Best of Peter Rhodes - August 3
MY mother-in-law died a few days ago. She was 90, had lived with us for the past 14 years and was in excellent health until three years ago when she had a couple of falls which seemed to trigger her descent into dementia.
MY mother-in-law died a few days ago. She was 90, had lived with us for the past 14 years and was in excellent health until three years ago when she had a couple of falls which seemed to trigger her descent into dementia. We decided as a family that if we could care for her at home, we would. It was not easy but the NHS provided a team of district nurses and carers who would dress her wounds after falls and take her out for occasional trips. Dementia is a wretched condition but over the years it introduced us to a range of people from cleaners to doctors who were familiar with it and gave us great support and endless compassion. There is probably nothing so moving in this world as the unexpected kindness of strangers. At the end, her health failed quickly and, thankfully, there was no question of suddenly removing her from her familiar surroundings to hospital. She died peacefully at home. We wept. Even when you are prepared for it and when dementia has already robbed you of the person you love, death is profoundly moving. A life which had blazed with energy since 1922 was over. My mother-in-law grew up in Coventry. She was part of that generation which found itself in the front line of the Second World War. She vividly recalled Coventry the morning after the blitz of November 1940, pushing her bike into work over a carpet of broken glass and smouldering woodwork, the wrecked cathedral still smoking. Her fiancé, a navigator with Bomber Command, was killed in an air raid over Germany in 1943. We who came later cannot imagine the daily trauma that her generation endured or the memories they bore. All we can do is be thankful we had it so easy and learn to understand the old Chinese blessing: May you live in uninteresting times. AS my mother-in-law's life drew to a close, children were laughing and playing in the garden next door. Life goes on and today, in one of those rich ironies of life, the postman brings letters of consolation for our loss and letters of acceptance to our daughter's wedding.
OF ALL the incidents on that sad day, nothing touched me more than an act by the two middle-aged chaps from the funeral director's who came to remove the body. When I went back into the room, they had made the bed neatly and placed a single rose on the bedspread. I dare say they do it all the time but it was an unexpected and moving gesture from yet more strangers going above and beyond the call of duty.
FASCINATING snippet of conversation overheard in the queue as we waited to record the death at the registry office. A thirtysomething couple were heading for the office. She said: "We're an item, so let's get this sorted." He said: "We're not an item." I bet that was an interesting interview.
OUR changing language. An Olympics commentator repeatedly referred to "a standout performance". Outstanding, presumably.
LAST week the High Court quashed the conviction of Paul Chambers who was found guilty in May 2010 of sending a "menacing electronic communication" by tweeting that he would blow up an airport which was closed after a snowstorm. The court sternly declared that: "If the person or persons who receive or read it, (the message) or may reasonably be expected to receive, or read it, would brush it aside as a silly joke, or a joke in bad taste, or empty bombastic or ridiculous banter, then it would be a contradiction in terms to describe it as a message of a menacing character." You can't say plainer than that. Yet despite the court direction, only a few days later police issued a "harassment warning" to a teenager who tweeted to the Olympics diver Tom Daley: "I'm going to find you and I'm going to drown you in the pool ." If police are taking this sort of nonsense seriously and are declaring war on anyone who sends a nasty tweet, no matter how silly and implausible, we're going to need several million more coppers.
MORE on curious names for shades of paint. A reader admits rooting around in her "dodgy memory" for some time before recalling the paint she had used in her house. She knew it was something like Horse or Donkey. Eventually the troublesome name leaped into her consciousness. It was Muffin. And it wasn't even remotely horse coloured. Older readers will understand perfectly.
AND who would repaint their lounge in the shade called Dead Salmon?
AN OLYMPICS watcher points out that some Olympic events which involve sitting on expensive things (horses, cycles, dinghies, etc) tend to favour richer nations and richer competitors. How long, he asks, before grouse shooting becomes an Olympic event? As he points out, the sport is open to everyone – in much the way that the Ritz Hotel is.
STILL on an Olympic theme, it is reported that a man has been charged with stealing the roof from a sports arena. He will take the stand later this week.
I REFERRED a few days ago to rap music. Several readers upbraid me, one for calling it "music," the others to inquire whether it should be spelt with a C.
