‘What was that tune, the one we heard at the Cart and Horse, just off Marrow Road at the back of Wheel’s stocking factory, the one they knocked down for those council flats. You know, we heard it around the time of the Coronation when we had a street party but not a telly as your Mam fall out with Aunty Grace over who had the last pork chop. Anyroads, the hospital is bigger than when I was rushed here to have Trevor, do you remember that night, you drunk down stairs with my Dad and me screaming out to me mother up in the bedroom. Dr Hoods was so nice – warm hands and a smile. Not like the ones today all beeps and cold questions. So was it a rock and roll song? Did we have them back then? It might have been country, but how would we have heard songs like that on the wireless? We had to listen as a family so none of our parents would have let us play what they would have seen as smut. Where was I, so yes where I come in, the entrance is all glass and metal with lots of people sitting around waiting for other folks to call them to wards and clinics? I could see in the glass that wearing my best, shop brought, not catalogue were a mistake. The dress and hat made me look that I missed the church and had popped in for directions. Last time I was early, so I fancied a bit of ham and lettuce with tomatoes, no chance. The café there only served chips and fry-ups; you’d think it would be better than that in a hospital. Didn't the tune have something about wind and being lonesome? Mine you, a boy like that would wouldn't he! So that does that sound country? Did we call music like that a name back then? We said it was American or Irish ballads like your Mam belted out after a gin or two with heaving bosoms, and your mother could heave with her being broader then she were tall. Anyroads, I found the nurse, or she found me with her clipboard and papers. She was, you know, one of those from abroad but her English was good. Well I say she was a nurse because she was in uniform but nowadays it could just means she wipes you know what as full nurses are as snooty as what the doctors are. Didn't we have a record once with singing doctors on; it was hit in the sixties, from one of those Doctors in the House films. The one with a big voice was in charge, and the nice one with dark hair and charm was the junior. The loud one had had a moustache you could hang your washing off. Or was that someone else? Perhaps that’s the song I were thinking of? Where was I? I’d forget my drawers if I had a fur coat, so she brought me up to your ward. They are better now than those mixed ones where you try and avoid seeing bits you don’t see in a decent home. And hearing noises that they think are as normal as passing around a bag of boiled sweets. I thought the tune mentioned stormy weather so it would have been ‘sitting out the dance’ music as we would had said in those days. I know that what’s our marriage has been like at times but you don’t start off with thoughts like that unless you’re in the family way and want to get wed before the kid turns up as a page boy. Mind, Nowadays, they get wed with five in tow like our Wendy.Perhaps I'm remembering the wrong tune and time. Anyroads, no matter, I found you and I can hold your hand until we work out what our song was in those days. Oh it’s coming back to me now, what was that lonesome song by those American comedians, the fat grumpy one and the thin stupid one. They were in the old movies and didn’t we see them one in the Albany Music Hall, long since gone, it’s a supermarket now, but would we have heard that song in the fifties?’
‘Mrs Whitfield…Mrs Whitfield. I'm so sorry but he-‘
‘I know love, I know, he slipped away as I sat down but we haven’t finished our song yet.’
