I should have been very sad this week but I’m not, even
though a dear friend and comrade and a fellow cancer survivor, died. Dolly
Schaer was in her 80’s, a feisty, fighting, fantastic sister in arms. She had
been diagnosed just after I broke my ankle and was operated on a couple of
months later. It was sudden – I thought she’d get a couple of years at least. She
fought a good fight.
Saturday was the annual London remembrance meeting organised
by the International Brigades Association. It will be the first ever that she
missed – she was an important part of it from the start– her father had fought
for the Spanish Republic as a member of the International Brigades. She wasn’t
going to let the world forget.
Dolly had been a teacher and a headmistress. Through her
working life she fought hard for disadvantaged youngsters in West London. She loved
modern jazz – a regular at Ronnie Scotts. We had a lot in common apart from
politics.
Probably because of her job, she always looked on me with
that stern, disapproving eye of the long suffering teacher spotting trouble at
the back of the class. I was always the one in trouble, although I never did
anything wrong. I’ve kept that through life.
I was at a meeting with her a couple of months ago. I said
something outrageous and then had a huge fit of the giggles. Dolly told me off
in a kindly way.
I’m really glad that this time I told her that I was
determined to enjoy every minute, especially the bad minutes. I hope she took
the hint – I think she did.
Anyway, yesterday I spent the afternoon being told off by
Dolly. I had a dumb moment – rather like the technicians at the Chernobyl
Nuclear Power station who thought it would be a good idea to see what happened
if they shut it down, unexpectedly and without telling anyone. Doh!
We had an outside leaking tap which for very good reasons I’d
put off fixing. I can’t explain why but I tried to reduce the dripping by
undoing and tightening it one last time – the occasional drips turned into an
uncontrollable flood. It was 5pm on a Sunday, shops shut, plumbers on triple time,
me not feeling so great.
Just then my sister rang from the other side of the world and
probably thought I was strangely distracted, distant even. I was just listening
to the water flow.
I turned the water off, collected my WD40, PTFE tape and Vaseline
(sounds like the makings of an interesting weekend) and undid it all. Hottest
day of the year, puffing, blowing, sweating, swearing – I think it had been
there for 50 years. The washer wouldn’t come off, and when it did I felt like
an archaeologist opening an ancient tomb, it all came apart in my hands. It was
imperial not metric. All I needed was for the thread to peel off the inside of
the tap. I’m scrabbling about dark places as the water went on flowing.
All the way through I could feel Dolly’s disapproving gaze on
me, until amazingly, I found a washer that fitted.
When I finished, by accident, I put BBC Radio 2 on just as they
played three Kirsty MaColl records in a row. I often saw her father – Ewen MaColl
– playing at the Singers Club. Folk music, was not my thing at all, but he was
political too and I was always attracted by a rebel song.
‘New
England’ – she made this Billy Bragg number a hit by covering it before
anyone had ever heard of him – it came out when I was working in a record shop.
‘There’s a guy
works down the chip shop swears he’s Elvis, but he’s a liar and I’m not sure
about you’ – the title says it all really.
I started dancing to the latin rhythyms of ‘In these shoes’ a beautiful, funny song
about growing up and not growing up.
And that’s how I ended up dancing with Dolly in the kitchen.
Neil Harris
(a don’t stop till you drop production)
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