The queue appeared never ending...
Well, when I say never ending, it snaked off in random directions with no logical path until converging at a single point. The walls of the compound had the feel of white fluffy clouds. Alas, so did the somewhat spongy floors. There was a catatonic glow, almost ethereal, which seemed to relax and quell the multitudes waiting in the queue. The angelic sounds of a heavenly choir bounced off the purest of walls. The immortal angels were playing a repetitive medley of 20th Century show tunes, and very badly at that. So, this was the muzak of the eternal afterlife.
At the head of the queue was a set of two doors, wooden and plain painted. Nothing special, nothing unique about them, the handles of both were quite worn. Both had a chipped beige gloss finish, somewhat aged. Only the two signs above separated them. The one on the left declared “Garden Of Dreams And The Afterlife”. The second claimed to be “Valhalla Via A Bale Of Hay Outside Basingstoke”...
There was a wooden school desk at the front of the doors and sat behind it was a slim faced, pencil-moustached official and what appeared to be a ridiculously oversized audit book and purple dodo-feather quill dipped in a bottle of ink.
"Next!" he barked.
A short but stout broad faced man shuffled forward and stopped at the desk. The official didn’t look up but started to scribe.
"Name?" he asked officiously.
“Don’t you know?” questioned a wonderfully soft velvet Welsh tone. “I mean this is the afterlife, the eternal universe of peace & tranquillity, the home of forever happily ever after?”
"You ain’t there yet me old china. This is a processing point."
"Processing point? But this is the afterlife?"
The official looks up over his audit book. “The afterlife it may be, but we can’t let any old riff raff in! I mean, we do have standards...”
“You mean like purity of mind, word and deed?”
“You’re joking! It would be deserted here if that was the case.”
The Welshman pondered this, realising the chap might have a point.
“Achievements?” demand the official.
“I make people laugh.”
“Blimey, not another comedian! Go on, make me laugh then.”
“What? I can’t do it on the hoof like that. It's not a bloody magic show.” The waiting man’s Welsh tones had raised by quite a few octaves.
“OK Mr Funny Man, so what have you done for the people in this queue?”
The passionate Welshman grabbed the dodo quill and drew a screen on the nearest cloud, adding two dials at the bottom. He returned the quill and switched on the left-hand dial. The cloud illuminated to the sounds of twinkly stock music and a picture formed.
The over the top narration begins...
"Sunday 1st February 1942. The British Isles are braced for long hard slog against the Nazi hordes baying just across the channel. Times seemed bleak but there in the little coastal town of Colwyn Bay a light was about to shine so brightly that generations would come to praise his vision, comedic beliefs and irreverent teachings. For this was the birth of Terence Graham Parry Jones. He was certainly not the Messiah, however he could turn out to be a very naughty boy."
Frames of scratchy film play out on the screen showing chinks of light emanating from a scullery in a two-up-two-down in a darkened street.
"Put that light out!" yells the ARP warden.
"Piss off, I’m having a baby!" comes the sharp retort.
"Soon the sounds of a fertile new pair of lungs is chorusing down the street, and there was much rejoicing."
“Shut that sodding baby up, I’m trying to transmit to Germany!”
The scene fades out to display the passing of time and a caption appears on the screen : ‘Schooling’.
"Despite his Welsh upbringing, Terry decided that coalmining wasn’t for him and sought out an educational adventure. To be fair, the family had seen the light and sodded off to Surrey as soon as they could. The doors opened at The Royal Grammar School and Jones excelled like the swot he was. Taking the chance for a proper education, he headed for St Edmund Hall, Oxford where he studied Medieval History and the works of Chaucer. His decisions are well made as Guildford has a distinct lack of Medieval experts and those who can read Chaucer. In all honesty, anyone who could read anything would have been a bonus in Guildford at that time. But fear not dear viewer, the best is yet to come."
The film breaks and the screen dissolves on the cloud screen.
The official says “Basingstoke is an option, you know...” pointing with his quill to the door.
Terry is surrounded by spools of film spilling out across the heavenly floor. He hits the screen and the scratchy film starts up again.
The narrator slurs his words "Life is about to dramatically change for the young, sensitive, over-emotional Welshman as the world of performance beckons. In the early days, Jones had bumped into a damn nice chap called Palin, and both would tread the boards of the Footlights, writing humorous sketches and songs. But the great opportunities of the 1960s television were to elevate them to household names."
Footage of their early telly shows appeared: 'The Frost Report', 'Do Not Adjust Your Set', 'The Complete And Utter History Of Britain'.
The sounds of The Liberty Bell march started to emanate from the screen and the title sequence for 'Monty Python’s Flying Circus' begins. The official looks up from his pedestal and starts to dismount before the klaxons and lights began to wail in the waiting area.
The sound of a great booming voice resonates across the waiting area ‘Blasphemy, Blasphemy!’ The official was now cowering under his table.
The screen now shows images of cows being propelled through the air, the Crucifixion song and dance numbers, Americans running the afterlife and Mr Creosote.
This great Welshman holds his arms up in the air and shouts in a very high-pitched Welsh accent, “STOP THIS NOW!”
The film stops, the clouds calm and the official emerges from under his desk.
Terry turns to the official helping him up.
“To be honest that is what people remember me for, but there's more than a human face behind this comedy persona. Yes, it’s true I wrote and directed comedy films but my passion for medieval history is boundless. I used that fame to activate the enquiring mind, reaching the imaginations of the young and young-at-heart. Just because I dress up as old pepperpot with a funny voice and gave birth to a non-Messiah it doesn’t mean I’m not passionate about our heritage, our history or our future come to that. I stood tall and pointed out the folly of the Iraq war in 2011. I have principles. I believe in the right to a voice, to be heard and my fame has given me that platform and I will be forever grateful for it.”
The official looks at his ledger and then back to Terry.
He hands Terry a card which simply reads “Legends are not always reconsidered as such until their legacy is fully revealed.”
Suddenly his vision shakes, blurring before his eyes and Terry finds himself lying in a hospital bed wearing striped pyjamas.He suddenly sits up and turns to find a man sat at his bedside. The man is wearing a military officer’s uniform. Well at least his top half is... His bottom half is all suspenders and high-heeled shoes. He is sipping from a cup of tea whilst puffing on his pipe; no mean feat, I can assure you. In the background a medieval minstrel is cavorting about and playing his lute to the strains of ‘I’m The Urban Spaceman’.
Terry turns to the man at his bedside, his excitable Welsh tones almost incomprehensible………. “Graham, I’ve just had a wonderful idea!”
Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020)
(Written by Warren Cummings)
('Round The Archives' cover by Martin Holmes)
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