At the end of most old piers there would be an even older theatre where some of our favourite comedians, singers and novelty acts performed every summer. The gurgle of waves against the wooden pillars joined the silence when the theatre finally closed down as all of them did ... eventually. But, of course, even in their heyday, winters were not a time to be at the end of the pier. The waves grew noisier, even outblasting the band’s accompaniment of the Bachelors or the King Brothers or Edmund Hockeridge or Dickie Valentine or Marion Ryan or Dorothy Squires... Today, they were but memories. Yet, who have we here, walking towards the end of the pier, as the snowflakes crowd in like the ghosts of killer bees? It is short enough to be Charlie Drake, but dressed more like Hylda Baker who is followed lugubriously by a tall man called Cynthia, Hylda’s stooge. “Be soooon, I said, be soooon...”. “Hello, my darlings.” “HHHHancock’s Half Hour.” There is nobody there at all. No, that’s a lie. I am there, unseen, unfollowed, only made visible by the human-shaped shape within the snowstorm. I start singing aloud to prove to myself that I am there at all. I wonder who I was all those years before. Was I famous? Did I get cameo parts on TV like the Arthur Haynes Show. Was I – God forbid! – Mr Pastry? No, I suddenly started stamping up and down the boardwalk to blot out the surging tides beneath. I start shouting but the snow fills my mouth. I dance, I sway and, even at my age, I somersault and leapfrog others of my kind. And they leapfrog me. Suddenly, the derelict theatre lights up – fleetingly – and we follow each other into the foyer and the well-remembered auditorium, now tiered with hard shadows instead of stalls. Tommy Cooper stands in the upper circle, uncharacteristically serious, sad-looking, silent, but still wearing his red fez. Or is it Tommy Trinder pretending to be someone he is not? I take off my Norman Wisdom cap - sodden with melting snow - and am the first to clamber on the rickety, creaking stage. I am determined to bring the house down. “Why am I such a fool?” I shout at the stacked shades before me. And the voice echoes back: “Because you are not only a has-been but you always were.” But to have been is better than never to have been at all. I smile. Everyone should visit their own end-of-the-pier at least once in their life. Alma Cogan sits in a box watching me. But now I have gone. Not back into the snow. But into the dark cold skies of my new beginning. Nobody claps. Not even Alma.
Written yesterday as a speed-witing exercise at the Clacton Writer's Group and first published here.
