If you weren't able to see my Pensioners Platform column in the July-August 2014 edition of the Torbay Times, here it is. Do you remember your parents telling you "sticks and stones may break your bones, but names can never hurt you"? So do I.
THROUGHOUT my
schooldays in the 1950s and early 1960s, I was always very tall for my age and
that appeared to others to contradict my surname of Lowe. Needless to say, my
class mates took full advantage of this anomaly and dubbed me with a number of
nicknames that I didn’t much care for. The least tormenting of them was
“Chinaman” … lowe-high, high-lowe. Get it? I shall resist the temptation of
revealing the other, rather more spiteful, alternatives. However, whenever I
complained to my parents about the name-calling, their stock answer was always,
“Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names can never hurt you”.
1957 ~ middle row fourth from right, towering above most of my class mates
With the benefit of
hindsight, I can see how true that old maxim was … and still is. However,
today’s obsession with political correctness seems to take a dim view of
name-calling and, in doing so, I believe it is undermining a fundamental principle
of democracy. That principle is freedom of speech, not to mention the harmless
humour that sometimes accompanies it.
As a result, we seem to
be losing the ability to laugh at ourselves: something the English people are
renowned for. So, in an effort to reverse that trend, I’m going to demonstrate
how easy it is to laugh at oneself, by way a very recent example. You may have
heard about my tussle with the PC thought police after I featured the original
1932 recording by Ambrose & His Orchestra of ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’
on my April 27 Sunday evening BBC radio show. Unbeknown to me, and despite
having heard that song many hundreds of times over the years, the lyrics in
that particular recording include the N-word.
Yes, it was a silly
mistake for me to make but, then, infallibility has never been one of my strong
points. That said, there’s a funny side to this story, and I’m going to share
it with you here. When I began to produce the play list for that April 27
programme, I came across a request from a lady in Cornwall who asked me to include
a recording for her husband’s 80th birthday, and she specified a
1930s track by Frank Crumit entitled ‘Abdul Abulbul Amir’. Apparently, the
lady’s husband remembers singing that song with his school chums during the
1930s.
Indeed, I was familiar
with the Frank Crumit recording in question, as I’d featured it on-air before, but
– given today’s politically correct climate – I felt a little uncomfortable
with the title. After all, a couple of years ago, I was forbidden to play
George Formby’s recording of ‘Mister Wu’s a Window Cleaner Now’. So, with that
George Formby experience in mind, I decided to look-up the lyrics of ‘Abdul
Abulbul Amir’ on the internet. Sure enough, there were a couple of lines that
looked a bit dodgy to me. I, therefore, referred the matter up to my BBC boss
and he agreed with my concerns. “Don’t play it,” he replied. “Find an
alternative.”
So, there I was, sat in
my study at home, thinking out loud, “Okay, I need to find a humorous 1930s
recording that the gentleman in Cornwall may also have sung with his classmates
way back then. I know! I’ll settle for safety and play ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat
On’ instead. Sorted!” I exclaimed triumphantly. How wrong I was.
A gift made by a listener "The Sun Has Got His Hat On"
Looking back, I can see
the funny side of the episode, and I laugh at myself each time the recollection
pops into my head. And here’s why: by feeling uncomfortable with ‘Abdul Abulbul
Amir’ I managed to identify and steer clear of what I perceived to be a
potential politically incorrect trap, only to fall into an even bigger politically
incorrect trap of my own making by deciding, instead, to feature ‘The Sun Has
Got His Hat On’. A senior moment par excellence you might say. True, but it also
had its amusing angle, and I’m happy to join-in the resulting laughter at my
own expense.
Talking of which, I’m going to
finish-off this month’s column with some more self-deprecating seniors humour. “I
have a wonderful make-up crew. They’re the same people who are restoring the
Statue of Liberty” (Bob Hope). “Old age is not for sissies” (Bette Davis).
“Inside every 70 year old, is a 35 year old asking ‘What happened?’” (Ann
Landers). And finally, “You’re over the hill when your back goes out more than
you do” (anonymous).
