by Les Dawson
ME: ‘Is there anything in particular that you need desperately?’
HIM: ‘Well, yes, we need equipment for the children’s cancer ward, and we need it badly.’
This was the moment I’d been waiting for.
ME: ‘Would twenty-five thousand pounds be any use to you?’
There was the longest silence ever on a telephone, then I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line, and a strangled: ‘Oh yes, yes.’
‘Well, there will be a cheque in the post to you tonight for that amount.’
The administrator said, ‘Why don’t we have a presentation ceremony?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘All I ask is that on whatever equipment you buy, just put an inscription saying “In loving memory of Meg Dawson”.’
The voice on the other end said: ‘Be assured that will be done, and many many thanks.… Oh, there’s just one thing I’d like to add.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘… God bless you.’
It’s an old cliché that tells us ‘It’s better to give than to receive’. Well, I’m here to tell you how very true that is.
I sat at Meg’s grave and a soft breeze, warm and indolent, brushed the evening shadows around me as I talked to her headstone, and I knew that she would have been highly pleased with what I’d managed to do.
Meanwhile, our play was doing enormous business whilst other shows in the resort were having a rough time of it … we were taking all the money.
With someone as funny and experienced as Eric Sykes alongside me on stage, I had to work twice as hard to keep up with him. He was such an inventive comedian, and on many occasions the show would overrun by an hour! Much to the delight of the holiday audiences, I hasten to add.
Whilst in Blackpool, I was asked to switch on the Illuminations. It is a great honour to be invited to do this, and to a backstreet kid like myself, it was the apex of my career. I brought the entire cast on to the podium with me alongside the glittering array of officials and sponsors. Talbot Square was packed with thousands of people, and from their throats came a roar that rent the warm September night. Hundreds of sparkling arc lamps focus on to the staging area; the big switch stands before me; television cameras are set to record the big event; it is a thrilling moment as I depress the lever – and suddenly it is a make-believe world and one is a child again as the shimmering ranks of lights spark into animation along the length of the promenade, and the soaring steel of the Tower is clothed in a million moons.… The Blackpool Illuminations are on for another year, and there is no sight to equal it. Children’s faces reflect the wonder of it all and the grown-ups, too, are breathless.
There is music and champagne and laughter and all the meaner aspects of life are forgotten, if only for one magical night.
I’d asked Tracy to come along but she had declined, and yet again I asked myself, what had I done that for?
Actually, I had suggested that we might see each other from time to time, just as two people who had shared tragedies together, nothing else … but secretly I had to ask myself if I was merely kidding myself and ignoring my real feelings.
After the show I would go straight to the hotel and talk to her, and watch her deftly tend to her customers, and always I saw the genuine smile and the concern in her big eyes. She started to scold me about the amount of whisky I was consuming and I decided to pull myself away from the habit.… But why? What had I got to look forward to?
I should have known that someone was drawing the strings of destiny together.… Summer drew to a close and the last-night party was behind me and the future ahead.
I did some television appearances, but nothing auspicious, and soon it was pantomime again … so soon, so short the years.
I found myself spending more time than ever at the St Ives. I kept telling myself that it was the company that gathered there that was the attraction, it was a break for me to get out of the house where the memories still hung like ghostly curtains, for let’s face it, despite being surrounded by a wonderful cast and friends I was desperately lonely. When the spotlight is turned off, you really are on your own.
My attention was forever drawn to the lovely lass behind the bar … Tracy. Quite by accident I discovered from one of her colleagues that despite the wide attractive smile and the vivacious manner, she was not very happily married. I pushed her image from my mind and concentrated on drinking. OK, I reasoned with myself, the girl had a personality that kept me spellbound, but she was another man’s wife, and there was no way that I intended to make matters worse for her and her children, even supposing that she might welcome my advances, which I doubted very much.
There was, of course, an even greater reason for dismissing her from my thoughts … the age difference.
There were seventeen years between us; a chasm that could not be easily bridged.
I stopped going to the hotel and went drinking elsewhere.
The house was still an empty memory although the pain wasn’t as bad now. It did help such a lot to be able to sit at Meg’s grave and discuss my innermost thoughts with her. Nine long months had faded into the infinite since I’d laid her to rest, and self-pity was beginning to ravage me.… I had to start living again, if not for my sake then for Julie, Pamela and Stuart. I had to hold the family together.
About this time, a Doctor Peter Isaacs approached me to enlist my support for an appeal to raise money for a scanner machine for Blackpool’s main hospital, Victoria.
It was such a worthy and necessary scheme that I didn’t hesitate to join forces with him. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Do Gooder in any shape or form; I abhor and mistrust most charities, especially when there are big sums in evidence; also I firmly believe that we each pay enough in taxes for all the less fortunate members of our society to be taken care of. It’s my belief that the more we do for charities, the less the ruling government is willing to do, so I am not a ‘charity’ person. However, Blackpool is regarded so much as simply a playground that many people in authority seem not to realise that it has a large population who work there and live there and die there.
Peter and I launched the Scanner Appeal and went to pubs, clubs and old folk’s homes – where wonderful old ladies received a tonic to their lives by knitting tea cosies which we sold at an enormous profit at jumble sales, bring and buys, car boot sales.… We knocked piles of pennies down in the pubs, we begged, cajoled, pillaged and plundered all and sundry in order to reach our goal, which was to take nearly two years to attain.
It was costing me a fortune in taxis. Obviously I couldn’t risk driving myself to all the venues because the amount of alcohol I was imbibing would have sent the breathaliser kit into Technicolor.
One night I was asked to go to the St Ives Hotel because the management had raised some money for the appeal. I took longer under the shower than normal – shaved myself more closely than usual.… What a silly old fool!
I couldn’t wait to see Tracy. I even put a suit on instead of wearing my soiled cardigan and jeans. I received the money raised at the hotel but I felt my heart sink … Tracy wasn’t on duty, so what the hell? Get out the whisky.…
Two hours later, face flushed with the fiery spirit and throat rasping with cigarettes, I started to edge my exit from the watering hole … and bumped into her.
‘You look a mess,’ was her first remark, followed by: ‘If you’re trying to kill yourself then you are making a damn good job of it.’
Angry words got as far as my lips, but the look of sorrow on her face stemmed the threatened outburst.
I sat by Meg’s grave and talked about this girl and I babbled on and on about the vacuum of life without any purpose … and suddenly I knew what a complete idiot I was making of myself. I still think I drew the strength I needed from that talk with a dear little wife and friend.
Out of the blue, Tracy offered to drive me around to the many venues I was visiting in order to raise the money for the scanner.… Peter and I were still very f
ar from reaching our target. I eagerly took her up on her offer, and as we drove from place to place, two people who’d had their fair share of unhappiness found in each other a shield against the hurt that they had experienced; we discovered that a childlike quality took over within us, and our brief time in each other’s company was a dreamlike period of innocence and laughter.
During those short journeys I found myself telling her things that I had not spoken of for years, and she, too, would relate chapters of her life.… She would hunch over the wheel, her mass of tousled hair framing a lovely face in which huge blue eyes could cloud over in an instant with sadness or become aflame with laughter. She was a complete enigma.… One moment she was a child, the next a sophisticated lady.… Her temper could flare in a trice only to be doused in gaiety.… I was falling in love with this strange creature.
It was almost a relief to go down to London to rehearse for yet another pantomime season.… Yes, already another year was about to enter its death throes. Usually I enjoyed rehearsing there, seeing old friends.… This year’s production was to be staged in Birmingham at that fine old theatre, the Alexandra.
The panto was once again Babes in the Wood, with the same principals as in our Manchester triumph, and if the bookings were anything to go by, we were heading for another bonanza. In London I did the nightlife scene but this time the enjoyment was hollow; I badly wanted to ring the hotel in St Annes and just listen to that girl’s breathless voice.
Endless days of rehearsing with a new company of supporting artistes; dancers who seem to get younger every year and not necessarily more talented; singers who all contrive to sound like Tina Turner; and youngsters from dance schools some of whom look quite capable of mugging a judo champion. The long nights I spent propping up various nightclub bars and falling into taxis with a song on my lips belied the fact that I was bored and missing the company of a lady far away.
Before moving up to Birmingham for the final rehearsals, I went home to see how the kids were coping, and although there was some evidence of house parties, at least there was no actual structural damage as far as I could see.
I made my pilgrimage to the grave and gave Meg a full report on the state of the kids and show business. It must have given a lot of people a shock to see a middle-aged, frumpish-looking man sitting by a headstone talking to himself! In fact, on one occasion, an elderly lady stooping at a grave quite close to Meg’s, heard me chattering away to myself. She gave forth with a little shriek, crossed herself, and galloped wildly away in the direction of a grotto. But as I’ve said before, talking aloud certainly helped me overcome the loneliness that only someone who has lost their life’s mate can fully understand.
Guilt is an emotion that destroys your peace of mind.… Could you have done more to lengthen the lost one’s life? Whilst he or she was alive, were you a good partner? Did you give them all the love you had? I found myself feeling guilty about the weeks I’d spent away from home whilst trying to make a career. Gloomily I would recall our heated exchanges when I arrived home after an engagement feeling alienated from the rest of the family. She would storm that whilst I was away she had had to be all things – mother, transport chief, nurse, father, philosopher, teacher and playmate.… She would say: ‘I know you work hard for us, but at least you get to meet different people … apart from taking and picking up the kids from school, the kitchen window is my world.’
I would remember, and wish I could but see her once again to tell her how I regretted my thirst for ambition and how I wished now that all the days and nights we had spent apart could be brought back and relived.
I saw Tracy again in the hotel and we smiled and nodded to each other. I tried to avoid getting into a conversation with her but I couldn’t stop looking at her.… It was getting ridiculous and noticeable and I felt foolish and inept.
The kids were peering at me as if they’d noticed some dramatic change in my behaviour.
I had started bathing more often which profoundly shocked them! Although my hair was thinning and receding, I spent more time pushing little waves into it and keeping it trimmed … I was acting like a love-sick bloody kid…
The daft part of all this, of course, was that not once had Tracy indicated any romantic interest in me whatsoever … she had merely been friendly, someone with a very nice shoulder to cry on.
Before I left for Birmingham, we met in the hotel and all the things I wanted to say evaporated as I looked at her.… She looked bewildered when I gulped down my drink and shrugged a passage through the crowded inn.… I drove to the furthest point of St Annes Bay, and sat smoking cigarette after cigarette as I watched the flickering lights of Southport illuminating the night sky. Over and over again I tormented myself with two burning issues: the age difference – a problem that wouldn’t go away, and the seeming disloyalty of having feelings for another woman when my dear wife had been dead only ten months. The stupid thing was that all this was in my mind, and Tracy hadn’t said a word about how she felt – that’s assuming, of course, she felt anything for me other than sympathy.
I revved up the car and cruised home. Tomorrow I would be off to Birmingham and work would be the best tonic for my jaded spirits.
I threw myself into bed and tried to sleep, but that soothing balm evaded me. Suddenly the telephone jangled. When I picked up the receiver, my heart stopped … the call was from Tracy. ‘Are you all right?’ she inquired in that breathy voice.
I gabbled something, God knows what, but I must have sounded like a teenager on his first date.
‘Will you let me know how you are when you go away for the pantomime?’ She managed to get a word in edgeways.
‘I’m going to miss you, Tracy,’ I said lamely.
There was a long pause, then words came across the void that sent my heart tap dancing.
‘I’m going to miss you as well … Les.’ With that she put the receiver down.
We had a hectic schedule, in old Brum … television interviews, personal appearances for publicity, radio shots and the harsh grind of rehearsals that eventually led to the opening night.
The show went extremely well and the first thing I did after it was over was – surprise surprise – to phone Tracy.
It was a joy to hear her voice again. Our telephone chats became a legend with the cast and a great boost to British Telecom’s profits.… As soon as the curtain dropped, I would be off to the Albany Hotel and straight on to the telephone, and Tracy and I gossiped away like fishwives – not romantic things, just general topics – and hopefully I made her laugh, because she did mention that she was unhappy with her domestic affairs.
Christmas came and went, and at a company party on New Year’s Eve I excelled myself: I phoned Tracy and we spent five hours talking … five hours of utter contentment, at least for me.
The cast were very aware of my mood changes, and my dear friend Mo, who was the first Roly Poly, bluntly asked me what was wrong. I told her how I was frightened of my feelings for a woman who up to now had shown little interest of a romantic nature in me. I babbled on about my guilt for having such feelings so soon after Meg’s death, and it was that little bundle of energy, Mighty Mo, who finally made me see sense:
‘What the hell are you worrying about, lad?’ she said genially. ‘Everybody knows how much you loved Meg, and she’d be the first to wish you all the luck in the world if you found a new love in your life. Meg wasn’t the sort of woman who would expect you to stay alone for the rest of your life. From what you’ve told me, I reckon this Tracy likes you a lot more than you realise.’
She turned to leave the dressing-room. ‘But Mo,’ I whispered, ‘it can’t be right, can it? Meg’s not been dead twelve months yet.… Suppose anything did come of it, what would the kids and other people say?’
She looked at me with a glance that was a wee bit scornful.
‘There is no time limit on mourning, lad. If God has decided to find someone else for you to love, thank him. As for the children, well, if they
love you they’ll want you to be happy, won’t they?’
I nodded dumbly.
‘As for what other people think, it’s your life not theirs.… It’s a tribute to the happiness you had with Meg that you want to rekindle the same love with Tracy.… Give the lass a ring, and do it sharp.’ With that parting shot she went on stage.
I telephoned Tracy and said quietly and simply: ‘love you.’
She caught her breath on the other end of the line. ‘I love you as well, darling.’
I couldn’t wait for the end of the pantomime now! Mark you, conducting a romance by telephone wasn’t always happy. Frustration and jealousy would cause us both to have blazing rows, one in particular I recall.…
We had been quite chummy on the line after one show – we’d spoken for about fifteen minutes then said our goodnights. I was in a euphoric mood. I left the theatre and tripped over to the hotel, where instead of going to bed I joined some of the cast in the bar, and Tommy Steele, who was appearing at the Hippodrome Birmingham for the season, joined us. The phone rang in the bar … it was my Divinity, Tracy. ‘Hello darling,’ I warbled.
‘Just what the hell are you doing in the bar?’ She raved on and on. I got angry, and heads turned towards where I was standing, quivering with rage and shouting back at her. We both slammed down the receivers at the same time and I strode back to the party and drank long and deep.… To hell with her.
There was no communication from her the next day nor did I phone her. During the interval of the second house of the panto that night, she rang the dressing-room. My heart soared – she was about to apologise, wasn’t she? I would be magnanimous, of course, and forgive the sweet wren.…
Tracy said: ‘Don’t you ever phone me again.’
Goodbye romance, hello unwanted bachelorhood. I stalked into the private theatre bar and made them open up. ‘Drinks all round,’ I boomed to the curious cast. ‘You see before you a man scorned, a man bereft of love. From this day forward, once a month a lady of my choice will ease my loins! Not for me the bondage of one woman’s love – for me, only the pit of selfish desire, and ego doth drive me on.’ John Nettles raised his pint and roared his approval. At that moment, the stage door-keeper poked his head into the noisy, smoke-filled bar and shouted in his rich Brummie accent: ‘Phone call for Mr Dawson from someone called Tracy.’
