The Meaning Of Life, Part One

Spent a few wonderfully nostalgic hours in the company of one Chris Grant yesterday, a former colleague from 20 plus years back, with whom I worked at various radio stations: Essex Radio, (‘Don’t talk to me about Ethics, I own most of it’) and Chiltern Radio (‘broadcasting to Hearts, Beds & Bucks’ {Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire & Buckinghamshire}). Both stations are defunct now, gobbled up by the conglomerate GWR.

In those days Chris had a beautifully mellifluous, deep, velvety voice – and that certainly hasn’t changed. Then as now he lives in an apartment near Finchley Central, decorated in such a manner as to be dubbed ‘the old curiosity shop’. All those years ago, Chris revealed to me he was the voice of the narrator in Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life. I was deeply impressed, and in fact I still am. “The meaning of life, part two: Live organ transplants.” And so on.

It’s as remarkable an achievement to me as if I were ever realise my goal to play a baddie in a James Bond film one day, or have a bar named after me.

I’d say that the years have been a bit kinder to Chris than they have to me, given my girth and receding hairline, but that’s to be maudlin. It was indeed a nostalgic afternoon, yet we didn’t cry into our beer about the glory days. On its own, it was worth returning to Britain for – especially after the Lebanon.