Uncle Ron

I’m not making much progress in my attempt at tidying/decluttering, but I do have a recycle/charity shop pile which is growing, and we had to buy some more bin bags for un-recyclables (even some of those were hard to part with!) It’s not just actual items such as books, ornaments, clothes, but it’s the odd things I’ve hung onto – bottle tops from gifts of beer, an addressed envelope in a particular person’s handwriting, a tiny fabric cat I bought at a jumble sale when I was about six… those sort of things which I’m still reluctant to let go.

Here is another example of a tiny thing, a torn off piece of paper, maybe from the edge of a newspaper, with a signature in biro racing across it. There is no provenance to it apart from my knowledge, nothing to prove that the man who wrote it, probably in the early 1960’s, was indeed Ronnie Barker. We knew him as Uncle Ron – not our uncle, but that of our school friend Jane. We also knew him from his performances on the radio in such comedies as ‘The Navy Lark’ where he played numerous rõles including Able-Seaman Johnson. Of course he went on to become one of the most famous, well-loved and truly hilarious comic actors, in TV series such as ‘The Two Ronnies’, ‘Porridge’, and ‘Open All Hours’. You only have to have a quick glance at his Wikipedia page to his range and longevity as an actor.

He was born in Bedford – which is not far from where we lived in Cambridge, in 1929, although his family moved to Crawley in Oxfordshire when he was four.  He always enjoyed acting, and wanted to be an actor and eventually joined the Manchester Repertory Company, and then to the Oxford Playhouse in 1951. His first radio performance was in 1956, and before long he became Able-Seaman Johnson and from there to a long and successful, very successful career on TV. He decided to retire from acting at “the height of his fame”, and at the age of fifty-eight. He did make occasional appearances on various occasions, but his health was declining. He died in 2005.

So I have Uncle Ron’s autograph on this scrap of paper, but there’s no way to verify  its authenticity and would anyone want it? Obviously not, so it might as well go in the paper recycling… so why don’t I just chuck it in the bin? Because…

I am going downstairs now and I am going to take a photo then throw it away! 😀