Gnome of the north

Mr Gnome is preparing for a tartan-tastic late-winter visit to Edinburgh.

The Athens of the North beckons.

Mr G is making a list of must-visit locations, mostly based on his recollections of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and the novels of Alexander McCall Smith.

But he's open to suggestions....

Leave not a rack behind....

Mr Gnome recently made a brief site inspection of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre's massive 'transformation' project.

As can be seen (below), the big house by the Avon is undergoing radical surgery. Between the front facade and the fly tower is a vast empty space, formerly filled by the auditorium.

Two years and two months remain until the scheduled re-opening.

Mr G and the HB admit to feelings of nostalgia for the old theatre.

But they applaud the bold vision of company boss Michael Boyd and his team - and wish them all the Bard luck in the world....

Gibson Pattison

It's a summer evening and we're driving up the steep fold of a Devon valley, en route to dinner at Gibson's favourite pub restaurant.

'Look - a new moon...'

'How can you tell, Gibson? Sorry, I'm such a towny. I never know whether the moon's waxing or waning.'

'Nothing simpler, old boy. Look at the crescent. Imagine a little stalk beside it - which letter can you make?'

I'm squinting up at the slender paring of silver against the blue: 'Er, a "b" - or a "p"?'

'Splendid: "b" for "beginning" and "p" for "premier". It's a new moon. When it's waning, all you can make is a "d" for "dernier". What could be simpler?'

At the time of this typically 'Gibson-esque' exchange, I'm a twenty-something primary school teacher and Gibson, a bachelor country parson, is approaching sixty. I'm his guest for a few days of rest and recreation at his village vicarage in the Dartmoor National Park.

Peppered with "I say', 'my dear chap' and 'what fun', a conversation with Gibson can feel like a scene from The Wind in the Willows.

With his slicked-down hair, spectacles and round face, Gibson has a distinct air of Mr Mole. But in character he's much more akin to the outgoing Water Rat, with just a naughty hint of Mr Toad thrown in.

Certainly, his attitude to housekeeping is straight out of Ratty's book. One morning I comment that, at home, I routinely leave the breakfast washing-up until my return from work in the evening.

Gibson shudders. 'Leave the washing-up, old boy? I fear that in my case it would be the start of the slippery slope. Living alone, I have to be disciplined.'
Genereous, kind, undemanding and discrete, Gibson was a perfect 'senior friend' - I guess today he'd be called a 'mentor'.

Another friend noted aptly that Gibson's friendships reflected an old-fashioned quality that he described as 'chum-manship'.

Quaint? Perhaps. But as embodied by Gibson, it seems to me an admirable basis for friendship: breezy, cheerful, supportive, undemonstrative - and shot through with deeper aspects, all the stronger for being unspoken.

Few things could be more cheering than a phone call from Gibson, made for no other reason that one's name had popped up in his thoughts or, quite possibly, prayers.

Today he'd be called a role model. I prefer to think of him as an old fashioned 'good example'.

And I think of Gibson, with gratitude, every time I see the new moon.

----

Special thanks to Julian Hamer for the picture of Gibson. Please check the link for an insight into Gibson's wartime career.

Son stroke

UK sports headlines have been dominated in recent weeks by the Lazarus-like return to top-level management of 1970s soccer hero Kevin Keegan (56).

The HB (who is to football as Queen Victoria was to hang-gliding) happens to have the same surname as the ever-bouffant KK.

He notes: 'I dropped off some items for dry cleaning today, giving my name when asked by the friendly assistant.

'Without looking up, she said: "So are you Kevin Keegan's dad?"

'When I had regained the power of speech, I gently informed her that Kevin is my junior by a mere twelve months.

'The poor woman was mortified - and we decided to agree that she must have been thinking of Kev as he was in his glory days, some thirty years ago.

'There cannot be any other explanation, can there?

'Don't all speak at once....'

Kenneth Williams

A letter from a complex, kind man....

In the early winter of 1980, unwell with asthma and a chest infection, I was obliged to take time off work. The duvet and Radio 4 were my solace.

I particularly enjoyed a programme of Victorian 'parlour poetry' presented by the actor Kenneth Williams and the veteran radio presenter David Davis.

Williams performed with brio, making the poems emerge as if stripped of ancient coats of varnish.

Davis read with glutinous relish, his voice the texture of a Hobnob dipped in sweet tea.

I was so taken with KW's contribution that I zipped off an appreciative postcard.

The letter shown above arrived within a few days:

Dear Rory, Delighted to receive your very encouraging letter today. Actually I was amazed that it wasn't ME reading WALRUS & CARPENTER in that broadcast, & to show you my version I shall send you a recording under separate cover. Hope you will find it an improvement on that other old farts rendering. Yours, Kenneth

Mr Williams was as good as his word. A cassette arrived a few days later. His reading of Walrus and Carpenter is indeed a gem - as are his idiosyncratic treatments of Christmas Day in the Workhouse, The Dong with a Luminous Nose, Hiawatha's Photographing - and much more.

It remains a treasured possession.

Beyond shameless

'So, Mr Gnome, was the shyness-corrective therapy successful?'

'Er, yes!'

Fossilised fishhooks

Comfort reading. We all need it from time to time.

And what could offer more comfortable pleasure than a dip into the schoolboy stories of Anthony Buckeridge?

The irrepressible Jennings and his bespectacled sidekick Darbishire are boarders at Linbury Court Preparatory School where day-to-day life oscillates, as it does for small boys, between joy ('wizard') and misery ('ozard', or, worse, 'ozard cubed').

J and D's adventures, to be honest, aren't very adventurous. This isn't Mallory Towers, let alone Hogwarts.

The two boys, always well-intentioned, get into 'scrapes' - usually to the intense annoyance of highly combustible schoolmaster Mr Wilkins ('I, I, I... corwumph!').

Matters are usually brought to resolution through the gentle intervention of Mr Wilkins' opposite number - Mr Carter, a teacher blessed with a wry turn of phrase and an innate understanding of the not-all-that-complex psychology of nine-year-old boys.

Anthony Buckeridge's skill is to find laugh-aloud comedy in the lives of boys who are basically kind, honest and truthful.

That Jennings and Darbishire are never cloying, dull or prim is a bit of triumph.