We’ve had a dearth of death these last few weeks.\u00a0 Bowie, Rickman, Glen Frey…now Sir Terry.<\/p>\n
And whilst death is a fact that we all accept – particularly as we ripen and mature as humans – I can’t help but feel a deep dark sorrow for our collective loss.<\/p>\n
I didn’t have a particular affection for Terry Wogan.\u00a0 Unlike Bowie and Rickman, he doesn’t rank in my Top Ten Men.\u00a0 But I did have a great fondness for him.<\/p>\n
I grew up with Terry Wogan.\u00a0 He was the constant presence in the car during our\u00a0morning trips to school. My father\u00a0took us on his way to work in Birmingham.\u00a0 Radio 2 was his preference, not mine.\u00a0 As the driver, however, my father over ruled the tastes of his two daughter passengers – so we were subjected to a daily dose of Terry, babbling along in his light-hearted way.<\/p>\n
This proved a great relief to me.\u00a0 I had a very strained and difficult relationship with my father at the time, who\u00a0I considered to be\u00a0an over bearing, bad tempered, controlling bully.\u00a0 His attitude to women was\u00a0Victorian and he treated my mother appallingly.\u00a0 But as the sole provider for our family, he endured a job he hated to\u00a0foot the bills and for this I always\u00a0paid him due respect.<\/p>\n
Our school runs were conducted more or less in silence. Being the eldest, I sat in the front whilst my little sister had the luxury and anonymity of the back seat.<\/p>\n
So it was left to Terry to fill the gaps, which he did with aplomb.\u00a0 There was something very correct about Terry Wogan.\u00a0 He seemed to\u00a0be a\u00a0solidly reliable and safe pair of hands. He knew exactly the right thing to say, in exactly the right tone at the exactly the right time – always slightly self\u00a0deprecating.\u00a0 Somehow he embodied what I now recognise as middle England values.\u00a0 He was quick with the one liners that summed it all up in a neat but heartfelt\u00a0and pithy sentence.\u00a0\u00a0 He became\u00a0our national treasure because his outlook shaped a generation of listeners. My generation.<\/p>\n
During these trips, the only time my father and I exchanged anything near to a conversation was when Terry ran one of his competitions, my dad and I competing with each other to be the first to chip in the correct answer.\u00a0 I invariably won, the questions being sufficiently low brow to register below my father’s intellect.<\/p>\n
My father died two years ago next month.\u00a0 In the intervening years since school, dad and I managed to forge a strong,\u00a0close and loving relationship – which made his loss all the more painful because, in hindsight, I now understand how much I grossly misjudged him.<\/p>\n
So\u00a0to me El Tel will always be intrinsically linked with my dad and those morning school runs.<\/p>\n
His death makes my father’s the more poignant.<\/p>\n
RIP El Tel.\u00a0 And thanks for being my friend.