A Somerset Lad

The lockdown threatens much that was familiar, much that people held dear. The closure of businesses has a domino effect. Closed doors means no potential to sell and no income from selling. No potential to sell and no income from selling mean no need for advertising and no budget with which to pay for it. No need for advertising and no budget with which to pay for it mean severe reductions in the income of local newspapers. Local newspapers  have already suffered a substantial reduction in their circulation because many people who bought copies have been told to stay at home. In the midst of the printed newspaper industry’s struggle for survival against the free online news platforms, the lockdown has come as a body blow.

When a local newspaper closes, the local people lose something of themselves. The Western Gazette was the newspaper that described the world of my childhood and youth. As with many newspapers, its title is more expansive than the community it represents. Given its coverage of the affairs of Yeovil and south Somerset, the description of the area as “western” would have seemed odd to anyone living in Devon and Cornwall. Our home village is closer to London than to Saint Ives, and we are at the western side of the area in which the paper circulates.

When I was young, the Western Gazette had the news that really mattered. The stories were of local events featuring names that were recognizable. The newspaper covered the stuff of village life, particularly the funerals. The obituary reports would have a brief note on the deceased and then a list of those who were present at the funeral service. A reporter with a notebook would stand at the church gate taking everyone’s names; it was important not to be missed out, and, if present by oneself, to be sure to tell the reporter the names of family members one represented.

A strong local identity is what gives a newspaper like the Western Gazette its unique character. The Western Gazette’s coverage and circulation are specific. To the north, there is the Central Somerset Gazette and to the west there is the Somerset County Gazette. . Unlike a local radio station, whose boundaries of listenership are vague, and definitely unlike a website, which is without any geographical bounds of readership, local newspapers help define communities, help those communities express themselves. Local newspapers tell stories of local people and without local stories communities quickly lose identity.

“Van der Valk is returning,” messaged my youngest sister.

“Why do I remember Van der Valk?” asked my middle sister, “I can’t have been very old.”

“You were eight,” I replied. “But you used to constantly sing a song that used the theme tune.”

The song was And you smiled sung by Matt Monro. In 1972, as a twelve year old, I would have turned it off immediately, it had seemed wrong that the theme tune should have become associated with words I would have described as “soppy.”

The tune was Eye Level, played by the Simon Park Orchestra; it was a record that sold over a million copies and topped the British charts for four weeks, but I was not interested in its place in the charts, the tune for me meant the television detective series Van der Valk.

TV police series were a passion in childhood days, the opening bars of the theme music of Z Cars still recall the devoted attention paid to each episode.  Van der Valk, although, was different, it was set in Amsterdam: it had characters whose names were exotic; it had scenes from a city that made 1970s England look dull and drab; it had criminals altogether more sophisticated than those who appeared in Z Cars, Softly, Softly or Dixon of Dock Green.

Of course, Van der Valk was a British detective series set in Holland. Amsterdam created the possibility of story lines, particularly those involving international crime, that would have been less credible in an English city. Commisaris Piet van der Valk might have had a Dutch rank and name, but he was played by English actor Barry Foster. Whatever the realities, though, the  programme was one  to discuss with school friends the following day.

Almost twenty years after its first appearances, in 1972-73, Van der Valk enjoyed a revival in 1991-92, during which time Piet van der Valk had been joined in the Amsterdam police force by his son Wim. The viewing seemed as compelling as it had been two decades previously, although perhaps there was more than a tinge of sentimentality in watching a programme that had been so well known in more youthful days.

Two of us watched the 1990s Van der Valk, Michael had been born in 1990 and I would sit with him beside me as the stories unfolded. “Watch Commisaris van der Valk, Mikey, you can learn stuff from him.”

Two decades on and Van der Valk’s return is awaited with a great sense of anticipation.

There was always a very sharp pair of scissors in the house, thin-bladed and a dull metallic colour, they were easily distinguished from the sort of scissors children might use for cutting paper, cardboard and miscellaneous other items. Sometimes, there was the temptation to use the sharp scissors, but with that omniscience that seems to come with being a mother, my mother seemed always to know if her scissors had been used.

A hairdresser by profession, the scissors were those she used for cutting hair and even a child could understand that hair could not be cut well if the blades had been blunted by their use in the latest attempt at making models of fortresses.

The blades moved at a rapid speed when she was cutting hair, there was a swift, business-like approach. “Please tip your head forward,” needed to be constantly repeated as there were many things to distract a boy from getting a haircut.

During teenage years spent at school on Dartmoor, dealing with my asthma, my mother would always cut my hair before the beginning of term. This was never sufficient to satisfy the housemaster who would insist that I had it cut again by the school barber.

The school barber would arrive at nine o’clock in the morning, and work through the day, chiefly focused on the music playing on his transistor radio. He would complete sixty haircuts in a day. One style fits all seemed to be his philosophy as we emerged with the uniform pudding bowl haircuts. (Years later, a past pupil said that the man wasn’t a qualified barber at all, which perhaps explained how he could spend whole days away from his shop).

Eighty-three next week, my mother would still give me a haircut if asked, but the lockdown has meant I cannot call (and if there were not a lockdown, I could go to the barber).

Not having had a haircut for eight weeks, the lockdown beginning just as I would normally have gone for the monthly “Number Three on the back and sides, short on top,” there was only one alternative to the irritating untidiness – a pair of clippers.

At £17.99 in Boot’s, they were only £6 more than a haircut, but the result makes it clear why barbers remain in business. The hair is a uniform length, better than the school barber, but not carefully layered and certainly not styled. What it needs is an expert with a sharp pair of scissors.