But before doing either of these things, I would find the Liphook Bowling Club, in which Mum and Dad were prominent members during the 1980s and 1990s. Dad had been one of the top people there; and Mum had contributed much in the catering department. Both had been enthusiastic players, going on bowling holidays to Devon and elsewhere.
Here are some pictures. (Not mine! They were taken with Dad's camera when I wasn't around) Mum is on the right in this one:
Dad is on the left in the next shot, and in the middle in the one following:
One of the bowling holidays was featured in a 1987 or 1988 BBC documentary called O'Donnell investigates...Old Age, and involved a BBC crew following everyone around for a week, recording what they said and did. There were a lot of 'noddy' shots, in which club members were simply asked to talk naturally among themselves over a table full of drinks on a sunny hotel patio, without necessarily capturing the speech. These would be used as background while Michael O'Donnell made some point. But some club members were individually interviewed. Dad was one of them. He was asked to expound on the delights of an active retirement on a good Civil Service pension, and he did so with all the required poise and polish: for Dad had a benignly commanding manner and a good, clear, urbane, speaking voice. Even more so than me, he could speak with clarity, conviction and persuasiveness, providing excellent sound bites.
That interview of Dad's was one of the very few that got more than a few seconds in the final cut. Dad looked fit, relaxed, affluent, every inch the successful retired senior Civil Servant in suntanned good health, blessed with a great social life, and getting the most out of his unlimited leisure. I don't remember his mentioning the cruises that he'd enjoyed with Mum, but he may have done so. The lifestyle he projected, though not of course jet-set, nevertheless looked enviable and aspirational.
What he and other club members didn't know was that the eventual TV programme was to have a Message. It was going to show two very different ways to spend your retirement. One would show how pleasant life can be on a good pension; and the other what a shabby, dreary and grey existence it is on a meagre pension.
I watched the end product with dismay, because the Good Life was made to look selfish and empty, devoid of social concern, and well-described by the phrase 'the chattering classes'. The poor souls surviving on so very little made such a damaging contrast. To make the contrast even more damning, it was clear that they had worse health - which, considering Michael O'Donnell's influential medical background, was of course the underlying point of the programme.
On the plus side, I'm sure that this documentary helped to raise awareness of the plight of old people on inadequate pensions, leading to the State Pension improvements and tax breaks that to some extent alleviated the worst of pensioner poverty. Currently, of course, these are under fire - many believing that all older people are living the dolce vita at the expense of younger citizens. I'm expecting the gravy train to stop in the Chancellor's 2020 Autumn Budget.
Anyway, I drove into Liphook, parked Fiona, and embarked on an exploratory stroll. I knew pretty well how to get to the Bowling Club, but on the way noticed considerable change. During the 1990s, Liphook was bypassed by a new alignment of the A3 road to Portsmouth, and that seemed to be the signal for a lot of house-building on the edge of town. But the closure and redevelopment of the big Army Ordnance Depot in the town centre had created space for new roads, new facilities, and even more new housing. The Liphook I used to know was still there, but so much more built up.
I turned off the old road to London, and emerged onto a recreational field that looked no different from when I'd last walked here twenty-nine years ago. The Bowling Club wasn't far off, but not visible until I spotted a cut between high wire fencing that I'm pretty sure didn't used to enclose the green. Ah, there was the Clubhouse...
I'd vaguely known Mum and Dad's Liphook bowling friends back in the 1990s, but had never actually been inside the Clubhouse, never being a member myself. I'd never contemplated taking up bowling (and I still wouldn't). It looked slow and unexciting. I didn't like the idea of having to wear whites, and old-fashioned whites at at that. In any case, it wasn't in me to join anything, not wanting to 'belong', not wanting any kind of 'club life', and definitely not the commitment of fixtures to attend.
So the first challenge now was this: could I - should I? - enter that Clubhouse, armed only with my relationship with my parents, and a curiosity to see whether there was still any trace of them there? Would I be met only with blank politeness?
What the hell. In I went. And introduced myself. The reception was friendly. I explained that I was the daughter of Rodney and Dorothy Dommett, who had been mainstays of the Club two or three decades back. Happily, I was speaking to the current Lady President, and (no doubt curious herself) she led me over to the lists of past Club Officers on the wall.
Ah, look! Topping the lists of past club Presidents! R Dommett, in 1990. 'That's Dad,' I said.
This established my own bona fides beyond argument.
Further along, a second discovery. R Dommett as Treasurer in 1985. Actually, I knew he'd been Treasurer at some point. But I'd forgotten he'd ever been President.
Then, on a shield on another wall, Mrs D Dommett as winner of the Midsummer day Cup in 1992. 'That's Mum,' I said.
But there was nothing else. And nobody present could personally recall either Mum or Dad. Actually, I was rather relieved that no-one did, or could wheel in someone who could. I could envisage a rather awkward conversation with a very elderly person, in which I'd have to explain an awful lot about myself. But more especially, I didn't want to rake over Mum and Dad's sad deaths ten years previously.
The people in the Clubhouse were playing another bowling team shortly, so I thanked everyone and made my departure.
Whatever their impact on the Club, or Liphook itself, it didn't seem that Mum and Dad were in people's minds now. Even though they had, I knew, been well regarded and well loved. A younger generation had come along, and they had simply faded from memory.
This is how it goes. It's the natural way. And it ought to be a lesson to anybody who craves fame and public attention of any kind. It's here today, gone tomorrow. Whether you are a top scientist or a reviled tyrant, whether the saviour of the world or its destroyer - even if you only want to be a local hero or string-puller - you will in time be forgotten, or become just a footnote in some dusty record, or a name on a club wall, or on a gravestone.
I think this should in fact be a consolation to those who cannot hope for recognition of any sort. It doesn't matter. Nobody will care, so don't worry about it.
In fact I can't help thinking that anyone who chases fame and recognition must become a slave to the conventional standards of their time, losing personal freedom and integrity in their quest to be well-known and approved. Better to make your own rules, and live on your own terms.
