Life

Nuala McCann: That Proustian rush hits home more frequently as the years pile on

Roald Dahl lived by the fierce and fleeting maxim: 'My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night, but ah my foes and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light'

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann

Nuala McCann is an Irish News columnist and writes a weekly radio review.

Roald Dahl – his writing shed contained various bone shavings taken off his spine in operations and his old hip bone after he got the replacement
Roald Dahl – his writing shed contained various bone shavings taken off his spine in operations and his old hip bone after he got the replacement Roald Dahl – his writing shed contained various bone shavings taken off his spine in operations and his old hip bone after he got the replacement

THE smidgeon of Japanese in me is concerned with the passing of time. Life is as ephemeral and beautiful as spring apple blossom on our avenue.

In mere days, the wind has whisked the wedding white confetti petals down the road and it’s over, gone for another year.

“I love that old cherry blossom,” I tell my mother, pointing at the tree that has arched a dark shoulder over our driveway for 50 years. “It blooms for such a short time,” she sighs. But nevertheless, it is beautiful.

Roald Dahl lived by the fierce and fleeting maxim: “My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night, but ah my foes and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light.”

He got it from Edna St Vincent Milay – impeccable taste.

His little garden shed where he wrote such delicious, lip smacking, cruel, sweet stories was full of all sorts of treasure – including various bone shavings taken off his spine in operations and his old hip bone after he got the replacement – memento mori, you could say.

Apparently, you can still see the last Marlboro he stubbed out in the ashtray.

Time flies past so fast that sometimes it catches me up short.

So that when I hear of another famous person who has died, I have to pinch myself, because I thought maybe they had gone already.

At a funeral recently, a close friend joked: “It’s us next, up and over the trenches,” and it’s an alarming thought.

Former children’s TV presenter Brian Cant is a sad loss. He was a Playschool stalwart and even though I was a bit too old to choose between the round or the square or the arched window or cuddle with Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Humpty and Hamble, I was a big fan of “Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub.”

They were the cartoon firemen of our youths as voiced by Brian.

In student days, a friend answered the telephone with the words: “Hello. Trumpton...” Quick as a flash, the fella on the other side hit back: “Is Windy Millar there?” he asked.

Cant spoke the script to a million childhoods in that rich baritone voice. We lived our lives to the reassuring tock of the Trumpton Clock and carry fond memories of Camberwick Green and Chigley all down the years.

Those words: “Here is a house; here is a door; here are the windows, one, two, three, four,” are liable to evoke a Proustian rush in people of a certain age, wrote one journalist.

That Proustian rush hits home more frequently as the years pile on.

The cherry blossom in our house back home, fresh raspberries from our old garden, a jammy wagon wheel or a French fancy from the bakery – huge with a big blob of fake cream encased in its stiff pink icing overcoat.

And if time’s winged chariot hurrying near is getting to be an anthem around here, then the news that actor and Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis is retiring should cause little surprise.

He is 60 after all. It’s just strange that he should announce his retirement.

Some actors just step away from the spotlight, but not him.

I’m a big fan of his acting and of the time and effort he invests in preparation.

Admit it, I’m also slightly impressed by the fact that his father-in-law was the playwright Arthur Miller and his father was the poet laureate, never mind that he and Jools Holland hung out together.

His intensity might be a little de trop but his performance is always magical.

He gave up acting before and became a cobbler – as in, he studied under the late master cobbler, Italian Stefano Berner in Florence. This is a big step up from standing behind the corner at the shopping centre and slapping on new rubber soles.

Still, nevertheless, announcing that he is hanging up his boots seems a strange thing for an actor to do. More often, actors seem to melt away from our screens, the camera lens finds another focus, and they are gone.

I’ll remember the magic spell he cast in Gangs of New York, There Will be Blood and The Last of the Mohicans.

And I’ll think how fleeting a life is – how the candle flames and flickers – and how life is sweet and we should all burn our candles at both ends.