Calling Specsavers (From Times Series)

Calling Specsavers

11:15am Tuesday 14th September 2010

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IF any executive of Specsavers, who run those splendid TV adverts, reads this and cares to contact me I have an idea for a new campaign that could prove to our mutual advantage.

It arises from an incident the other day when I parked our Toyota in the car park at the back of our apartment block and started to walk towards the front door.

I looked up, saw Mrs S sitting on a chair on the balcony and gave her a friendly "I'm home" wave. No response.

When I got out of the lift and walked in, I found Mrs S sitting in the lounge. "Didn't you see me waving?" I asked.

She gave me the look she reserves for most mere male mortals and said she didn't know what the heck I was talking about.

The answer came when I stepped out onto the balcony and found that the white-haired "wife" I had fondly greeted from below was, in fact, a mop propped up against a chair!

"Derision" doesn't come into it. The word sped swiftly round family and friends and I have since been treated as an object of pity ready to be shunted into a corner and left to his fantasies.

I am expecting a white stick for Christmas. I kept out of the way of Mrs Mop and constant suggestions that I went to Specsavers for a few days.

The good lady's humour was restored when we tuned in to a TV channel to see if a re-run episode of the old BBC favourite Monarch of the Glen had been directed by younger son Richard. As his name popped up on the screen, Mrs S said the show was one from the time when we were in Scotland a few years back and acted as extras for the day.

Almost immediately there was a full face shot of a red-haired Mrs S in all her former glory - with a post obscuring me alongside her.

"I hardly recognised you", I remarked, avoiding eye contact. "You didn't look like a mop in those days".

My mate Dave Wilding is organising a Barnet FC dinner for November 11 and, as usual, has asked me to help get a personality or a comedian from my celebrity acquaintances from the past.

I plugged the virtues of impressionist Kevin Connelly and rang him at home in Middesbrough to find out his availability and to see if we could afford his present fee.

In the event, Kevin found he was already booked for a Channel 4 show that night. "Pity", he said. "I'd have liked to have seen you and Pat. How is she?".

I said that Mrs S was alongside me and put her on the phone for a chat.

She was greeted by "Harry Redknapp", the Spurs manager, in full flow. "I've got a lot of new material", said Kevin and promptly switched to "Roy Hodgson", the Liverpool boss. The audience at the Holiday Inn at Elstree on November 11 don't know what they are missing.

I rang Jimmy Tarbuck at his home in Wimbledon. "Blimey, you still alive?" was his opening line. We chatted a while about Liverpool FC, my taking Mrs S to Cleehorpes on our 42nd wedding anniversary to watch Barnet play Grimsby - that impressed him -- and our trips together to football.

Eventually I said: "I've rung to see if I can afford you for this date in November". "No" he replied; so the search continues for a celebrity.

"How about Gary Lineker?" asked the optimistic Dave. I said we should wait until next year - we'll ask Kevin Connelly to "do" Gary Lineker - we might just afford that.

Footnote: if that nice doctor at the Royal Free Hospital due to give me an annual eyesight check in the near future reads this he must realise that we journalists tend to elaborate a little.