Mr Middle England: Old Gimmer Winter
by David Palethorpe
Winter. Bloody winter.
The days shrink, the evenings stretch, and with them comes the inevitable gloom — or at least that’s how Mr Middle England, Ipplepen’s very own Old Gimmer, sees it.
For him, the forthcoming so-called “festive season” isn’t joyful at all.
It’s futile, depressing, and every year he begins muttering about the whole business long before the first mince pie appears on the shelves.
At one low point, in a fit of desperation, he even considered volunteering for a helpline — reasoning that listening to other people’s misery might, at the very least, cheer him up.
The flaw in this plan, of course, is obvious: Mr Middle England wouldn’t last a day.
Being the curmudgeon he is, he’d soon be demanding to know why the helpline wasn’t turning a profit.
In fact, he’d probably propose automating the entire system:
• If you’re feeling suicidal, press 1.
• If you thought you’d phoned a chat line, press 2.
• If you’re just wasting time, press 3.
Add a John Cleese voiceover and a few bars of the Funeral March while on hold, and callers would be over the edge in minutes.
Still, if there were a helpline that required nothing more than talking bollocks and balderdash, Mr Middle England would be the ideal recruit.
Anyone who’s shared a pint with him in the Welly, or leaned on the Con Club bar, knows he’s a master at filling the air with grumbles, laments, and long-winded theories about why the world is going to hell.
Counselling, however, requires listening — and that’s a skill our Old Gimmer has never acquired.
At home, his audience of one has long given up trying.
Mrs Middle England simply lets him drone on while she gets on with the real work of: ordering the turkey, sorting cards, hiding presents, and quietly rewriting the shopping list he’s already “improved.”
She’s perfected the art of nodding at exactly the right moments without taking in a single word he says, a domestic survival technique honed over decades.
And so, as November moves on, she cracks on with the festive preparations, Mr Middle England sits through breakfast at the Welly, nodding solemnly at other people’s misery before deploying the one talent that sets him apart:
A yawn.
Mouth firmly closed.
In its own way, it’s poetry.
And very, very Ipplepen.
Leave a comment