The Auntie Doris Years: 1988

If it was up to you, who would you choose to be a top manager at one of the country’s major secure mental hospitals? Maybe someone who understood a bit about mental health? Someone who had been the boss of some similar establishment, maybe a hospital or a prison? Someone with a good reputation. Someone with a bit of ruddy gravitas. Someone who could make people believe that they knew what they were doing. A bit like Winston Churchill made us believe that he knew what he was doing in the war. Someone who could make us believe that problems weren’t as hard to solve as they might have been, and given us the faith to succeed. In 1988 Thatcher needed to choose someone to be a top manager at Broadmoor Secure Mental Hospital. She gave it careful consideration. But by now, she had her Caligula head on. She could do what she ruddy well liked. So rather than choose someone sensible, like anyone normal person would, she decided to choose a disc jockey. Jimmy Ruddy Savile. She thought that he was qualified to do the job because he had done some voluntary work there. Even if she somehow hadn’t heard the rumours that he was a filthy so and so, it still beggars belief. A major secure mental hospital! A ruddy silly disc jockey, It makes you wonder what he had on her and her government. Goodness Gracious! How’s about that then guys and gals? It’s a wonder that she didn’t make Freddie Starr the minister for the welfare of small animals. Or brought back Ronald Biggs and put him in charge of the Royal Mail. Meanwhile my Raymond had been in WH Smiths again, this time he bought that “Brief History of Time” book. He was really proud of himself. “It’s about science and space and stuff Doris” he said, “All the latest theories about big bangs and black holes and stuff, only really easy to understand because it’s been written by a bloke in a wheelchair.” I don’t think he got further than the introduction, before he stuffed it down the side of the settee. Mind you, I tried it and I didn’t get much further myself. All that stuff makes my ruddy head spin. I reckon that I understand some of that sort of stuff a bit better now that I am dead. You lose a bit of your blockheadedness after you pass over. I reckon I am much cleverer these days, as you can tell by my little homilies on the internet. But I’m still not as brainy as that Stephen Hawkins. Even if he is in a wheelchair. Besides, our Madge was in a wheelchair for her last few years, and she wasn’t any dafter than she was when she can walk, so I don’t see what wheelchairs have to do with intelligence. If there was a connection, then that ruddy Margaret Thatcher ought to have been in a wheelchair… Setting on a kiddy fiddling disc jockey to run ruddy Broadmoor! Auntie Doris’s Toppington Poppington, Musical sensation of 1988: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin. Some people say that Bobby McFerrin committed suicide after topping the pops with this lovely little ditty. He didn’t though, and Bob Holderness out of Blockbusters didn’t play the saxophone on it either.