“What do you mean, ‘What are you thinking?’”
“You’ve just been staring at the ceiling.”
“If you must know, I was wondering what happened to Barry Bucknell – he was the first man to do DIY on television in the fifties.”
“Oh for God’s sake, there must be better things to do than worry about Barry Bucknell.”
“Well, actually there isn’t. Not at 4.15 in the morning and you can’t sleep.”
It’s the short term/long term memory thing that kicks in during the twilight years. I’d forgotten where I put the car keys from last night, but I’m vividly seeing myself as a kid stabbing the family television buttons with a bamboo pole, using my bare feet as a snooker rest and desperately searching for a speck of interest on either channel. Yes, two channels. Not that quality came into it back then, it was such a novelty you’d watch anything. Well, almost anything; only one man would get me off my arse and cycling around the block, and that was Barry Bucknell.
So I went down downstairs and Googled him. Born 1912, died 2003, with seven million viewers at his height, if that’s the right word. Being time-rich, I then tried You Tube and there he was, fitting new webbing to the bottom of a sagging chair. Collar and tie of course and a clipped Reithian delivery, (“I’ve got some tecks which I’ll use to teck the webbing onto the frame.”) It’s hypnotic, timewarp stuff. How drab those post-war years must have been for seven million viewers watch a man teck tecks into the bottom of a chair.
Still, quite a guy, that Barry. Not only did he get me out cycling in the fresh air, but sixty years later he cured my insomnia.

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