Grocer Jack and Hancock were just too much for us

We’re both rather embarrassed. Her for crying at work and me for spraying a mouthful of water all over my lunch. My poor Arty Woman has a ‘creative’ temperament at the best of times and the tension of some recent stresses finally exploded in the office when 1960s tear-jerker Grocer Jack came on the radio at the wrong moment, provoking a fit of helpless blubbing.

In an effort to desensitise herself, she decided to play the song – and the equally maudlin The Living Years, by Mike and the Mechanics – over and over again, on Sunday morning, just as I was setting off for a lonely shift in a deserted newsroom, condemned to a double ear-worm of guilt-ridden regret the whole afternoon.

All of which negated the more upbeat reminiscences from the previous day’s lunch with my brother, as we nostalgically traded quotes from Hancock’s Half Hour: uppity secretary Hattie Jacques busy with her filing: “I’ve only done five nails,” or the mockery of Australian slacker Bill Kerr’s ‘war wound’: “A scratch on your arm from the sergeant’s fingernails as he tore your stripe off.”

He finally set me off when he threw in a: “No, no, I think you’re wrong there.”

I had no recollection of the context of the original line, nor even in which episode it appears, but it was an unmistakable Hancock and, unfortunately, I had just taken a gulp of water which I snorted back all over the table.

Of course, it all became very maudlin for Hancock in the end, and the future looks little brighter for me, as the Arty Woman discovered that Mike and the Mechanics are not only still going, but due to tour again next year.

More waterworks guaranteed, I fear. I just hope this time it’s all from her eyes, and not out of my mouth.