When we were in the dark about their affair
PEOPLE often ask me if I ever run out of ideas for Bm@il but while there is news, anecdotes from the past, and Jaffa cakes, there should (hopefully) never be a famine.
This week I’m writing about cats and dogs, calendars – and Bobbie Vee, who shuffled off the mortal coil in October.
I was sorry to hear the popular singer, known for numbers like Take Good Care of My Baby, died from Alzheimer’s last month. He was a huge star in the 1960s, but I didn’t see him perform until the 1980s at the Beck Theatre in Hayes.
The theatre was full that night, apart from two empty seats. It had been arranged that these would not be occupied until the lights went down, so it had to be somebody famous. Naturally I was squinting through the dark to see who it might be.
Eventually, lyricist Tim Rice slipped into one, and with him was Elaine Paige who was then at the top of her game as a musical theatre star. It must have been the start of their (eventually) very public affair which lasted a decade and only ended when he remained with his wife.
The Rice/Paige liaison never leaked out from that night, and remained a secret for some time afterwards. Can you imagine that happening with social media now?
Not everything revolves around tweeting, so I was pleased to hear from Gordon Isaacs that he is still producing the Harefield calendar which he started with his late wife May in 2000.
It is still only £4 and is available from the village library, both post offices and on Saturdays in the High Street.
The 2017 version is really beautiful, with pictures shot by local photographers that can later be detached and used as postcards.
A definite fan of the twitterati is our daughter’s cat, who is staying with us again. Jangles looks longingly at the birds who line up to tweet at him from a safe distance on the fence.
He constantly reinforces the stark contrast between cats and dogs. When you return home, a dog will throw itself at you, tail wagging, as if to say: ‘I’m so glad you’re home.’
Jangles just raises one weary eyebrow and sighs. If he had a watch (and could speak) I swear he’d tap it and say: ‘What time do you call this?’