A Somerset Lad

The drivetime news was so annoying that I put a CD on to play. The Killers – I saw them in concert in June and the music conjured memories of summer days.

The Killers have become bracketed in my memory with Paul Selby, an English lecturer at Strode College who faced the task of teaching English Literature to boorsih rustics like myself.

Paul Selby strove to teach us to see the world in a way other than in the way of the trivial and the material culture of the late 1970s, to look for deeper meanings, to search for the things which were timeless.

During one class he pondered dancing, feeling that dancing of the ballroom variety was a complete negation of the meaning with which dancing was imbued in traditional societies. Dance to mark the passing of the seasons, the fading and the return of the light, the fertility of the earth and human beings, had a significance far deeper than tangos and foxtrots.

I sang along with the refrain of Human, a 2008 song by The Killers, which asks,

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I’m on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Brandon Flowers and his fellow song writers recognised the capacity of dance to lift people out of their ordinary reality, to create a state of mind that is other than the everyday and the commonplace.

Dance is about something deeper than the superficial and trivial silliness of programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing. Considering dance on the basis of whether steps were together and whether moves are co-ordinated is to consider it on the basis of its mechanics.  It is like considering a painting on the basis of how paints were applied and what canvas was used. Ballroom dancing is like the work of a local art club where there is so much emphasis on method that no-one stops to ask about meaning. How often do the television judges ponder whether the steps they think are so important actually express any existential thought?

Oddly, while line dancing might seem the ultimate move away from the forms of traditional dance,when one watches it there is a sense of both the person’s connection with the music and transcendence of themselves, and there is also a sense of the solidarity of the individual with all those around.  It is dancing for its own sake, without demand for formal precision, but with a strong bond of community.

Are we human or are we dancer? To be dancer means to be human in a different way.

What age would he have been forty years ago?

There is a photograph of Dr Michael Richards in Wetlands, Patrick Sutherland and Adam Nicolson’s 1986 book on life in the Somerset levels. Already his tight curls seemed more grey than dark. Tweed jacket, flannels, collar and tie, he was the embodiment of reassurance, the epitome of what a country doctor should be.

In the photograph, he is holding his surgery in the front parlour of our village pub, The King’s Head.

There was no bus service from our village and if you had no car, there was no way of getting to the surgery in Langport, our local small town, so once a week the doctor would come to the village to hold a surgery.

For someone who grew up in the village, a doctor who came and conducted a medical surgery in the pub was worthy of remembrance.

It is hard to imagine in the days of practice managers, and ‘on call’ services, that any doctor would consider a  pub a proper place for medical practice.  I have no doubt that medical care is best provided in appropriate facilities, but the Wednesday afternoon surgeries in the village did say something about regard for individuals.

Moving to Ireland in 1983, I missed the sort of care provided by Dr Richards and his colleagues in Langport Surgery. There were no longer the familiar faces in the waiting room, no longer doctors who might care for three generations.

It was a day in late October 1998 that I had cause to return to Langport Surgery. A night ferry crossing from Belfast to Liverpool had contended with 65 knot winds and I had been violently seasick, so sick that acid from my stomach had burned my throat.

The ever genial Dr Richards had smiled sympathetically and prescribed a large bottle of Gaviscon. ‘Don’t I know you?’ he had asked.

‘Perhaps,’ I replied, ‘I was a patient here when I was young. I was very asthmatic.’

Memories of him are of a man who was always calm, patient, solicitous, a manwho represented the National Health Service at its best.

Talking to my mother this evening, she described going to get her Covid booster vaccination yesterday.

‘I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to stand very long. Sarah had taken the wheelchair out of the car for me to sit in when a volunteer appeared to push it. The volunteers were retired staff. Do you know who pushed my chair? Dr Richards!’

Dr Richards must be well into his seventies, if not more. There was a moment of delight in hearing the best of doctors was still active.

The world’s end was flagged up by the departure of the dolphins in Douglas Adams’ So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. The dolphins disappear from planet, leaving no more than a note to humanity thanking it for the fish received over the years.  No-one noticed the departure, no-one saw it as an omen of trouble until it was too late.

In Doctor Who, it was not the dolphins that disappeared, but the bumble bees, foreshadowing the coming of the Darkness but not noticed until the moment when there might have been time for reflection was past.

Those who remember Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy may remember the demolition of the Earth to make way for a new road.

”People of Earth, your attention please,” a voice said, and it was wonderful. Wonderful perfect quadrophonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep.

”This is Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz of the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council,” the voice continued. ”As you will no doubt be aware, the plans for development of the outlying regions of the Galaxy require the building of a hyperspatial express route through your star system, and regrettably your planet is one of those scheduled for demolition. The process will take slightly lessthat two of your Earth minutes. Thank you.”

The PA died away.

Uncomprehending terror settled on the watching people of Earth. The terror moved slowly through the gathered crowds as if they were iron fillings on a sheet of board and a magnet was moving beneath them. Panic sprouted again, desperate fleeing panic, but there was nowhere to flee to.

Observing this, the Vogons turned on their PA again. It said:

”There’s no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department on Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now.”

The PA fell silent again and its echo drifted off across the land. The huge ships turned slowly in the sky with easy power. On the underside of each a hatchway opened, an empty black space.

By this time somebody somewhere must have manned a radio transmitter, located a wavelength and broadcasted a message back to the Vogon ships, to plead on behalf of the planet. Nobody ever heard what they said, they only heard the reply. The PA slammed back into life again. The voice was annoyed. It said:

”What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? For heaven’s sake mankind, it’s only four light years away you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs that’s your own lookout.

The story of the deflection of an asteroid by NASA seemed the sort of incident that could have come from an Adams’ plot.

Somewhere out in deep space, a planet could be hit by an asteroid that would have passed by harmlessly if it had not been deflected by a probe from Earth.