The Pessimistic Philosopher

If at first you don’t succeed, pack it in.

Norman Clegg – Last of the Summer Wine

Norman Clegg (Cleggie) was the only character to be present during all 31 series and 295 episodes of Last of the Summer Wine. The series was set in and around Holmfirth in West Yorkshire and chronicled the retirement and sometimes chaotic adventures of three men and other characters that peopled their world. I worked in the area for 5 years in the early eighties as a community nurse for people with intellectual disabilities. There’s something about spotting familiar places in a TV programme to embed a love for that programme. That love of the series continues to be cemented for me today with the aid of repeats on Gold. Each showing revives old memories or introduces quirks not noticed before. A good friend of mine, Yorkshire through and through hated the series. He felt it portrayed Yorkshiremen as stupid. I preferred to see what was going on as a third age release from the banal, repetitive demands of working life, a passport to the much talked  second childhood; a return to more innocent, go with the flow approach to each new day.  Among all the antics of Compo, Nora Batty and the rest I was always fascinated by the character Norman Clegg played by Peter Sallis. He was the quiet philosopher of the piece, a stoical, unambitious man sitting firmly on the pessimistic end of the optimism pessimism (OPS) scale.

The most recognisable aspect of his character was his dread of women, the result of a complete inability to understand the opposite sex. This stretched from his past wife who is spoken about on occasions to real encounters with some of the female characters. His wife seems to have had a more than average sharp tongue a characteristic, she shared with the married women of the piece. They didn’t have any children which leads Cleggie to muse;

“We were married all them years and no children. Do you think flannelette acts as a contraceptive?”

He further admits to the inscrutability of the opposite sex when he complains to his friends that 

“The female form was always a mystery to me. Anything else you acquire with moving parts, you get an owner’s manual.”

For me this brings back memories of winter nights in crowded dancehalls in rural Ireland dancing the three tune sets of slow waltz’s, eyes closed to all distractions, as you encouraged your partner closer so that the female form might be hinted at if not fully revealed.

Norman’s female mystery started early. He was once asked by Truly if he had ever had kippers for breakfast. He admitted to having them just once. He said he was in a hotel on his honeymoon and he thought why not, everything else is weird.

Unlike his friend, the raggedy dressed Compo, who saw himself as a fatal attraction for all women Clegg was happy to admit that he was always a failure at romance. But then without further explanation he put it down to being married.

In line with his love of predictability he maintained that life was easier when the light of passion goes out. When asked about this by the ever romantic and passionate Compo he reckoned that it happened to him when he was all of twenty three.

One experience had a lasting impact on him which was revisited on a number of occasions in the series. He was once trapped in a lift with the ageing sex symbol Marina who cuddled him to keep warm. Ever afterwards she misinterpreted this incident as an indicator that he had amorous feelings for her. In a number of episodes he ended up on his own with her and was greeted with the slightly strange and never explained greeting of “Norman Clegg that was” This was often followed by a passionate kiss (on her part) and a panic attack (on his).

One woman in particular profited from his inability to stand up for himself when faced with demands. Yorkshire men are noted for being tight. I don’t know how true this is, all I can say is I never met one who was insulted by this assertion. Compo once told the very careful Foggy that there was no point in him getting out his purse as decimalisation had happened since the last time he opened it. So Clegg’s reluctance to go into Auntie Wainwright’s second hand emporium was understandable. But there’s a long way between thinking and doing and he continued to buy stuff he didn’t need from the arch saleswoman. This included not one but three women’s watches.

In the end where women were concerned Cleggie might have got some comfort from an unexpected source; the ultimate female antagonist, the wrinkled stockinged Nora Batty, when she asserted that;

“The old ways are sometimes best. Rug beating is one of the older therapies. It’s what housewives had to make do with before nervous breakdowns were invented.”

Some of Cleggie’s musing took place while the threesome was relaxing out on the moors in the unpredictable Yorkshire sunshine. For added security he was usually stretched out on the ever present raincoat. This relaxed male only environment took him away from the female form to reflect on his own. He reminded his partners that if their legs were not joined at the top they wouldn’t be able to ride bicycles. This revelation was followed later by a suggested design improvement when he queried why the Lord had given men a spout like a teapot, why not a small drain, one in each foot. He also felt that if lips were placed at the back they would be ideal for saying goodbye.

If you’re a pessimist you will take actions to protect yourself from the worst you can imagine. Clegg’s protection started on dressing. He wore long johns, a shirt, jumper and waistcoat under his suit coat. His flat cap and raincoat finished the ensemble. Even on sunny days he carried the raincoat just in case. This caution carried on into the closing words of the last episode.

“Did I lock the door?

The fear of the worst lead to a severe lack of ambition in the world of work which culminated in early forced retirement when he was made redundant from his lifetimes work as a lino salesman. He had his excuses. His summary of the education system is worth noting.

“Yes it’s funny isn’t it. We went to school all them years. We got the three R’s and a bit of woodwork; but not a word about how to fight the Third Reich.

The challenge offered by even the most ordinary of life’s challenges was revealed in a conversation with Sid the café owner’s long suffering husband. Sid was complaining, out of earshot of wife Ivy, that women just didn’t understand the masculine urge to test oneself to the limits in some alien environment. Instead of responding with some suitable example from his own experience Clegg replied:

“Good God. That reminds me. I must go to the Post Office.”

To live this kind of life it is always handy to have a mantra that defines it and that you can refer to. Cleggie had a perfect one which he used regularly.

“If at first you don’t succeed, pack it in.”

Norman Clegg didn’t restrict himself to musings on ordinary day to day happenings. Like all true philosophers his mind wandered to higher things. Once or twice he dared to doubt the essence of the Almighty.

“If God is omnipotent what could he possibly want with my old woman?”

“We’ve all had that uncomfortable feeling that the Almighty is not all that competent.”

As a chapel goer he accepted the presence of an afterlife. But his belief did not escape his glass half empty personality. He said that his biggest worry about heaven was whether he would get used to the height. He never shared what other worries he had about the afterlife. He did postulate on one occasion that maybe he had come from another place to get to his current existence. When asked if his current existence could be heaven or the other place he was sure that it wasn’t hell because Yorkshire was too far north and he felt it would be further south. This barb of the old North South divide went totally unnoticed. In a rare visit to the optimistic side of the scale he hoped that Paradise might be a place where the sun came up when you were ready.

Despite his love of predictability and lack of enthusiasm for travel he was a bit of a social philosopher. He said he enjoyed hearing people talk about politics. It made him realise that there were things more boring than growing old. He reminded Compo that one of their acquaintances was a Tory and that Tories didn’t like people who were filthy and obscene. He suggested that was what the Labour Party was for. A bold statement in an area being worked over by Thatcher’s Tories during the miner’s strike.

To a man who liked surety any social change was to be avoided at all costs no matter how laudable the aims of that change. His insightful comment that he believed that the trouble with revolutions in the name of freedom was how soon they made it compulsory for everybody certainly merits some consideration.

He did upset some nature lovers when he used the following example to muse on morality. Stoical Yorkshiremen probably didn’t bat an eyelid. He talked about a fellow who picked up a tiny bird and carried its quivering body across a busy junction and fed it to his cat. “Life’s like that,” he maintained, “a complex texture of conflicting moralities.”

The changing nature of society did not suit him. He remembered a time of surety when if you were poor you could knock on any door and they would slam it shut in your face. People had character then. Now that we’re into an age of compassion, he bemoaned the fact that the world was full of people hating folk for hating folk.

His way of dealing with a world full of social reformers was simple because he believed that nothing irritates your social reformer more than finding some damn fool who’s happy. He was talking to Compo at the time.

This cynical view of life generated this swipe at the next generations. He suggested that the young were a great comfort as you grow older as they help you realise that at least you are going in the right direction. I’d love to test this out as an opening comment to a suitable group.

His natural reticence for any form of challenge didn’t totally dictate his life when he admitted that the fact that something was really none of his business was what made it much more interesting.

The physical comedy of this series could, if you were not attentive, override the the more subtle nuances of the excellent dialogue, which as a blow in to Yorkshire went someway to describe the stoical, down to earth, resilient nature of those people which I saw time and time again help them to overcome major challenges during the miners strike and the fundamental threat to a long established way of life and living. There were many reasons to justify a careful approach to life as exemplified by Cleggie.

Peter Sallis (Cleggie) was laid to rest alongside Bill Owen (Compo) in the graveyard at Upper Thong one and a half miles from Holmfirth, the centre of their Last of the Summer Wine retirement adventures. Cleggie, the pessimistic philosopher would have liked knowing he was heading to the next life among familiar people and places.

Norman Clegg’s attitude to life would not suit everyone so maybe it’s appropriate to leave the final word to a woman, the inimitable Nora Batty who might grudgingly concede that;

“He was no better than he ought to be.”