The Tall Girl from Somerset 3 Henry. The best years of your life and 'The Merchant of Venice'.

3. HENRY

The best years of your life and 'The Merchant of Venice'.

I was always Uncle Henry, and I still am, I suppose, though now I’m a

great uncle if we’re strict about it.  I saw Anne, well, I saw them all, Anne and her 

parents, three times a year, at Christmas, at Easter and then once in the summer.  This

was our pattern, and it lasted for many years, through the 50s and early 60s, all the 

years of her childhood anyway.   It’s still the normal shape of the year for me, I 

suppose.   Every year the same!  You see I lived in Chiswick, and they lived in 

Somerset, in the village of Berringford at the foot of the Mendip Hills, so there was a 

distance.  It took much longer to get about in those days.  In the 50s and 60s England 

was a much bigger place than now.  The journey from Somerset to Yorkshire took a 

whole day.  We would drive slowly through the cities, the towns and the villages for 

there were no motorways then.  I think we were all the  better for it.  We savoured 

England as we drove through it.  We knew where we were. 

Not that often, was it, three times a year?  But at least I was always available.  I may 

not have done a great deal with my life, but I’ve always been around when wanted.

I suppose that’s something.  It’s not much, but it’s something, and in spite

of all the dreams we have when we are  18, in the end we have to rely on these little

things.  They matter,  the small things we have actually done.  I hope they will pull us 

through.

Anne finished school and was just about to go to university, I remember.  That’s not

an easy time, you know.  Going back over 60 years, I remember how I felt

when I started.  Is it that long?  That sounds an awfully long time, but the years just 

pile up, you know.  They accumulate.

You expect so much of university, and, to make things worse, people

expect so much of you!  They tell you that you’re about to embark

on the best years of your life.  Embark!  It’s a place, not a boat for heaven’s

sake.  Well, they are for some people, I suppose!  The best years, I mean. I

enjoyed them, but then I am middle of the road; neither clever nor stupid,

neither full of energy nor lazy. 

‘It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean.’ 'The Merchant of 

Venice'. Nerissa was right.  She was in the mean too, I suppose. 

My English teacher at Waterbury, Mr Morgan, used to say that the ordinary

characters in Shakespeare existed just to show us our place among the

others, the great ones.  He said that we are really on the level of the servants and the 

country yokels. I think he was exaggerating a little, but he had a point, didn’t he? 

Anyway, like Nerissa, I am middle of the road and there’s something to be said

for it.  Where would we all be without the man in the street?  How could

the great ones stand out if there were no ordinary people like us to stand out from? 

Yes, perhaps they are the best years for some.  But they are not a happy time for a lot 

of others, and I don’t think they were for Anne.   I have a suspicion that she wasn't 

happy, though she never said anything to me.  Young people have such a capacity for 

suffering, such a capacity for putting themselves through the mill.  When you’re old, 

you can’t even suffer with intensity!  Thank goodness!  University!  It can be three 

years of purgatory,  self-inflicted purgatory, but none the less painful for that!   

Ah well!  Let’s go on.  Yes, I think we’d better move on.