TV Comment – Maeve was a pleasure, Rose a disappointment, Gerry best left rest in peace

CHRISTMAS 2010 has bonded with the Ghost of Christmas Past and we are moving on from memories joyous and sad, from poor puns about resurrection turkey and forever on the hips, and on to pockets reduced and futures uncertain, except we shouldn't depart without the useful perspective of a backward glance. In the absence of the consequence that befell Lot's wife in the Book of Genesis, it is safe to do so although salt is proving very useful. St Stephen's Day brought welcome rain and a 20°C swing from weeks of record temperature lows but, in the context of this column, the focus should be on cabbages and kings and other things like a painful recognition that Christmas television is a disappointment because it's not doing what it says on the tin. Exceptions were few but as illustrated on the movie-choked Poverty 1, the feature documentary Maeve Binchy â€â€ At Home in the World saved RTE1's Christmas Day bacon with an emotionally rewarding story of how a talkative, overweight â€â€ plump in her words â€â€ curious and immensely likeable girl from Dalkey blossomed to become the author of over 40 million bestsellers and the unassuming mother of all Irish romantic fiction writers. Her books are too light and cosy for my taste but I've always liked how she tells the story of her life and to listen as she comments on what she famously calls her most unusual of Irish writer upbringings, a blissfully happy childhood. The RTE1 documentary was made over recent weeks in the lovely home she shares with two thoroughly spoiled cats and her adorable husband Gordon. Maeve began as expected by recalling her family and her young days in Dalkey, a quaint seaside village long gobbled up by ever-expanding Greater Dublin. She was born in 1940, attended the 'progressive' Holy Child Convent in Killiney and went to to take a degree in history at UCD. Her barrister father was quiet and studious and liked litte better of an evening than to sit and read in a house in which every wall of every room was lined with shelf upon shelf of books. Her outgoing and gregarious mother could not have been more different and yet her parents were amongst the happiest couples Maeve has known. They met by accident in Ballybunion when Maeve's mother missed her bus and the consequent mix-up in bookings at the seaside lodging house led to fortunate outcomes. It was just good luck, her father said, which was what he said about every good happening in life and that's a sentiment which has always coloured Maeve's attitude too. Her happy upbringing, her phenomenal writing success, her meeting with future husband Gordon Snell in a BBC radio studio in London when she thought her husband-encountering days were at an end, were all down to good luck and she feels she has had better luck than most. As a youngster Maeve always feared she might not live to travel the world and her first job as a teacher allowed her three months in summer to travel widely, which is what she did, and as her brother, the well-known Professor William Binchy, recalled on the documentary she wrote home to her parents almost daily, letters which were so interesting that her father would read them aloud for the family. One letter so took his fancy that he had it typed up and sent to the editor of the Irish Independent and when Maeve returned home there was a cheque for £16 waiting for her, more than a month's salary from her teaching. Hugely encouraged, she began to write more and, with some pieces published in The Irish Times, she gave up her 'safe, permanent and pensionable' for freelance writing. Her father had doubts because jobs were very scarce but he supported her for months while the postman was getting an arch in his back with all the rejection letters he was carrying up the hill to her home. One day she got a letter requesting her attendance at the offices of The Irish Times and when she told her father about it he gave his usual answer to such situations: Listen and admit to nothing. It was the early 60s and her subsequent appointment to the Women's Page â€â€ the reason she was summoned â€â€ provides an insight into the second class status of women in society when a special page for pieces on childrearing, cooking, housework and caring for a husband were considered all that should concern a mere woman. With journalists like Nell McCafferty on the paper and others with similarly outspoken attitudes on equality, sexuality and feminism, a liberal culture began to emerge and it made journalists such as Binchy, McCafferty, and Mary Kenny into household names. Later Binchy would be posted to London for The Irish Times and I still recall her wonderfully engaging reportage from St Paul's Cathedral for the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di. 600,000 people lined London streets to catch a glimpse of the couple and they were married before an invited congregation of 3,500 and an estimated global TV audience of 750 million â€â€ it was said to be the most popular programme ever broadcast. And Maeve was present, even if she was behind a pillar. She was good on the royals and I often quote her famous phrase from a few years later when, following the birth of Prince Harry, Di's second child, Maeve commented in her column how Di had done more than her duty to the royal succession by giving it 'an heir and a spare'. The cycle begins all over again with the wedding in spring of the heir, Prince William, to Kate Middleton and the rumour is that the long-split Swedish pop group ABBA will reform to sing at the ceremony. Maybe Maeve might clip on her old security badge and give us her own unique take on the historic occasion â€â€ wouldn't that be something. There was much more from what was a worthwhile profile on Ireland's most successful writer of light fiction, including her distress years ago at not being able to find a husband when all her friends were marrying off and having babies. There was further heartbreak when, with her husband this time, it was confirmed she could never have the child they wanted and they were too old to adopt. Maeve struck a chord with mention of her mother's terminal cancer and how, as was common practice 40 or more years ago, the family jollied her along by telling her she was improving and would be back to her best in no time. All knew the end was approaching and Maeve still regrets that false final damaging relationship when what should have happened was an honest and supportive sharing of her mother's last days. â€Â¢ â€Â¢ â€Â¢ I WAS expecting too much from the new BBC production Upstairs Downstairs of which the first instalment went out on BBC1 on Sunday night; it was slow and unconvincing and I wouldn't care if I never saw it again. Apart from Rose who was a parlour maid in the original and the only acting link with the new production, all else was a poor but glossy imitation with an inferiority complex. If productions could think this one knew it hadn't the class and kept referring back as if for reassurance to the likes of Hudson (Gordon Jackson) who was a slave to duty and the very epitome of a stiff-upper-lip English butler. I was reminded of the old boxing maxim 'they never come back' from the old days of professional boxing and in particular of the famous Yankee Stadium bout in 1948 between the ageing Brown Bomber, 36-year-old Joe Louis, and the champion Ezzard Charles. The lightning lefts and rights that had felled Max Schmeling and Max Baer were no more and after 15 punishing rounds and with the memory of previous failed comebacks by boxing greats such as Gentleman Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons and Jack Dempsey, the general consensus was 'they never come back'. Decades later Mohammed Ali would prove otherwise but the slogan stuck and that's what was going through my mind as I sat through Upstairs Downstairs. At the time of writing, the two remaining episodes are still to come and maybe I'll think differently when I've seen them. I'll let you know. â€Â¢ â€Â¢ â€Â¢ I HAD neither the time nor the inclination to watch Gerry on RTE1 on Monday night, the much-hyped look back at the life of broadcaster Gerry Ryan whose sudden death shocked all a few months ago. I couldn't take a semi-canonisation job in place of the blunt reality that Ryan had all the advantages life can give but threw them away. Television didn't like him but he could do no wrong on radio, at least up to a year or so ago when after CT kicked the bucket Ryan's popularity dipped following his refusal point-blank to take a 10 per cent cut in his €600k-a-year RTE salary. It was nonsense, according to Ryan, to say it would help RTE financially and he made the comparison it was like asking Bus Éireann to solve CIE's problems by giving back the buses. The rumour is that he had been given the Saturday Night Show on RTE1 now occupied by Brendan O'Connor but I'll leave it at that. Gerry Ryan made a successful radio career by telling people how to live their lives while making a misery of his own. He should now be allowed to rest in peace.