Hello there,
It's Mandy here.
Thanks for joining me this evening and welcome back to Ted the Shed,
My memoir about my dad's allotment.
We've reached October 2019 and it's rather a sad chapter tonight I'm afraid,
But one which you probably knew was coming.
It's called Last Legs.
But before I go ahead,
Please make yourself really comfortable.
Settle down into your chair or your bed.
Relax your hands,
Release your shoulders and soften your jaw.
That's really good.
Okay,
So if you're ready,
Then I'll begin.
Talking of the Lady of Shalott,
You may have been wondering how things stand these days between her and Harry.
Well,
In recent years they have been pretty low-key,
With the Lady's head perched chastely inside our shed and Harry consumed by the task of bringing up his daughter several plots away.
But visiting the plot in early autumn,
I realise that something wonderful has happened.
They have run away together.
This is particularly heartening for coming completely out of the blue.
To backtrack a little,
The Lady seemed to have accepted and even begun to enjoy life without a body,
Grinning from the corner shelf in her bijou nook by the river.
Dad's creosote was looking tired,
So one day I took the liberty of painting over it and the shed became a purple bower.
The shade was at once feminine and vaguely royal,
As befits a Lady.
I also installed a new window and a pink clematis to trail up over the roof.
The Lady became even more shed proud.
Every time I opened the door,
I fancied the interior looked more neat and orderly.
In between my visits,
The Lady,
I imagine,
Watched the comings and goings of allotment life.
These happened by night as well as by day.
The allotments suffered a rash of break-ins,
Though our shed always escaped.
The Lady watched with a sense of schadenfreude,
No doubt,
Other people's sheds being ransacked,
Their tools tossed about and their fruit stolen.
It was better than a soap opera.
I reported any news about Harry,
As of course the Lady couldn't see his plot directly from her window.
Harry's daughter has vanished,
I said one day.
He must have sent her off to boarding school.
They start them so early these days.
I brought news of former suitors too.
Ranking Roy's hair has come off and blown away.
He's bald as a coot.
The Lady smirked,
Safe in the knowledge that her flowing black bin bag locks were no longer exposed to the elements.
I noticed one day that something distasteful happened to hobby horse person's eyes.
Perhaps they were pecked out by a bird or perhaps they had washed off in the rain.
One way or another there were now no eyes for his smile to reach,
Even if it wanted to.
I spared the Lady that news,
Though I did tell her that his good looks were fading with age.
She seemed happy to be living life at one remove.
That's why I am so surprised to arrive at the plot this morning and find her shed door open,
The padlock burst off its fixing.
A further mystery,
With no arms nor even a body,
The Lady surely didn't have that much power busting strength.
I suspect Harry immediately.
I glance across to where he normally stands.
He is gone.
It is as I thought.
I notice now that shed doors on other plots are open too.
Allotmenteers are standing around scratching their heads.
And yes,
It is a puzzle.
Why didn't Harry go straight to the Lady's shed instead of going on the rampage?
It seems he wasn't confident which shed she lived in.
But then I suppose it had been two years since he last saw her,
Long enough to lose her address.
I'd have thought the purple paint was a dead giveaway,
But perhaps scarecrows are colourblind.
The farmer seems very upset by the couple's getaway.
He shouts,
If I could lay my hands on those devils,
I'd.
.
.
I blanch and turn away.
I check the inside of the Lady's bower.
Nothing seems to be missing.
Other plot holders say that some of their tools have been taken,
But minutes later they find them scattered on the ground.
The pair must have thought the tools would come in handy,
But then decided against it.
I conclude they've opted to travel light.
The line,
Everybody should run away once in their lifetime,
Comes to mind from an old film.
I have never run away myself,
But I can't help taking my hat off to those who have.
I imagine them living out their days in bliss together in a farmer's field somewhere in deepest,
Darkest North Yorkshire.
Good luck to them,
I say.
A month after the scarecrow lover's cheering escape comes the day I've been dreading.
Dad is taken ill with stomach pains again.
He stops eating and,
Less understandably,
Stops speaking,
Communicating only via sign language.
No one knows why,
Though in the past few weeks he has become so deaf that he now can't hear his own voice.
Can you hear me,
He has kept asking,
Refusing to believe us when we've said yes.
Entering his room one mellow morning,
I find him looking especially frail.
He gazes across at me,
Impassive,
And I'm reminded of primitive man peering out of a cave.
When I do the cup of tea mime,
However,
He gives me a weak thumbs up.
Re-entering his room with the tea,
I'm amazed to see that he has swung his legs out over the side of the bed.
I put my arm around him and support him as he sips.
He drinks the whole cup.
Despite this minor miracle,
I'm called into the manager's office on my way out and told that dad probably doesn't have much time left in this world.
Days rather than weeks,
She says.
I've been told this before,
Of course,
But how many miraculous recoveries can one man make?
I shed many tears and over the next few days Mr.
MS and I visit frequently.
Dad is now on a special mattress that inflates and deflates automatically to avoid pressure sores.
It lets out sudden hisses that make us jump.
Dad,
Back in bed now,
Seems unaware of it and of us.
Dad moves slowly and inexorably towards his end.
We've witnessed this process in other residents passing open bedroom doors to see them bed-bound,
Impossibly skeletal,
Yet breathing on.
It makes you wonder how much a human being can be reduced and yet still live.
One night we are sitting with dad when he suddenly sits up in bed.
When I move towards him in concern,
He takes both my hands and looks me right in the eye.
Then he falls back,
His attention going inwards again,
Returning,
I think,
To the pressing matter of dying.
I get the feeling he has just said goodbye.
We go home and sleep little.
Dad survives the night but the following morning looks even more frail if such a thing were possible.
I sit next to him and hold his hand and it seems to me that his breaths are growing farther and farther apart,
Like midnight waves in a lazy summer sea.
And then it happens.
He gives a surprised gasp and is still.
Despite knowing it was coming,
It is a tremendous shock.
I burst into tears.
He's gone,
I tell the carers,
Hovering at the door.
I think he's actually gone.
Kerfuffle follows as the carers elbow me aside to check his pulse,
Or lack of it,
And open the window,
Apparently to let his spirit out.
I don't remind them that this is dad we're dealing with,
So his spirit will depart in its own good time and not necessarily through the window,
Thank you very much.
Instead,
I think of all the things he loved,
Dogs,
Trees,
Django Reinhardt,
A good Rioja,
And wonder where those enthusiasms have gone now he is no longer around to feel them.
I call Mr.
Amass.
When he arrives,
The carers advise us that we may need counselling.
There will be no shame in it,
They say,
Not even for Mr.
Amass.
It is kindly meant,
So we take it on the chin.
Then they leave us in peace to wait for the doctor.
This is a blessing.
We are able to sit with dad in the hot,
Fetid little room that has become,
As Bones used to say to Captain Kirk,
Life,
Jim,
But not as we know it.
We gaze out across the courtyard at houses dad latterly insisted were the ones he'd looked out on as a young man working for the post office in Dursley,
Gloucestershire.
The bed goes on huffing and puffing in an unsettling manner.
In the care home kitchen,
Mr.
Amass makes us a cup of tea.
When he brings it in,
I well up.
How sad that it's only two cups,
Not three.
I could make him a cup too,
Says Mr.
Amass.
We decide not,
But note that sitting quietly drinking tea in dad's room is so similar to our recent routine,
It's as though he's still alive.
Should I do the crossword,
I ask.
It was another ritual.
I'd buy dad the paper,
Pass it over,
And he'd pull out the puzzle supplement and give it back to me.
I'd act delighted,
Except it wasn't really an act.
I decide against the crossword.
Instead,
I hold dad's hand,
Still warm.
One death reminds us of others.
Mr.
Amass and I talk about his parents' deaths,
Then my mum's.
When mum and dad first moved up north,
Dad became enchanted and irritated with the local greeting,
You're right love.
When mum was lying in her hospital bed in a coma,
He tried to bring her round by saying it loudly several times in a cod Yorkshire accent.
We didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
No greeting is going to bring dad round now though.
In a way,
It's just as well.
He'd had enough of life,
Or rather life as an infirm old man,
A state he found outrageous right to the end.
He seemed to think he should have been made exempt.
Perhaps he should have been.
We clock up a good couple of hours before the doctor arrives to certify the death.
Those hours mean everything.
In the following days,
There is plenty to do.
Dad's opinions pop into my head in his exact voice.
My first letter of condolence comes from local government.
Although they quote his national insurance number and first name correctly,
They get his surname completely wrong and refer to him as Mrs.
In my head,
He is incredulous.
Who are these idiots?
Can't they get anything right?
Every day,
He has something to say.
Look at that mountain of flesh,
He exclaims when I see someone overweight.
When someone makes a silly mistake,
He says he hasn't got much between the ears.
Screaming brats,
He says when children pipe up in coffee shops.
I don't know what to do with this voice.
I assume it's just a phase.
But my normal mild mannered self is terrified that one day his words are going to pop out of my mouth.
But if they do,
I hope people will forgive me.
I am my father's daughter after all.
To be continued.
