(Continued from PC 355)
Clutching my coffee I make my way over to the table where Sami and Lisa are sitting. Sami was expecting me and he’s got a coffee and a Brigadeiro; Lisa has a mug of Macha tea and a biscuit.
“Hi! Richard! You look well. Portugal OK was it?” asks Sami.
“Well, you know! Lucky to be able to live somewhere else for a while, indulge in different routines and rhythms … but good to be back! While I was away I read that Kevin Hollinrake, the Postal Affairs Minister, has offered compensation of £600,000 to ex sub-post masters like you. You going to accept this?”
“For some this isn’t enough, to compensate for lives being turned upside down, for time spent in prison, but personally I want to move on and so, yes, I am accepting this. I think that those who went to prison and had their reputation trashed should hold out for more, but personally I can’t continue to look backwards as my own future is today and tomorrow ……. with Lisa.” I notice Lisa smiles!
“I think that’s a good decision, Sami, but the British public needs to keep the pressure on to ensure those who were responsible for the cover-up at the Post Office are held to account. Not sure why I doubt what I’ve just said but ….! Incidentally I watched that docudrama called Partygate about the parties held at Boris Johnson’s Number Ten Downing Street during the Covid lockdown periods ……”
“We did too …..”
“So you understand the claim that those involved in the No 10 parties were fined £50 and those in other areas of the country partying during lockdown were fined thousands of pounds? Do you think it’s true? If so you understand my scepticism about calling the Post Office management to account?”
“Mmmm. One rule for one and another for others!” Sami looks up and around at the renovated café, abuzz with people and conversations. “So what do you think of the renewed Hope? Think Duncan’s done a great job. Did you read the piece Lisa wrote for The Argus about it, praising how the regulars came together to get the work done?”
“No! I missed that. Lisa, could you email it to me please? Love to read that! In Portugal I rely on my digital subscription for The Times to get my news, but I don’t have one for The Argus. I sensed I really missed out being away but I have offered Duncan a big triptych to go on the wall above us!”
“I’ll look forward to seeing that, Richard” says Lisa. “While you were away did you see that Sugarman, Sixto Rodriguez, had died?”
“Yes, we did. We’d never heard of him until we watched that documentary ‘Searching For Sugarman’. Absolutely lovely story of his career being resurrected by South African fans decades after he’d given up in Detroit.
“We bought his CD, ‘Searching for Sugarman’ and simply love some of his lyrics, (See PC 283), particularly those in his song ‘Cause’: ‘Cause I lost my job two weeks before Christmas, And I talked to Jesus at the sewer, And the Pope said it was none of his God-damned business, While the rain drank champagne.’?”
“Yes! Yes! And then ‘So I set sail in a teardrop and escaped beneath the door sill’. Somehow I can visualise that! He rather summed up his life with this: “My story wasn’t rags to riches, it was rags to rags and I’m glad about that. Where other people have lived in an artificial world, I feel I’ve lived in the real world. And nothing beats reality” Despite his later success he still lived in the same house in Detroit he’d bought for $50 in 1976 and never felt he needed a car or computer!”
“Talking of those whose lives have ended, you wrote one of your postcards about that television series ‘Seven Up’ (PC 213 January 2021). You probably missed it but Nicholas Hitchon, a nuclear physicist and one of the eleven kids who found fame in that series, died of throat cancer aged 65.”
“That’s sad Sami; too young an age to die. While I was researching that postcard, I read that the assumption driving the episodes was that the social class into which the children are born would create obvious winners and losers. In fact they have showed that achievement, fortune and contentment are influenced by more fundamental things than class. They showed that our lives unfold through both circumstance and our own choices and it’s up to us what we make of them. We all have a choice, whether you take the road less travelled or not!! Using tobacco, in any form, and excessive alcohol consumption, both of which I was guilty of, are the two greatest risk factors for developing throat cancer. His death reminded me of my cousin Susie Mayhew, drinking and smoking her way to an early grave aged 53.
And by the way! We bought some little tins of good Olive Oil in Portugal and, knowing how expensive it’s predicted to become, thought we could give some as a gift. Here’s yours!”
“That’s lovely, thank you!” says Lisa.
I give a can to Mo with a ‘must catch up on my next visit’ comment and walk up to the counter to give Josh and Libby some oil. Libby starts reaching for her iPad, as she’d promised to show me some photographs from Susie in Tasmania.
“Libby, I’m really sorry but I have to dash. Will definitely find some time next week as I am dying to see photos from Tassie!”
…… and with a quick look at Teresa’s counter, the new coffee machine and the tables full of animated people, I head for the door. Good to be back.
Richard 13th October 2023
Hove
PS I remember Nicholas saying “I am still the same little kid (Ed: ‘as I was, aged 7’), really. Probably all of us are.”
postcards 