Nobbut Laiking, by Ross Brewster
If you take celebrities as an example, marriage is no longer for life. Sometimes it’s just weeks before they change partners.
Film actors struggling for work can generally pep up an ailing career by being seen on the arm of some handsome new beau or blonde beauty.
A reminder of the old Irving Berlin Change Partners 1930s classic, “must you dance every dance with the same fortunate man”.
One of the jobs of being a local newspaper reporter, when I was starting out nearly 60 years ago, was doing golden and diamond weddings.
There were plenty of them to fill our columns. Fifty years married was not unusual. Yet a few years hence I’ve a strong foreboding that my successors will come to regard a long marriage as a rarity.
It was a delightful reporting job. Invariably the celebrating couple would have the best china out to serve tea. “Go on, have some cake. Tek a big bit,” they would say. Out would come the album and the original wedding photo, a bit faded now.
You knew you were there for the long journey through their lives. And, naturally, the million dollar question had to be asked. “So what’s the secret of a happy marriage then?”
There were no mystical secrets. Nine times out of 10 the response came back—”give and take”. Perhaps that’s the way our newly crowned King and Queen look at it, and they have both had previous marriages.
I’m not one to quote on the subject of enduring marriage, but I do sometimes wonder how much today is take and not give.
Which brings me to 79-year-old national treasure Michael Palin whose beloved wife of 57 years Helen died recently. “An incalculable loss,” said the ex-Python turned globetrotting travel presenter.
No doubt Sir Michael was asked the age-old question. What was the secret of a long-lasting marriage in an age of celebrity worship? Quite simply, “humour and practical good sense,” he said.
The couple, who met as teenagers, had a sound recipe for their relationship, a copy of which should be handed to every couple in church or at the registry office before they take their vows. Without those qualities you’ve got nothing to hold on to in the inevitable difficult times.
Things you learn down the chippy
Education comes in many forms, even in the Friday evening queue for fish and chips at Threlkeld.
School was never my thing. I learnt geography by reciting the home ground of every football club in Britain. As for maths that was being able to work out a 10 pence each way Lucky Fifteen while failing my GCE.
They never taught us the things we really need to know. At least that’s my excuse for a wasted education. Things like Stenhousemuir’s ground and knowing to the exact penny what your bookie owes you.
But back to the fish and chip queue. We got talking about the weather as people do. I mentioned the famous old English saying “ne’er cast a clout ‘til May is out” and discovered I’ve been labouring under a misapprehension all my adult life.
I always thought the saying, which goes back at least to the 15th century, meant we should not cast off our winter woollies until the end of the month of May.
Wrong. My friend In the queue pointed out that the saying refers to the emergence of the delicate flower of the hawthorn hedge. Keep that vest on until you see the flowers in bloom then you can cast off all the clouts (clothes) you want.
In Medieval times the hawthorn had a dark reputation as a bringer of death if it was taken into the house. And people did not marry in May. They waited until June when they’d had their annual bath and were, how shall I put it, less smelly.
How often can you say you went out for fish and chips and broadened your horizons?
It’s time football referees went on strike
Despite a lot of hot air and punditry, I don’t detect any improvement in behaviour towards football referees at all levels.
They are still crowded and abused and the example of Premier League teams is often appalling with managers on the touchline setting the worst example. Mr Klopp, are you paying attention?
It occurs to me that, if half the nation has been or is on strike, maybe it’s time the refs came out.
“No ref, no game” is the slogan the football authorities spout. A couple of weeks without football might concentrate a few minds.
Ego trip
No shame in admitting our ego sometimes gets the better of us.
Former Penrith and Border MP Rory Stewart was disappointed, upon receiving a copy of Paddy Ashdown’s memoirs, to find there was no personal inscription at the front.
However when he turned to the index to see his name, Stewart found a special written message from the former Lib-Dem leader.
It said: “I thought you would look here first. Love Paddy.”
Stewart and former No 10 Director of Communications Alastair Campbell disagree agreeably on The Rest Is Politics, an entertaining podcast which is where the Paddy Ashdown story came from.
