But this is me. Would ninety years of grief, disappointment,
rejection, ignorance, self-condemnation – however witty – add up to anything
other than a failed life? Heck, I’ve lived to ninety and that’s some kind of
achievement. And along the way lump sums
of money have dropped into my lap.
Obviously I need a fresh angle. What about: How often have I
been lucky? Mind you, luck demands a jot of qualification. It must be
distinguished from rewards I’ve earned. Otherwise the work ethic becomes a
bucket-load of shit.
▓▓ For one thing, VR (Veronica, my wife) has been the
strongest influence on what I’ve become. We met on a blind-date foursome in
London. She looked gorgeous - as others will testify - whereas I was only three
months into a desperately loveless emigration from the West Riding of Yorkshire,
suffering an adolescence which seemed to stretch out into middle age. Do such
meetings qualify as good luck? Our shared interests and tendencies later had
the inevitability of two jigsaw pieces but even after 65 years I find it
impossible to claim I “earned” VR.
▓▓ The RAF forced me into an understanding of the theory,
practice and application of electronics. Not to any great depth y’unnerstand
but in the same way a 600-page scholarly biography of Rembrandt might hint at
why he’s the world’s greatest oil painter. Post National Service I’ve dipped
continuously and enthusiastically into sources of science info of which I
understand about 7%. Not much, you say. But much more than the international
average.
▓▓ A horror that became a benison. Pursuing a larger salary,
and for no other reason, I chose to become editor of two highly specialised
magazines whose content I only dimly understood. Quickly I realised both were
en route to financial extinction. Trying to escape I applied for a variety of
jobs, most quite menial, but was rejected mainly because I was in my late
forties and potential employers worried about the pay I would expect. Months
passed and my terror grew.
Then, out of the blue, my ultimate boss, whom I’d always
seen as a managerial dimwit, offered me the editorship of a magazine devoted to
a subject most of my previous journalistic life had prepared me for. And for
which I subsequently enjoyed my greatest professional triumphs.
What strange deity had taken charge...?
▓▓ ...That deity reappeared eleven years later. My magazine was
sold and my old employer thought I deserved compensation for losing a position
which (secretly) I would have paid to occupy. More miraculously, I didn’t even
lose the job and merely transferred to the new owner. The cheque was a biggie
and was augmented by the receipt of a pension which started the day I left the
previous owner.
▓▓ And the deity reappeared yet again on my retirement. My
newish employer celebrated my departure with a 1945 bottle of burgundy priced
at £546 ($714). Still a personal record.
A note en passant. Perhaps
the three events above were “earned” rather than the outcome of pure luck. But their
unexpectedness seemed more like chance than the daily grind.
▓▓ Finally... I only took up poetry comparatively recently.
A year or two later, on an occasion unlikely ever again to be duplicated, I had
a poem published.
▓▓ Finally plus… Is living to be ninety lucky?
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