 |
| "Okay Ivy, what's on the menu?" |
I fell in love with the TV show, “Last of the Summer Wine,”
in the mid-90s. Foggy, Norman, and
Compo’s misadventures led them all over the Yorkshire countryside. Over the years, series creator Roy Clarke assembled
a large cast of characters, often too large to include everyone in every
episode. Yet two things seemed
certain. Whatever “the boys” got up to,
Compo usually provoked Nora Batty, and the trio would end up at Ivy’s Café.
Yet Ivy’s Café was never spelled out on its windows, but merely
CAFE. So it came as a surprise to me
when, a few years ago, the BBC began issuing the 1970s episodes on DVD in
Region 1 (for the U.S. market). Suddenly,
the boys didn’t encounter just Ivy in the Café, but a man as well. I came to realize that this man was her husband
Sid, and the café was named after him.
 |
| "Um...choices, choices." |
At first, I wasn’t sure what to make of Sid. Like most people, he seemed a jumble of
contradictions. Sometimes he was a
meticulous owner, refusing to give Foggy a paper napkin unless he
purchased more than just a cup of tea.
Other times, he dispensed food and drinks without regard to the
cost. Some days the trio’s antics
irritated him. On others he shared Foggy,
Norman, and Compo’s childlike enthusiasm.
Yet, if Sid erred more in one direction than the other, it seemed he
secretly longed to sneak out of the café with his friends, and share in their
life of irresponsibility.
Earlier in his life, Roy Clarke had worked as a policeman in
a small Yorkshire mining town.
Everyday, he watched the workers spill out of the Earth, like ants
abandoning their underground world.
After long shifts working in dark, confining, and dangerous environs,
these men sought to shake off the day’s responsibilities with a little
revelry. Yet the town offered them little in the way of diversions.
Roy Clarke noticed that the women in this town
were made of even sterner stuff than the men.
Yes, their husbands might hew the rocks from the very Earth; they braved
claustrophobia, dust-inhalation, asphyxiation, and the constant danger of
tunnel collapse, yet it was these browbeating Yorkshire women who kept
the men from spending all their hard-earned money on drinking, gambling, or
letting off steam in some other manner that would get them into trouble. Later, when he created “Last of the Summer
Wine,” Nora Batty became a personification of those tough miner’s wives. Sid’s wife Ivy was another.
 |
| Ivy (and Compo) keep me in line. |
Like most of us, Sid yearned for adventure, but had someone
who constantly reminded him to be responsible.
He might bark at Compo, Foggy, and Norman, particularly when their
attempts to help him do some job in the café ended up wasting his time (or
otherwise earned Ivy’s ire), but he secretly admired them for their
freedom.
Occasionally, Sid found some
excuse to join his friends in their forays, such as to the golf course, or, in the 1977
episode “Jubilee,” to help the vicar with the Queen’s Silver Jubilee
celebrations. In the feature-length
special, “Getting Sam Home,” he used the café’s catering van to help his
friends. It seemed that Sam, having returned
that same day from the hospital, had yearned to visit his “affectionate friend”
after his wife went to bed. Foggy,
Norman, and Campo helped him get there, but the visit proved too rigorous for
his delicate constitution. To save Sam’s
wife from humiliation, Sid helped Foggy, Norman, and Compo quietly return Sam’s
body before his wife realized he had snuck out.
Then, when Sam’s wife kept her husband’s body in the shed until the
viewing, he helped them transport the body back to…say, you don’t want me to
tell you the whole story, do you?
 |
| "Hold on a minute! What's all this about 'Exterminating' my dessert?" |
Sadly, John Comer, who played Sid, died in 1984. “Getting Sam Home” was his last appearance on
the show. Due to his advanced throat
cancer, even his voice had to be dubbed by another actor. Yet it is a testament to Sid’s enduring
spirit that Ivy carried on running the café in his name right up to the end of
the series: nearly thirty years later. Now,
when I watch “Last of the Summer Wine” episodes filmed after John Comer’s
passing, I remember how Sid’s eyes usually lit up when his friends entered the
café, and how, occasionally, he talked Ivy into letting him tag along with Foggy,
Norman, and Compo for a little revelry.
I miss Sid.
Thanks for reading,
Dragon Dave
Related Dragon Cache entries
Related Internet Links
No comments:
Post a Comment