I gave my quarterly blood donation yesterday. As usual I fought to control myself as the nurse took the tiny sample to test for haemoglobin. I’m sure I can’t be the only one desperate to say, right I’ll be off now then, let me know when you want any more. If you haven’t seen the Tony Hancock Blood Donor sketch, watch it here. It’s pure genius.
I was sorry to here of the death of Sir Michael Parkinson yesterday. His chat show interviews were a highlight of Saturday evenings for a large part of my life. The first Parkinson show was in 1971. The longest running chat show, or talk show, is NBC’s TheTonight Show which first aired in 1954, and settled on its current title in 1962. Parkinson asked some challenging questions, but always seemed to try and put his guests at their ease.
Face to Face was a talk show with a very different style. It was aired on the BBC from 1959 to 1962. They were “in the psychiatrist’s chair” style interviews, distinctly lacking in Parky’s humour. For its day, the guest list would have been worthy of Parkinson. Martin Luther King, Stirling Moss, Cecil Beaton, Bertrand Russell, Carl Jung, Henry Moore, John Reith, Edith Sitwell, Gilbert Harding, and Tony Hancock all sat in that chair. The interviewer was John Freeman, who had been one of my father’s officers during World War Two. He was the only officer my father didn’t speak of with affection. Both Gilbert Harding and Tony Hancock seemed very disturbed during their interviews. Tony Hancock was encouraged to be self-critical, which may have exacerbated an already critical and addictive nature, leading to his downfall.
I’ll close by encouraging readers to consider giving blood, if you can and don’t already do so. I’m afraid we no longer get a pint of Guinness afterwards, as you did before the mid 1980’s. You do get a pint of cordial and a packet of crisps. Donors are always needed, and as Tony Hancock said, “it may be only a smear to you mate, but it’s life or death for some poor wretch.”