Our first day at school; our first day at work; the first time we watched the sports team that we still follow, donkey’s years later. All memorable events, all occasions we remember to some degree or another.
I remember my first day at secondary school if only for one
thing. At break time our teacher – Mrs Lovegrove – told us to go and get our
milk before remembering that it was no longer provided to secondary school
pupils thanks not, as you might imagine, to Margaret Thatcher (‘Thatcher,
Thatcher, milk snatcher’ as the popular refrain dubbed her) but to Labour Secretary
of State for Education and Science Edward Short. While Short withdrew it for
secondary school pupils in 1968, Conservative Education Minister Mrs Thatcher took
it from children over seven in 1971. Another Labour politician – Shirley
Williams - did away with it for all children of school age in 1977.[1]
This man stole my school milk.
I remember the first time I saw my team, Romford FC play. 10th
February 1968, the opponents were Guildford City, and Romford won 1-0 (see my
blog Romford 1 Manchester United 0).
I remember my first day at work, if only for my feelings of
trepidation and the pale grey checked suit from Burton’s that I wore, with its
near bell-bottomed trousers and lapels almost as wide as an aircraft carrier’s
flight deck.
No matter how much - or how little - we remember of the first time we did something, we all knew at the time that it was the first time
we had done that particular thing, whether we hated it or loved it.
The last time we do something can be very different.
There are some things that we know, when we do them, we will
never do again; there are some we don’t.
We know, at the time we leave school, that that is the last
time we’ll go there (as a pupil at least). We probably know the time we leave
work for the last time. Some people may retire, or be made redundant and subsequently
return to work, but we generally know when we have done our last day in a
particular job, or with a particular employer.
There are some things that we never know at the time we do
them, that we will never do again, and while some are relatively inconsequential,
some are highly significant.
I remember in 1978, ten years after I had watched Romford
play for the first time, that I went to their game against Aylesbury United not
knowing that it would be the last time I saw them play. The club folded at the
end of the 1977-78 season, and I did not manage to get to the last game the
club played, which was at Folkestone, not that I would have known then that it
would be the club’s last match either, as it was expected (or at least hoped)
that the club would survive to compete in 1978-79.[2]
Supporters of football clubs like Bury, and Macclesfield
Town will likewise have had no idea that a certain game they watched would be
the last one in which they see their team play, in that particular guise
anyway. The last game that Bury played was on 4th May 2019, and no
one in the 6,719 crowd would have known that they may not see them play again
(plans to relaunch the club are in the pipeline, but whether they will succeed
is moot. A breakaway club – AFC Bury – have started playing, but they are a
separate entity).
Bury supporters celebrate promotion in 2019. Will they ever see their team again?
Picture: Andy Whitehead
And, in light of the current pandemic that means that clubs
from the Premier League down to the National League’s North and South divisions
are having to play behind closed doors, none of the supporters of those 159
clubs can know with any certainty whether they will ever see them play in the
flesh again.
In the grand scheme of things - and as important as sport is
to so many millions of people - seeing your team play for the last time –
whether you know it or not – is something you get over (any Bury supporters
reading this might not believe it, but I assure you it’s true). Death, however
is another matter.
We rarely know, when we see someone, that it will be the
last time we see them alive. Christmas Day 2014 was the last time I saw my Mum.
After lunch I took her home as she was feeling tired; she died of a heart
attack a few days later. At least the last time I spent with her was a happy
time for her, with the rest of the family. I didn’t get to speak to her again – we
often went a few days without calling one another, nothing unusual or untoward
in that – and of course I had no idea when I said goodbye to her that Christmas
afternoon that we’d never see each other or speak again.
It is probably just as well that we don’t usually know, to
be honest. I can’t imagine how sad and bewildering it would be to say goodbye
to someone apparently in good health, knowing that you’d never see them again.
To return to less maudlin matters, all of us will have
things we did before COVID that we may now wonder if we will ever do again. For
me, that’s principally going to the BBC to see radio shows recorded, and going
to gigs. I had twenty-odd gigs and shows booked for 2020, and I saw two before
lockdown. The last time I went to the BBC was back in February for a recording
of Brain of Britain.
Brain of Britain host Russell Davies
Have I been to the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House for
the last time? If I have, I certainly didn’t know it when I saw that recording
of Brain of Britain. Have I been to my last gig? I hope not. The majority of
the shows I was supposed to see in 2020 have been rescheduled, although I’m not
particularly sanguine about the ones I have booked for April and May next year,
and there are already shows in 2021 that have been put back to 2022. In an act
of either optimism or stupidity, I bought a ticket this week for a gig in
November 2021. I’m not sure if it will go ahead as scheduled; if I’m honest, I
suspect not.
Joe Stilgoe's was the last live show I saw
I haven’t been to a pub since March or a restaurant since
even longer. I haven’t been on a plane or to a different country for over a
year. There are friends I haven’t seen for months, and don’t know when I’ll see
them again. There are so many things that I haven’t done for so long that I’m
beginning to wonder if I will ever do them again.
I’m not complaining, goodness knows I’m a lot better off
than a lot of people in many, many ways, but I’ll be sad if there are things
that I never get the opportunity to do again.
[1] If
I hadn’t checked I would have just have assumed that my secondary school milk
was a victim of Margaret Thatcher. It’s quite interesting that Labour was
responsible for the withdrawal of milk from more children than Thatcher was,
yet that she is the only one who gets mentioned when the subject crops up.
[2] A
new Romford FC formed in 1992, and I’m watching them to this day, but
technically it isn’t the same club.
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