120

ONE DAY LIKE THIS...

Now all the times - now that they are over - are bunched together like swarming wasps that will not let me be. At least not yet. Not just yet at any rate. Everyone says it will take time. And time is unarguably what there is a plentiful supply of now.

Isn’t it true that you are old when the past - all those aeons of days, months, years - seem to be concertina’ed into a confusing and unrecollectable hornets’ nest whereas the future, which should be the unpredictable and exciting path of adventure and discovery, yawns unwelcomely ahead of you, featureless and unpeopled...

All the days of the past become one composite and confusing memory...

So just in case I ever forget what the privilege and pride of doing the job was like - and I will forget, because Old Age brings forgetfulness in its wake...

Three - yes three - alarm clocks to make sure I don’t linger too long in the arms of Orpheus (or should that be Morpheus?) and only one of them a real clockwork clock just in case the batteries in the other two should somehow give up the ghost and die on me in the same night...

Ablutions then coffee without waking up the whole house at five o’clock in the morning ...realising yet again that there are TWO five o’clocks each day and that this is the antisocial one...lumbering down the stairs in the dark with unseen cats trying to force a detour...

Scrunching down the garden path, this time risking the sleepy wrath of the entire neighbourhood because Nigel (downstairs, who has taken charge of garden development) decided to lay a gravel path, which at this hour - and whenever anybody is somnolent enough to walk on it - makes a noise roughly equivalent to Gateshead Marshalling Yards at the height of the Railway Age...

The morning air...by turns chilly, damp, frosty, rainy, cool, snowy, warm. And the morning itself...by turns bright, clear, cloudy, dark, sunny, twilit, dim, hazy, crisp, empty. Always empty. Or almost empty...

But not quite totally empty. Who is the bloke in the striped jacket on Westgate Road every morning at this unearthly hour? Why is there ALWAYS a taxi parked by the lights at the end of Brighton Grove? Are those really taxi drivers playing kickabout in Nuns Moor Park at half-past five of a summer morning? Who is the girl not risking much by cycling without lights down Barrack Road as I drive across the junction?

The Pink Palace...

The security man doing his tenth crossword of the night...Mike Parr standing by the lobby photocopier with the morning’s Front Pages...’Good morning, young Mike’...through the doors and round the corner into the Newsroom...vast, empty, neon-lit, overcrowded, computer-terminalled, disorganised, friendly...posters, magazines, papers, paper, pens (never, never pens), old books, new books, printers, paper, desks, broken chairs, carpet squares held down with masking tape...

What else must I try to remember - or at least, remember not to forget?

Railton - who has forgotten more about ‘driving’ a radio programme than anyone else will ever know - is busy already...nobody would be surprised to learn that he never goes home...Howe’s Fishing...’can I trouble you for this week’s lottery money, Ian’...how much is that now, Railton? How much voluntary tax has yours truly invested in Good Causes? ‘It Could Be You But It Almost Certainly Won’t Be’...more people are kicked to death by donkeys than win the lottery...here’s my £2, Railton...

Ah yes. The accumulating pre-programme tension in the pit of the stomach. Ten to six. Running order ready. Freda Paine, Take That, Duffy, Snow Patrol, George Michael, Barry White. And Elton John. Ah yes Elton John. Trails and idents ready. ‘A passion for north-east life: BBC Radio Newcastle.’ All of it waiting to pounce into the airwaves. To fly and be gone. Waiting for the Go button to be hit. To Go and be Gone...

What other routines will fade with time, scrambling for memory space? Opening up the daily wodge of emails...lists, trivia, rebukes, congratulations, anecdotes, memories, jokes, pleas (impassioned or not), votes of confidence or no confidence...

And questions and more questions...

Ian - why, o why do you say twenty oh nine and not two thousand and nine?

Ian - why do you say Nooburn and not Nyooburn?

Ian - why don’t you ever play any Guy Mitchell or Rolf Harris?

Ian - why did you tell that joke about the male stripper and the hoover salesman? It just wasn’t funny.

Ian - why did you not mention the 67th anniversary of the three-pin plug?

Tension building.

5:58:00. I press a few buttons and suddenly I’m ‘In Control’. I’m in charge of station output... I can say what I like and do what I like ‘live’ on air and everyone will hear me...Such power...Power without responsibility...I wonder I wonder...

Finger poised over the GO button. Everything’s ready. Tracks. Trails. Idents. Links. Charlie’s ready and waiting in her newsreader’s cubby-hole...

Please don’t let me forget any of this. Let me remember the trivial and routine and predictable things of the morning...don’t let any of the last ten mind-boggling years fade away...frenzy, delight, dismay, surprise, shock, privilege, pleasure, laughter, wit, words, music, life and love...

Right index finger hovering over the Go button...News jingle all set.

5:59:01

Go...

'Good morning! It’s Wednesday the twenty-eighth of January and you’re listening to Ian Robinson’s Nightshift on Radio Newcastle - the BBC for the north-east. It’s coming up to six o’clock right now; which means it’s time for the early breakfast news... '

And this morning the job, though not even started, is done.

Go...

GO...