There is a lot to be said for being alone. Not all the time of course, we all need someone most of the time and I know from experience, how sad being alone can be. When my father passed away in 2000, my mother seemed to slip into a little shell. She went shopping every day even though there was always food in her fridge or cupboard. She went to the shops to see other people, to speak with bakers and grocers and other shopkeepers before returning to her empty house. When I got divorced and came back to live with her, I like to think that me being there gave her a sense of purpose once again.
Occasional time on your own though can be good. It gives you time to think and do things that perhaps annoy your usual close partner. Playing music for instance or watching TV shows that your partner does not like. When you are alone you can eat early or eat late. You can get up early or you can get up late. You can even sit in the garden and read without any need to go back inside until you are good and ready. You can indulge in foods that are bad for you and no one will know. That cream cake that you should not have eaten is a secret between you and your inner self but you and you alone will know had good it tasted. Same goes for that Spam sandwich.
Sometimes I might get up early just for a change because together, Liz and I never get up early. Other times I might just lie in bed and read. I’m currently reading Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman. Goldman wrote the screenplays for films like A Bridge Too Far, Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men.
He gives advice on screenwriting and tells a number of film making/writing anecdotes. One I found particularly interesting was how directors want rewrites incorporating their ideas for the film. Then a big star comes aboard but doesn’t like it that his character dies at the end. New rewrite and the character is not killed. Then the star leaves the project and another star arrives. Cue new rewrite, this time the star wants to die but the director leaves and the new director wants to bring his own writer on board.
During All the President’s Men, Goldman interviewed the two newspaper men, Woodward and Bernstein, who pursued the Watergate story. After a year of research and interviews particularly with Woodward, Bernstein who was then married to Nora Ephron, put his own screenplay forward written by himself and Nora. Goldman wasn’t amused. Later he says that only one scene of the Bernstein/Ephron screenplay was used in the film but it wasn’t a scene Goldman was happy with. All along he had tried not to ‘Hollywoodise’ the story and keep scrupulously to the facts. The scene that came from the Bernstein script was one where Bernstein tricks a witness into talking. That says Goldman, was pure fiction.
Woodward and Bernstein (Picture via creative commons)
Time to drag myself up and into the kitchen. Breakfast for one is usually bacon and/or sausages cooked on my George Foreman grill. Poached egg and toast and a cup of tea.
After breakfast it’s time to write. Most of the time my laptop is full of part written stories and blog posts and my usual way of working is to write my stories in my head and then when I seem unable to go any further or sometimes when my head is just too full of stuff I’ll write the story down. I’ve got a lot of stories that start off well and then seem to lose their way.
Blog posts are a different matter. I’ve always felt that my deadline of 10.00am on a Saturday morning gives me an impetus to write. I can’t just write in my head or leave unfinished a half written blog post (although to be honest, I actually do). I must write, I must create something ready for Saturday morning, even if it involves dusting off an old blog post and re writing or re-hashing it to create something new.
The best time to write is when it’s raining. That way, particularly in the summer, I don’t feel bad about being inside writing when I should -if the weather is lovely- be outside. I remember once back in 1968 I spent a very enjoyable afternoon on a very hot and sunny day, at the cinema watching 2001 A Space Odyssey. When my mother found out where I had been she told me off for not being outside and enjoying the sunshine.
I don’t eat lunch but round about four I generally feel the need for a cup of tea and a ham sandwich. I do love sandwiches. Another thing about being alone is that I like to cook. I make pretty much the same old things, spaghetti bolognese, chilli, pizza. Most of the time I make a pizza by buying one of those cheap cheese and tomato pizzas and adding more cheese and more toppings but I do like to make a fresh pizza including making the dough. A lot of my pizzas came out a little soggy until I found the perfect solution. When using home made dough it’s a good idea to first bake the dough for a short while then take it out, add the tomato sauce, cheese and toppings and then slap it back in a very hot oven.
As I am writing this, exactly one year ago on the 30th April 2025, I made a pizza with home made dough and that was probably the first time I had made a perfect, well, almost perfect pizza. It had, if I remember correctly, cheese, onion, pepperoni and mozzarella chunks. I served it with salad for myself and my brother although he declined the salad. We had a nice evening. We chatted and watched one his favourite Bond films, Octopussy with Roger Moore as 007. I’m a big Bond fan but I’ve never liked Roger Moore as James Bond. Eventually my brother’s taxi arrived and he left.
Another thing I tend to do when I’m alone is to edit video and record my voiceovers. I’ve got a really good microphone and of course to record you do not need any background noise. When I was a school kid living on the council housing estate of Wythenshawe I was always pretty enamoured of Gatley. Gatley is a small village just next door to Wythenshawe. It’s a lovely village with nice pubs and shops and private houses and it’s a place I always thought would be rather lovely to live in. These days I couldn’t afford to live anywhere near unless I was lucky enough to win the lottery.
What I like about Gatley is that although it has changed it actually still looks pretty similar to the way it used to be, so one day I walked round the village with my video camera and then hooked up my mic and told my YouTube viewers my personal history of the village; the pubs I used to drink in, the cinema where I saw a lot of films (including 2001 A Space Odyssey mentioned above) the café I used to eat in, the chip shop I used to visit and the pub where my dad was the gardener and mum used to make the lunchtime sandwiches.
Another great things about being alone is being able to watch whatever I want on the television and not only that, to watch it the way I want to watch it. Sometimes I watch two or more programmes at once by flipping over during the advertisements or whenever I lose interest in one or other of the shows. Sometimes I’ll watch a DVD or even just watch the first half and then the second half the next night. Sometimes I stay up late and sometimes I’ll go to bed early and read a book. That’s the great thing about time on your own, you can do whatever you want.
After about three days on my own I find myself missing Liz and I pack up and drive up the M6 back to her place. The first thing I ask her is ‘have you missed me?’
She’ll look at me and say ‘missed you? I didn’t even notice you’d gone!’
All the links to previous posts above open in a new window.
I had a huge amount of recorded music of course. By the mid-seventies my record collection was already pretty big and I was buying vinyl records, usually 45 rpm singles, every week. My tape recorder had a built-in radio so I could record my favourite tracks straight onto tape for free and I spent a lot of time taping the new top twenty which came out every Tuesday. The other thing I could do with my tape recorder was record myself with a microphone.
I remember being in our usual pub quiz a few months back and one of the questions concerned Watergate. We were sitting with some friends, actually some much younger friends and one of them asked me, ‘Watergate? What’s that?’
Letters from an Unknown Author! 