' section a cursory glance, but she seemed to know a surprising number of the 'despatched'. I once asked her why she read it and with a weary smile she told ma that she had to check that she was still alive!
My other, more formidable grandmother expressed the opinion that it 'wasn't quite nice' to put all those fancy words in the newspaper - but it didn't stop her reading them when she thought nobody was looking! Her sister in law Aunt Ada was a family legend, she was a lovely lady, but every time we visited her she would ask if we knew some person or other, a negative reply didn't seem to matter and she would chatter on to tell us in considerable detail about some relative or neighbour of the person we didn't know who had died. Occasionally she would spring the element of surprise and the person was not dead but dying or they had to 'have everything taken away'. Looking back it is hardly surprising that death was never far from Aunt Ada's thoughts. Her husband had been killed in action in the First World War leaving her with three very young children. For her, loss had been a daily reality for most of her adult life.
This week, I found myself thinking that I must be getting old, I don't read the newspaper, but it seems that all too frequently the death of someone I consider important is announced. Only last week I was saddened to hear about the loss of Alan Coren a truly witty man who was one of the few people who could make me laugh out loud. You get some very odd looks when you are driving alone in the car and laughing so much that tears run down your cheeks! Yesterday another untimely death was announced, Professor Anthony Clare who was professor of clinical psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin and responsible for presenting two of the best programmes on Radio 4, In the Psychiatrist's Chair and All in the Mind.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering, the subject of today's entry was not influenced in any way by Robbie's 'man flu' Poor old Robbie, he really is struggling this week but hopefully it will not prove terminal!
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