NOT SUCH LIGHT RELIEF AFTER ALL..

Having ploughed my way doggedly through Stieg Larsson`s magnificent Millenium Trilogy, I thought I deserved a little light relief, so I bought a copy of Pam Ayres` memoir, `The Necessary Aptitude.`   I have long enjoyed her poems and the engaging delivery with her broad Berkshire accent and I thought it would be interesting to explore her memoir of the years since she was born in the Berkshire village (I think it might be in Oxfordshire now) of Stanford in the Vale.   The Vale is, of course, the Vale of the White Horse, named for the mysterious figure carved on White Horse Hill above Uffington all those centuries ago.

I discovered some things that struck chords with me.  My late mother was born in a small village just outside Swindon and, although she had the good sense to escape from there in her teens, wherever she went afterwards she never lost that same lyrical, sing-song, countryside accent that Pam Ayres has made acceptable, even enviable. 

There are references in Pam`s book to places I know well - as well as the White Horse country, there`s Modbury in Devon, deep in the South Hams, with the Exeter Inn, the steep high street and the first community to impose a total ban on plastic carrier bags.   Then Paderborn in Germany, where all of 50 years ago today I was stationed  seeing out my 731 days of National Service.   But also the memories of childhood in a small rural village in an age before health and safety was even thought of. 

But as I read on it soon became clear that Pam Ayres was - and still is - more than a bit special.   There is a resourcefulness, a willingness to take risks, a strong, adventurous and courageous character which refuses to take no for an answer.   But there is also the other side - that of love and loyalty to family and friends and a deep, deep pride, appreciation and affection for her roots where simple pleasures were thought of as riches  at a time when everyone knew the boundaries.   But it was a determination to extend those boundaries both of geography and of intellect that gave rise to an eventful and varied career that was to provide the backdrop for her acute and perceptive observations of life.

So don`t be influenced by the `persona` you might have seen on television or in theatres around the globe, for underneath that veneer of cheery bumpkinness, of innocence abroad, there lies a wealth of experience, knowledge and perception that find voice in her poems.

And as for the poems themselves, whilst the first impression they may give is of mischievous humour and tongue-in-cheek devilment, what they actually do is say many of the things that we ourselves are unwilling or just  too frightened to admit to.   Here`s a good example:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4oydSZTAns

This is what Roger Lewis had to say when he began his critique of Pam`s recently published memoir :   `When I say that Pam Ayres ought to be the Oxford Professor of Poetry, even the Poet Laureate, I am not being facetious.

Those who thinks she writes doggerel need to think twice. Like Victoria Wood, or the late Sir John Betjeman, Ayres uses simple verse forms - comic ballads or folk song idioms - to make poignant observations about tiresome husbands, gossiping wives, false teeth or battery hens.   I find her work sweet and sour, gentle and sad, and often very moving in its wistful way. Above all, Pam Ayres is comprehensible.`

I agree with all that and, having found out so much more about the national treasure that she has become, it`s clear that the light relief I had in mind when I turned from Lisbeth Salander to Pam Ayres  has turned out to be so much more fulfilling and rewarding.   I suspect many people, myself included, couldn`t tell you the name of the Poet Laureate, but they would if Pam Ayres had got the job.   And poetry would have been so much the richer.