I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [93]
My relationship with her went way back, although we weren’t close right from day one. During those long hard months in the womb, she’d been less my mother and more my house. I didn’t interact with her, I just lived inside her. And then when I’d made good my escape from her cervix (see Chapter One) she’d become less my mum and more my canteen. Although her teats weren’t much of a chef – it was milk every day for goodness sake!
But it was as the years rolled on, as I began to crawl, walk and then express myself through dance, that things began to blossom. She was my friend, my cheerleader, my protector-in-chief. And we remained close until the onset of my difficult adolescent years. I remember we entered choppy waters pretty much as soon as my balls dropped. By the time I was 16 our relationship had broken down to such an extent that I’d rarely even let her do my blackheads.
Yet when I had asserted my independence and emerged from my mum’s considerable shadow (I mean this metaphorically, although she was fat – the poor woman looked like someone had blown her up with a bike pump),215 our relationship began to improve.
In my BBC days no one was more proud of my success. She would absolutely insist on watching Knowing Me Knowing You if she was at home when it was on. It was different when I returned to radio. She didn’t listen to Norfolk Nights (on too late), Up With the Partridge (on too early) or Mid-Morning Matters (dead), but it didn’t matter. I knew she only ever wanted the best for me. And I’m sure the same is true today. If there’s a radio in heaven I’m sure she’ll be up there listening, providing my show doesn’t clash with Today, Start the Week or The Archers, which is what God would listen to.
Sadly, I can’t say the same for Father, who is probably in a different place.216
To preserve her dignity I’d rather not say what she died from, but suffice to say the family was forced to ask some rather uncomfortable questions about what she used to get up to in her spare time. When they’d finally brought her body back from Hull (don’t ask) and the coroner had concluded his post-mortem (long story), we were free to arrange the kind of funeral we knew she would have wanted, minus the open casket (believe me, you don’t want to know).
With Dad in no fit state to do anything, I agreed to say a few words at the service. I’d felt absolutely fine in the hearse. In fact I’d enjoyed the ride. It was a mint-condition Daimler Lauderlette Vanden Plas with slide-out occasional seats, allowing generous room for up to five mourners who would easily drown out the hushed whisper of the smooth straight-six engine. I would have loved to have seen what kind of speed it could have reached on the open road, but the undertaker was not to be persuaded. (And quite right too.) All in all, though, very nice. But as soon as I got into the church it all went wrong. I went to pieces like a dropped jigsaw.
After a few minutes of being cuddled by Great Aunt Susie, we’d managed to reduce my crying down to a manageable sob. Then it was time to give the speech. I took a deep breath, gritted (grat?) my teeth and just spoke from the heart.
‘I stand before you all today to talk about a woman I can describe in just two words: my Mummy.’
But when I started recounting how she used to let me lick the spoon when she was making cakes or gravy, it all got too much. I became so grief-stricken I barely knew what I was saying. For a while I thought I was broadcasting. Uncle Pete said that at one point I tried to introduce ‘Cool for Cats’ by Squeeze.
I can’t recall much about the wake either. To be honest I was in a bit of a daze. I remember eating a great many chicken drumsticks and someone coming up to me and telling me I mustn’t forget to have some fibre too. He said the last thing I wanted was to be bereaved and bunged up. And he was right. To this day that’s advice I always pass on to mourners who I see failing to eat sufficient roughage