Tim Bannerman's Diary of a Pantomime

Tonight, I find myself seated in semi-gloom outside the Kilpeck Inn, a welcoming hostelry that has become used to seeing a sad character, progressively well-wrapped up, staring at a blank sheet of paper, having rolled his positively last roll-up in the hope that the next pint of Butty Bach will bring the devoutly wished for inspiration.

This time, though, it’s a bit different to the epithalamium for a friend’s posh wedding. Or the ballad for a recently deceased man of the valley who had lived nearly all his 97 years within half a mile of where he was born, went to school, got married and died. Having walked to school with the girl who lived not half a mile up the hill, the little church saw them plight their troth, come to worship every Sunday and, eventually – she, 15 days before him, aged 96 – bid farewell to the mourners gathered there earlier this year.

No. This time it’s different. And I would have started several weeks earlier had we not had apples to gather and a barrel to fill. But fill it we did, last weekend, with all the family bar two – one with Covid, thankfully recovering well, the other, our eldest grand-daughter, stuck at uni under the cosh (or partying every night more probably). 17 round the dining-room table, extended with bits of this and that, the youngest in the old high chair, five generations on from its first occupant (I was two generations back), the oldest, yours truly. It was a long, hard day’s washing, scratting (when you put the apples through a rattling, scrunching, mushing-them-all-up machine) and pressing, before carrying the juice down to the barrel waiting patiently in the summer house below. 50-odd gallons later it was full and a very jolly, sticky time was had by all. 

But it meant I put everything else aside. Apples, and particularly perry pears (the early Thorn being the quickest, gone from the inside as soon as your back is turned), wait for no man, nor woman, and Gill and I had been flat out for weeks before, picking, scratting, pressing, while building the pile required to fill our beautiful barrel. It was hard work but, interestingly, the best recipe for good marital relations I know. And after 44 intensive years of cohabitation, we should know.

There are more apples to come – single varieties, blends, for juice and cider, with a little pile of Gin and Rock perry pears still to press too – but now, the excuses have run out.

Why, oh why, did I say “yes”? 

I have six weeks to write the new village panto, cast it and then, come January and the snow, pot-holes and pit-falls along the way, direct my cast drawn from all the burrows in our ancient corner of South-West Herefordshire in a show to be performed at the end of the first week in April. 

It is called “The Ghost of Higher Archenfield Hall”. And that’s about it so far.

There is one saving grace – or should I say two – in the form of a wonderful concert pianist and composer who lives up the hill, half a mile away as the crow flies, a mile or more to drive. And my wife who, having given me that old-fashioned look when I confessed, has already sparked a host of ideas to join Chris’s songs that are precociously pouring from his fingers on the keys.

Oh, and a team of delightful old panto hands, some of whom have been at it since the very first, over 20 years ago now. Then it all took place in the old corrugated shack beloved by all, now replaced by a splendid eco-everything community hall that’s warm and dry and spacious and will, eventually, find a similar place in local hearts, no doubt. 

Meanwhile, Lower Archenfield expects – and each day creeps on its petty pace at faster and faster intervals as Christmas approaches. So, no pressure then.

Another pint please, landlord.