Footfalls echo in the memory

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the Rose Garden

Four Quartets, TS Eliot

I had taken a cup of tea up to Dianne, given Lottie her breakfast biscuits and so – as Sunday morning tradition dictates – by 9 o’clock I was sitting down to watch the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1.

Marr introduced the theme for day – fairness in business taxation – the upcoming guests and the newspaper reviewers. 

He handed over to the newsreader. 

“We are just getting reports that the broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan has died after a short battle with cancer.”

 

Like most people in their (early!!) 60s, Wogan’s voice has been a constant for me. Someone I listened to regularly on BBC Radio 2 on his Breakfast Show and in more recent years on his Sunday morning show.

The annual Children In Need and Eurovision shows, Blankety Blank, Auntie’s Bloomers and many others.

And, of course, his eponymous chat show. Who could forget the Drunk: George Best, the Monosyllabic: Anne Bancroft and the Self-Proclaimed Son of God: David Icke.

By 10 o’clock I had turned to Radio 2 where Mark Goodier and then Richard Madeley did an excellent job remembering Sir Terry.

The tributes soon started to come in. From Prime Ministers, the BBC Director General & the Controller of BBC Radio, musicians and the listeners, the TOGS.

There was the proof – not that it was needed – that Wogan was a Big Beast of the Entertainment World: Michael Grade himself, son of Leslie and nephew of Bernard Delfont and a former DG, did a live tribute. The ultimate accolade!!

On Twitter there were messages from fellow DJs, including Tony Blackburn and then from Noel Edmonds:

He mastered broadcastings greatest challenge-to be admired and respected by public and peers alike- a true master has gone

As the morning became lunchtime and then early afternoon there was a tribute I was especially looking out for. At just before 3 o’clock there it was … One from Chris Tarrant.

I had always sensed that Tarrant & Wogan were friends. But when you are very, very good at what you do, how do you come to terms with someone who is always that bit better?

On the day that Andy Murray lost his fourth Australian Open Final to Novak Djokovic, Tarrant’s tweet explained exactly:

"Even though we had competing breakfast shows for many years, he was always incredibly kind to me: but of course he was kind to everybody... unfailingly funny on and off the screen - just a lovely, warm, witty man. 

He had a unique radio presence that never came from a podium, rather a comfortable fireside armchair. He was the finest broadcaster of my lifetime.

Simply the best.” 

On Monday morning the obituaries and comment pieces were fulsome:  

“the most popular and best-loved broadcaster in Britain for more than three decades”

“in person he was a generous host, thoughtful, kindly, and good company”

The conundrum of Wogan’s hair was left undecided!!

Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail wrote, “Some said he wore a toupee, but it never looked like one to me”, whilst the Telegraph obituary stated he “owned five wigs.”

However, there was one  Life Event that was barely mentioned, perhaps just hinted at by Matt Baker on BBC1's The One Show tribute.

On New Years Day 2012 Wogan was the castaway on Desert Island Discs, his third time on the programme.

Tolstoy’s War and Peace was the book.

Bottles (“a full bar”), pen & paper the luxury item.

There were eight well-chosen records:  from Sinatra to Carly Simon by way of Gretchen Peters, Jimmy Durante and Placido Domingo, each with a fond memory to tell.

The "If you had to choose just one one record" was That’ll Do by Peter Gabriel.

Kirsty Young took Wogan through his Life. 
Wogan was a well-practised, accomplished raconteur of the so familiar stories from the chat shows, of growing up the son of a grocer in Limerick and meeting his wife Helen.

But it was when Kirsty  asked about Wogan’s Faith that we moved into much less familiar, much darker territory

The death of his first child, Vanessa, at the age of just three weeks in 1966 hardened his views.

While his wife sought refuge in her religion, Sir Terry said that the tragedy made him part company with his Faith:

“I wouldn’t say it was the only moment but it was a cumulative factor.

You think this isn’t fair. But of course it happens to people all of the time, not just you, and you shouldn’t be so silly. But yes, that did leave its mark.”

Wogan explained how the little girl’s death had made him realise how central family was: “The only important thing in Life.”

How many of us are hit by dreadful, perhaps truly dreadful  Life Events?

Over the course of a long life, I suspect virtually all of us …

They can be beyond explanation.

And perhaps they should be.

Some years ago a friend of mine told me that we should all treat Life as a never ending exam.

Never query the examiner’s questions.

Don’t rail that they weren’t what you had prepared for or wanted.

Just always answer the questions you are asked.

I cannot but believe that through his daughter’s death Sir Terry was motivated to do his wonderful fundraising for Children In Need, being a major part in encouraging so many people to donate hundreds of millions of pounds and for thousands and thousands of children to be helped.

The Chairwoman of Children In Need said:

"Most people know him as the face of Children in Need, but he's the heart of the charity and has been for 35 years.

His legacy lives on... in all of the millions of disadvantaged children whose lives he has changed."

Sir Terry, I am sure, thought regularly about his daughter Vanessa.

For him:

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the Rose Garden

As Sir Terry moved from this world to the next I truly hope that Vanessa was there to meet him in the Rose Garden .

RIP, Sir Terry

Ric

I hope you will allow me a PS.

The Times’ obituary noted:

Radio Eireann was looking for announcers and newsreaders.

Wogan was one of 10,000 applicants.

He smooth-talked his way through the interview, pretending to a facility with foreign languages he did not possess, and was offered a place on the station’s training course.

A few months ago a colleague & friend asked me if I would give a reference for a job she was applying for.

Of course, I said, I’d be pleased to!

There’s just one thing, Ric. My CV says I have Conversational Spanish. But I can’t really say anything in Spanish very much beyond:  Dos Cervezas, por favor.

Don’t worry. My younger daughter really does have A Level Spanish & always says she reads El Pais regularly. She can’t even order the beers!!

Just as Terry did with Radio Eireann all those years ago, my friend applied … and got the job.

It just shows… it always pays to Give It A Go !!