The Death of a Song and Dance Man

I was once in conversation with a philosophical bride to be from Barrow-in-Furness. She was recounting the previous night's tales of excess. I was selling her a raspberry ripple. This is often how it works, I tell stories, people tell me theirs. I've no idea why they do, but it certainly helps to shift the ice cream. She was half-laughing, half crying as she told how her maid of honour had been caught in flagrante upon the plinth a statue of a civic notary. Her subsequent discussion with the local constabulary had taken a turn for the abusive and she was now banged up, it was touch and go as to whether she'd make it for the ceremony.

"Still" said the philosophical bride to be "I suppose it'll be a good story."

"In the end" I replied "All that's left of us is stories." She smiled at me and went on her way, thoughtfully licking her Raspberry Ripple.

So I should like, if adequately able, to tell you in brief the story of Alan Capstick, for many years the main draw of the Edgecombe Pavilion's Summer Season "It's The Real End of the Pier Show." He was a performer of rare ability to transcend the usual barriers of age or social class which sort jokes into categories, he was a man who made them all laugh, made them all cry, held them all in the palm of his hand, night after sold out night.

I say if I am able for a reason. I am unsure not only of my ability to do him justice but, of late, I am becoming less certain in my belief in the power of stories themselves. As a man who has held them as his stock-in-trade for more years than he cares to or, for that matter, is capable of remembering, this turning of the tides affords me a genuine disquiet. My son would call it a disturbance in the force, but that's not a phrase I'd use.

But I'll try to put my reservations aside for the moment, because this is important; even if I don't have many stories left in me, I need to make sure that I tell this one, because if all that becomes of us is stories then someone needs to get on with the telling, and if not me then who?

He'd always said that it was going to be his last season, but then, he'd said that every season for the last ten years. They're not what they were, of course, the variety shows; but then, you knew that already. You've probably got the town sketched out roughly in your head already: Fish and Chips, ice cream kiosks, families being slowly replaced by stag and hen parties down the years, faded posters peeling from the walls, a shadow only of it` glory days. You're not far wrong, either, so I won't waste your time or mine describing the place any further. If this were a different sort of story I'd spend on the drunks and the drug addicts, the hunched figures in doorways. But that wouldn't be the point. And whilst it's true that years ago I'd see Alan being driven to the stage doors in a Silver Roller, and it's also true that more recent seasons has seen him walking up, slightly slower and slightly greyer each year, it's still true that right up to his last performance it didn't matter which version of Alan turned up, when the lights went on and the band struck up his signature opening number "Hello Summer" he was, always, ineluctably, the same. That's the story that matters.

And there's quite enough reality knocking around elsewhere as it is. So let's leave it aside and concentrate for a moment on...

Showtime. Even if the last few audiences were a handful of people who'd stumbled in out of the sleet, showtime was always showtime, and the performance was the same, every time: from "Hello Summer" through his tap-routine to "The Ladies in the Park" before twenty minutes of stand up, half an hour of bingo calling and the closing medley of "Songs from the Shows" he'd hit every mark, every note and finish to the precise second, every time, before being in the bar of the Victoria Hotel at ten past eight, prompt, just as Frank, the barman, finished topping his pint of Best, with a nip of Bruichladdich on the side. Like clockwork, every night, with machine-tooled precision. Give them what they want and don't outstay your welcome, he always said

I want to tell it to you precisely as it was, because it doesn't do to let the story take over and run riot. If it did there'd be a redemptive reconciliation with his wife, Eileen, just before his final performance, and Lord knows that didn't happen, nor did he make it to the wedding of his daughter, not that he'd been invited. It was a heart attack that did for him, unsurprisingly enough. Maybe it would satisfy some sort of dramatic convention if he'd had it on stage, but dying during the act is just plain unprofessional and Alan was, to his fingertips, a pro. It was me that raised the alarm, as it happens, as I said, he was like clockwork, and so the moment he didn't walk past I beckoned over a bored looking bobby who was patrolling the promenade to assist any reveller menaced by gulls and told him that he'd better get round to Alan's place, sharpish.

He looked dubious, but it wasn't like he had anything else to do. They found Alan slumped by an occasional table. And that was that.

Thirty years I've worked this kiosk, and whilst I know the value of patter, of stories, I also know their worth. The don't pay the rent, it's the bubble-gum ice cream and novelty rock dildos (see, you were right about the hen parties) that do that. But what they do do is grease the wheels, they help to keep the show on the road, until eventually you run out of stories, and you run out of road, and what remains of you is the telling of them.

So whilst, I admit, it's not a very good story, it's still one that's worth telling. There won't be any more "It's the Real End of the Pier" shows. I've heard they're turning the pavilion into what they call a "Community Hub", whatever that means. Still, I'll be here for a while yet, I reckon. One scoop of butterscotch and one of vanilla? Very nice, that'll be two pounds ten, please.