XMAS WISH-LIST OF A WIDOWER
As HUNTER DAVIES faces Christmas without his wife, top of his letter to Santa is having her back just for one day ...
EVERYONE has their own private Christmas wish-list — for example, a Meghan Markle-style tote leather bag, Pilates lessons or a bottle of vintage 1963 port. Here, the author HUNTER DAVIES lists his top 20 . . .
1My
WIFE back. That would be nice. My wife, the novelist Margaret Forster, died almost two years ago now, after 55 years of marriage. 2SO
MuCH to tell her, some of it soppy, how I miss her. Three years ago, I was moaning about putting on weight and she said: ‘Stop it. you could lose it so easily — just give up all that wine.’ No chance, I said. Since she died, I have doubled my intake, drinking for her as well as myself, a bottle a day at least, and yet, and yet, I have lost a stone. So I would just like to tell her: ‘you woz wrong, pet, ha ha.’ 3 SOMEONE to come in and open tins and packages and parcels for me. I find it hellish difficult opening anything these days. yet I am otherwise so fit and energetic, agile and athletic — just as long as I don’t have to bend down. Every time I do, I fear I might not get up again till Christmas. Christmas 2018, not this one. 4 I NOW have lots of lady companions in my life, having been auditioning all summer. So that is no longer a Christmas wish. I must tell Santa not to send any more. Thanks for thinking of me, but an occasional cook would be nice. (I can do toast, as long as I have the recipe book propped up, but I must start being more adventurous. Could that be why I have lost weight?) 5 A gArDENEr as well. I knackered my back in the summer laying a concrete foundation for a new arbour I bought at B&Q (only £145, what a bargain), but if only I had not been mean and spent extra on getting someone to erect it. 6 A NEW back, that would be excellent, but then there is a big queue for new backs. I have gone through life saying satirically to old chums, whom I have not met for some years: ‘ How is the old back, then?’ As a joke. Not knowing there was anything wrong with their back but having read that 90 per cent of the population has a bad back. Now it’s happened to me. And it’s not at all funny. 7 A MOrATOrIuM on all news and conversations about Brexit. Just tell us when it is all over and it is safe to come out. Perhaps a Brexit bugle, a loud klaxon, some loud sound, like the all-clear sirens we had in the war. When we finally hear it, we will know it is safe to re-appear and resume normal life. Hurrah. 8 SPurS are never going to win the League, not in my lifetime, but please, don’t let them get stuffed again the way they were by Man City last Saturday. 9 A TICKET for the Cup Final on May 19. Or for Prince Harry’s wedding? Would I be able to tell the difference? The traffic, my dears, the food and the people. 10 FOrTy bottles of Morrisons’ Beaujolais delivered to my back door — don’t want the neighbours to see — on the first day of every month. 11 A NICE new cossie. After my birthday in January, I am off to Bequia in the Caribbean and I should do something about my ancient, baggy swimming trunks. Or should it be ‘bathers’. Too late. I’ll always call it a cossie. 12 A SHAvINg stick — the oldfashioned sort, shaving soap in a plastic tube. I loved them dearly but no shop seems to sell them now. rotters. 13 My FOur granddaughters to stop calling me ‘Sir’, ‘your Worship’, ‘your Honour’, ‘Oh Wise One’. Honestly, they take this respect lark too far. Or is it just because they are expecting money for Christmas? 14 NO MOrE celebrity cooks. Why do we not have celebrity plumbers or celebrity binmen? I just can’t see what is so special about chefs. 15 A LIvE-IN computer expert. The only time I ever shout and scream and get bad-tempered is when I press the wrong key and stupid stuff appears on the screen which I then can’t get rid off. I have all the gear, oh yes — a smartphone, iMac computer, new Apple laptop — but do I understand them? Do I heckers . . . 16 A NEW skill. When you are young, you constantly try out new things, such as the piano, banjo, gymnastics, swimming, hopscotch, marbles, painting, acting — hoping that you will find a talent you did not know you had. None of them worked for me. But, even at 81, I have not given up. Italic hand-writing. That’s what I really am going to try next year. 17 A rOBOT to open the door, take in parcels, show the gas men where the gas is. They can be so dopey. One of the most annoying things about living on your own is that the minute you go out, stuff arrives. They say they will give you a window, between 9am and 10am, but what a joke!
you stay in all morning, and still no sign of them. The moment you go for a coffee, they come. going to the Parcel Office to pick up a package drives me mad — and it is always something totally stupid which you don’t want, but of course you don’t discover what it is until you have paid the excess postage. 18 SANDALS that last for ever. And shorts that don’t wear out. All my family hate me wearing them, as my wife did, but do I care? Oh, I can’t wait for spring to put them on again and feel free, liberated, communing with nature. 19 DESErT Island Discs. I want to appear on it. A knighthood? Nar, who needs that. But to be asked for my eight fave records — rapture. Margaret appeared on the programme about 20 years ago, despite being totally non-musical. What a waste. I picked her tunes for her. So I suppose I have been close. 20 OK THEN, my wife to return for just a 24- hour leave, please, so she can be here with me on New year’s Eve when I do the Predictions for the New year. We did it together for more than 50 years, never predicting nasty things, only nice things, such as when a new grandchild would be born, what age they would walk, how many brilliant A-levels they would get. Not much fun doing it on my own, but I will, while she watches from above.
A Life in the day, Hunter davies’s memoir which covers the death of his wife, is published by simon & schuster at £16.99. diary Of An Ordinary schoolgirl, by Margaret forster, written in 1954 when she was 16, with an introduction by Hunter, is published by Chatto at £10.99.