Grumpy Old Women

You may have heard of the programme Grumpy Old Men on the Tele and Radio. Well I currently feel like a grumpy old women following one programme I was watching on the television on Monday evening and Radio 4 on Tuesday lunchtime.


Monday evening there was a moving account of the market town of Wootton Bassett's residents tribute to the young men and women who have given their lives whilst on active service, and are being repatriated from the Military Airfield to Oxford via Wootton Bassett.

The film talked to various residents, old servicemen and women, shopkeepers school children and those who regularly stand as the roadside as the hearse and its escort vehicles pass through. The family of the deceased wait outside the local hotel, having arrived from the airfield before the hearse reaches the town. As the procession enters the town, the local church ring a sombre peel and the town becomes silent. Those  flag bearers standing at the roadside lower their flags in tribute as the hearse passes. It then halts beside the mourning family for a minute and a half giving them time to lay flowers on the hearse, and it then slowly moves off. The whole thing is done with great dignity. Many other tributes and wreaths are laid by family and local residents at the war memorial which is in the high street.

So you may ask what is in this most moving and well made documentary to get me so cross. Well they talked to a veteran of the last world war who regularly attends these repatriations. He showed the large album he was keeping of the cards and written tributes that had been left with floral tributes at the war memorial.

He explained that he collected them "so that they are not ruined by the rain, or blown about in the wind". We saw him in this film arriving back at home at what appeared to be immediately after the repatriation with a clutch of these cards, place them in the album, close it up and place it back in its place in his home.

I was upset and amazed that it had been filmed, surely the producer could see that this was in fact a dreadful thing for someone to do. Those cards written by mourners bearing very personal and heart felt messages do not belong in this gentlemens cupboard. I can understand his desire to care for them. But surely there is also dignity and beauty in decay. Just as everything of beauty must come to an end, so these tributes must be left to their demise. I also worried at what the families would feel that their tributes were being taken away. Well that was Monday.


On Tuesday lunchtime whilst listening to the news programme "The World at One", I was struck by the interview being conducted by Martha Carney. She had invited Ken Clarke, the current Justice Secretary to answer questions on prison sentencing. I have a lot of time for Ken, not necessarily his politics but for his general good sense and well thought through reasoning on such an important issue. He is also a jazz fan which I like. Martha asked her questions and then proceeded  to talk and heckle him all the way through his answer, meaning we were unable to understand either her questions or his response. How rude. She had invited him on the programme, she might have shown him the courtesy of listening. Who does she think she is,  Jeremy Paxman?


I do find the older I get the more intolerant I'm becoming, or is it opinionated?