Thank you, Uncle Mort.

I found Janet Baker on YouTube! To listen to her wonderful voice before today, I had to go down to the girls apartment and play my vinyl on the old record player, but no more...someone has uploaded a series of videos of her singing Berlioz, and a search found others; Schubert songs and various arias. I don't know any other voice that is quite like her mezzo, and I don't know why I find it so moving to listen to. Maybe because I can't sing. I'll correct that; I can sing, but nobody would want to listen. I fit comfortably in her range, as did my mother before me, but whereas my mother and her sisters all had good voices, I sound like the proverbial "cinder caught under the door".

Sunday morning, as usual, saw me ironing and listening to the radio. For a change, I abandoned R4, and tuned into R7, and listened to Uncle Mort's South Country, read by Christian Rodska. I hadn't heard this before, only knowing the Uncle Mort and Carter Brandon characters from the 70's television comedy series "I Didn't Know You Cared". Bossman used to watch this in preference to Last of the Summer Wine, and Uncle Stavely's catch phrase; "I 'eard that, Pardon" is still in daily use in this household, especially when someone tries to disassociate themselves from a quiet trump....Uncle Stavely wasn't a main character by any means, but his image; a deaf old man dressed in an army greatcoat, slumped in an armchair, with a gasmask box containing his best friend's ashes around his neck, is the one that stands out in my mind. The other memory is vocal; Liz Smith as Mrs Brandon shouting "Carter!". I have vague memories of her wearing outrageous hats, and in search of an image, a Google led me to a YouTube video of Liz Smith on the Graham Norton Show, to Dawn French on GN, to Dawn French and Alison Moyet on Paul O'Grady, to Alison Moyet singing, to ..... Janet Baker! So thank you Uncle Mort, I owe you one!