Moreover – The Introduction
There are some things in British life that never change.
The Liberal Party, with or without the help of the SDP, will always be trembling on the brink of a major breakthrough in British politics.
The Labour Party will forever be attempting to tear itself in two, only to find at the last moment it magically stays in one piece.
There will always be a stretch of cones three miles long on the M1, cordoning off a motorway lane with which nothing at all is wrong.
The England football team will always create chances without being able to take them.
British Rail guards will never be able to resist the temptation to announce on their loudspeakers that this is the 9.40 Inter-City for Bristol Parkway and Cardiff two minutes after the train has left, thus ensuring that anyone who is on the wrong train will be able to get off at Bristol Parkway and by a fresh ticket to Sheffield or wherever they are really going, adding valuable revenue to our railway system.
And when I started the ‘Moreover…’ column in the Times obituary page in June 1981, I thought I too would be creating something unchangeable in British life. Along with the announcements of life, death, marriage and schoolday prize-giving, the four great activities of Times–readers, there would always be a moment of light relief at the end of the page. Anyone saddened by the news that his old professor had finally snuffed it, or the even sadder news that his daughter had finally got engaged to that twit Rodney, would be able to cheer themselves up by reading my column, in which nobody ever got married, born or killed.
It was too good to last. After a year or so, the editor decided I was due for promotion. Either that, or they need more room for obituaries; they never explained. But suddenly they had created a new page called Spectrum , or Sputum, or something, and put me on it. Isn’t that nice? they said.
There wasn’t much that I could do , about it except say Yes, that’s a masterly improvement, how do you think of these things? as one tends to do to editors. But secretly my heart was broken, and ever since then I have bought a copy of The Times every day, cut out my piece from the Spectre page and pasted it back on the obituary page.
It was then that Penguin Books came to my aid. We are prepared to help you. They said; we will take all your pieces of the Spectacle page and print them separately in a paperback! Of course, I said immediately and here are the results.
It was only as the book was going to press, far too late, that I learnt there were no obituaries in the book at all. This goes to show that you can’t trust anyone, not even Penguin. All I can do is recommend that you write to the publishers, angrily demanding a set of obituaries which you can paste into the book, as I have.
Believe me, it makes all the difference.
Moreover… 1982
