Speaking from the heart

DENISE won the bingo on Sunday. Huge excitement. Sixty whole British pounds!

So that was £20 each for her, Maureen and I. Hand on heart, it won’t change us.

It’s hard to imagine a Sunday night without bingo.

Lunch and bingo, that’s been us every Sunday – give or take a few very sunny summer evenings – for the past decade.

Denise is addicted, it’s her only vice, and I began joining them after Brian died.

We go for a joke and a laugh together. And yes, the money. Of course the money.

It’s my inner Del Boy calling, this time next year you know what I’ll be... I did win £1,000 once, back in 2008.

By the end of the night we are still there, us three, sometimes Anne too, along with a man and his dog.

Like a dog with a bone, that one. I see you, dog.

I say to the girls: “Come on, be serious.” I’m there to win. Eyes on the prize.

On Sunday, something felt different. I kept dropping my marker and my pen.

I was struggling to remember the last number called. I couldn’t do it quite as quickly as needed. I said to the girls: “It’ll be sad when I can’t play bingo any more.”

They didn’t answer. Hopefully it was just a blip.

Aside from the big bucks, and the joke and the laugh, there’s a comfort to the regularity of going to bingo.

Whatever else is happening in my life, it’s a constant, and the most normal place in the world for me to be. Mum used to take us as kids. I was probably about eight when I first entered a bingo hall.

It was exciting. We weren’t allowed to play so we got ice cream and the old cards so we could pretend.

They had turned the old cinemas into bingo halls and they were stunning.

When Mum started to get worse with her memory loss she couldn’t play any more. The girls had to gently tell her they weren’t going, to truthfully remind her “you can’t do it now, Mum”.

I’ve told them to do the same with me. Again, they don’t really answer.

But we are not there yet. There’s still time. Move over, dog – the next one’s mine. This time next year...