Nigel's Trousers

A year ago today my beloved brother died. My sadness was initially made a little easier because it was mixed, if only to a very small extent, by relief that he was finally free from the misery he had endured for a very long time.

As time has gone on though, I have grown to miss him more and more, as the pile of things I've wanted to share with him - mostly funny things that I knew would amuse him as much as they did me - has mounted up. A lot of those things I would have shared via this blog, which he encouraged me to write in the first place and which became for me another way of talking to him. That is why, since he hasn't been here to talk to any more, I haven't really posted all that much.

But today it occurs to me that I can continue talking to him here. All I have to do is to pretend that he is listening. If I can create for myself the illusion that our conversation continues, if rather one-sidedly, that will be a small comfort, (and will also help me get rid of that ever increasing pile of things I mentioned).

And instead of being sad today, I'm going to listen to a song that I know my brother would have laughed and laughed at. It is by John Finnemore, who my brother loved, and its choice is, I suppose, influenced by nostalgia, (as, one could argue, this whole post is): when my brother and I were children we used to make up imaginary characters and conduct increasingly complicated conversations between these fictional people on long car journeys; our favourites were Nigel and Daphne, and this sketch makes affectionate fun of the kind of person Nigel, my brother's alter ego in our game, would have grown up to become, (with acknowledgments to Country Life magazine, from whose article about red trousers the illustration comes):