Larry Ryan: Finding our own way down memory lane
Victory Images) July By The (photo England's Jack Bobby Charlton, Moore, 30th 1966 World Celebrate Charlton Cup At Aloft And Central Captain Martin Peters Obscured The 1966 Press/hulton Rimet Jules Wembley, On Holds After Archive/getty By Trophy Jack Final In The Pitch
The latest cultural experiment involving the twins at home is progressing nicely and producing intriguing results. Having introduced them to old episodes of classic BBC school drama on YouTube, starting from the series first broadcast around 1985, they are the same age watching it as I was when it was by far my favourite show.
Key finding: It is now by far their favourite show. You could nearly fear they are gripped by an addiction to it as they have ploughed through Ziggy Greaves’ full secondary school education in less than a month.
Key learnings: 1 - this is a troubling sign the apples haven’t fallen far from the tree, not a super omen for their career prospects. 2 - modern kids' TV clearly needs a Jim Gavin-style task force. And maybe an old root and branch review.
I have, of course, started them on the glory years. Zammo and the drugs, Mr Bronson versus the truant Danny Kendall. The bully Imelda Davis versus everyone, all that stuff. Whoever uploaded it even obliged by keeping the picture quality disastrous. Though it hasn’t been possible to fully replicate the original viewing experience that required an odd trip to the roof to shift the aerial and lift the snow on screen.
To digress for a moment, I think we all took for granted the magnificence of the BBC in its pomp. These are serious productions. With a cast of hundreds. Top-notch child actors. Stellar thesps as the teachers. Endless sets and locations. No expense spared on collapsing roofs, ambulances, fire engines, trips to the Isle of Wight and consequent search and rescue operations. Watching squeezed modern kids' entertainment, you can nearly feel the belts tighten. And the computers take over. Worthy recent efforts like Jamie Johnson look a shoestring operation in comparison.
Sure, there is a parental warning tacked on now, that the show “reflects the language and attitudes of its time”. It was a time, after all, when parents considered it grand for kids to head up on the roof to shift the aerial.
But generally this just seems to mean there are fat jokes at the expense of Roly Browning. Otherwise, this is sensitive, multi-layered portrayal of working class British life. Poverty, addiction, racism, class, inequality, abuse all delicately handled with good humour and very little preaching. No wonder the Tory papers were constantly calling for it to be axed.
The great school principal Mrs McCluskey was well ahead of the curve in tackling ADHD before anyone had a name for it. And the still burning debate over elitism versus participation in children’s sports is met head on by PE teacher Mr Robson. He wanted everyone to play, but eventually could accept that some lads needed to win too.
I’m digressing a fair bit, but it surely did wonders too for Anglo-Irish relations, among that generation. They were giving us Match of the Day on Saturdays and sending this kind of thing over during the week. Genuine insights into what made England quietly great, rather than loud proclamations of great Britishness. Showing us a core decency that can be hard to detect from a distance these days. Still, did it result in us wishing them well at the 1986 World Cup? Probably not.
But to come round, eventually, to the point, as far as there ever is one on this page, watching it all back is an interesting insight too into how the memory works.
There is the odd line from almost 30 years ago I could almost recite word for word. The plotlines that were entertaining — Gonch’s constant money-making schemes — and annoying — Harriet the school donkey — flood back. But there are many characters and stories that ring no bells.
Memory tells me a huge portion of the show those days was devoted to the goalscoring exploits of Ziggy and Ant Jones for the school football team. Yet that amounts to barely a minute over 60 or 70 episodes watched. What resonates endures. In piecing together our memories we essentially see who we are, and how we all find our own way down memory lane.
Certain music and entertainment can bring us back to a time and a place. Among people who might be gone. Such as to ten past five on a Friday evening in front of the telly at home.
Sport does that even better probably, because of all the senses involved, the sights and smells and sounds and emotions. We even have our patron saint of sporting memories to revere, the late great Jimmy Magee. The one difference being we can't really sit the next gen down in front of an old match and pretend it’s live. They’d cop the togs.
This all came to mind because of a beautiful book called , published this weekend by Matt Singleton, a gerontologist (aging specialist) who was inspired by his father’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease.
It’s because our memories make us who we are that it’s so heartbreaking when a memory is lost by somebody close.
Matt publishes “cognitive books”, in association with the Alzheimer’s Society designed to stimulate the mind of a person with dementia. He chose the 1966 World Cup as a subject because it resonates with an English generation that is pushing on in years. And because it did with his father.
“Memories are often likened to a bookshelf, or a big pile of books. The most recent ones are at the top and the early ones are at the bottom,” Singleton told the this week, explaining that dementia destabilises like an earthquake. “The books at the top start to fall off. And then you’re just left with the ones at the bottom.”
The 1966 book is superbly illustrated, the text rhyming and repetitive to stimulate connections. For the reader whose short-term recall is eroding, each page tells a complete story, as well as forming part of the wider narrative. There are exercises, questions and conversation starters to jog and massage the memory.
To achieve something similar, the Alzheimer Society of Ireland provides resources to clubs and sporting bodies in Ireland willing to set up Sporting Memories groups for families of dementia sufferers. Just seeing an old photo or an ancient jersey can often bring part of somebody back to life.
As Donal Murphy, its Operations Project Manager, puts it; “We want to use the power of sport to help bring people together, and to re-establish that connection between people with dementia and the communities in which they live.
“Sport gives us so much pleasure and often punctuates our lives with golden sporting moments of joy and ecstasy. By wearing the county jersey or team colours, and by using memorabilia such as match programmes, posters, and tickets, we want to be able to trigger exciting memories and take people on a trip down memory lane.”
As noted movingly by England hero Geoff Hurst in the 1966 book's foreword, it's doubly cruel that many of the stars of an event that delivered golden memories were robbed of their own, probably because they played the game.
“I’ve lost too many of those teammates, including dear Bobby and Jack, to this dreadful condition, dementia. But I’m only too aware that there are moments of joy during someone’s dementia journey. It would be fantastic if this book brings several of those moments and invokes wonderful memories for many readers.”
We were privileged to witness one such joyful moments in the brilliant ‘Finding Jack Charlton’ documentary, broadcast a few years ago. Jack, by then his memory ransacked, momentarily lighting up and recognising video footage of the great Paul McGrath. Footage many of us will recognise walking our own memory lanes.