Time to binge on Inspector Morse

Staunch and unflinching readers of this blog may recall a downbeat post I published on 28th March titled Frozen in Yeovil. It was downbeat because my post (illustrated as ever with many photos) revealed a Yeovil that had no sparkle whatever. In fact the town centre, although by no means lacking in modern facilities, looked tired and humdrum. It had lost its mojo. It simply wasn't worth going there. 

That's being very critical. But Yeovil redeemed itself, at least so far as I was concerned, by providing me with an entrancing moment late in 1974, when gently falling snow, a lit-up Christmas Tree, and rousing Christmas carols sung by a large choir on the green outside the parish church took my breath away. I had never forgotten it; and even if modern Yeovil is a nondescript let-down, that single brilliant memory from one cold dark afternoon many years ago still washes out any anything I might now make of the place. I have never had quite the same exalted, magical experience anywhere else. Nor - I might add - I have ever had quite the same dangerous winter drive back home on such lethally slippery roads. The angels mentioned in the carols must have harkened to my survival. 

My latest 2023 visit was somewhat enlivened by twenty minutes in the HMV shop. And readers may recall that I considered buying several DVDs to play on my TV at home. I settled on two films and a box set. I almost bought another box set, though - this one:

Ah, Inspector Morse. It certainly hadn't been the first TV crime series I'd ever watched, but it was perhaps the first of a new genre that was emerging in the 1980s, starting I think with Bergerac, where the complex and unorthodox character of the police detective, and his interactions with colleagues and people connected with the crime - always a murder - were the real story, enhanced by a particular contemporary background that would resonate with knowledgeable viewers, and indeed encourage new visitors to the place. Jersey in the Bergerac case. Oxford in the Inspector Morse case. 

And like other detectives lately appearing on TV, Morse wasn't a standard policeman. His background and outlook were different. He was an individualist who didn't really fit into any team. (A bit like me) He'd been an Oxford student - a classics scholar it seemed - which gave him the confidence to enter any of those elitist and highbrow Oxford colleges, and not be intimidated by snooty college masters. 

He was steeped in serious music, opera especially. He appreciated the finer things in life. And he was very clever. Even so, he was a flawed man, often exasperating his colleagues and superiors; and he was a drinker - too much so. Though charming when he wanted to be, Morse was a man who could be scornful and impatient. Yet he did not lack perception and human empathy. He was ever looking for love, and sometimes had it within his grasp; but it was always denied, as if the gods that bestowed insight and brilliance gave those gifts only at a high price.

Altogether, an interesting man who struck a chord with some of my own experience of life, even though I hadn't his academic background. Need I add that watching Inspector Morse made me explore opera?   

Morse was the masterly creation of the late author Colin Dexter, who could write a more cunning and intricate detective story than most. The ace card was the Oxford setting. Oxford (like Cambridge) had hitherto been - in the popular imagination - a high-minded academic city devoted almost exclusively to learning: ultra-respectable, thronging with earnest, idealistic students on bicycles. A place where serious crime was improbable, if not impossible. How could there be crime beneath those dreaming spires? Who would sully those ancient streets, riverside meadows and hallowed college lawns with blood? Dexter's genius was to show, in his Morse books, that Oxford was in fact a sewer of human greed, jealousy, snobbery and prejudice, where primitive impulses held sway, disguised and aided by social convention and expectation. Where the avoidance of scandal, the maintenance of reputation, counted for more than honesty, love or life. And where, now and then, somebody perished. 

The TV series revealed exactly the same thing. The storylines generally concluded with the downfall of a college master, or a well-regarded local businessman, or perhaps an aristocrat. People who thought their social or professional position put them above the law. I already had (and still have) a prejudice against people who claw their way to positions of power and influence, and insist on respect they do not deserve. It was pleasant to see Morse knock such persons off their pedestals, and reveal them as scoundrels. Men and women both. The sadness was, as ever, that the damage they had done couldn't be mended, only understood. It is the same in real life.

As soon as Inspector Morse began to be screened in 1987, I was hooked. I saw all but the very last episodes. This was long before you could buy box sets, let alone stream anything from the Internet. But back in the 1980s it was at least possible to form your own library of episodes by recording broadcast programmes on VHS video tape. I did that. Those recordings were not of course comparable in quality to modern DVDs. But they remained watchable for ten years or so. Eventually all those tapes were thrown away. By that time, VHS was well on its way out. 

So by 2023 it had been almost twenty-five years since I last saw any of the Inspector Morse episodes, and when I found that box set at Yeovil I was very tempted to buy it and see them all again. I resisted back in March, but the other day I was at HMV in Worthing, and finally took the plunge. Now I'm all set for an extended winter binge!

One of the special things about Inspector Morse was the music composed for it by (the now late) Barrington Pheloung. Haunting and beautiful. I'm looking forward to hearing a lot of it in the weeks ahead.

So last night I decided to blow the cobwebs off my 2008-vintage Samsung TV set and Toshiba DVD player, both unused since June, and watch Episode 1 of the first series, on Disc 1 of my box set. It was a straight adaption of Colin Dexter's book The Dead of Jericho - Jericho being an historically rather seedy canal-side part of Oxford, becoming a little more fashionable in the mid-1980s. In my study, I settled myself into my green leather reclining chair - the twin of the one in my lounge - with feet up. On the table next to me, a large mug of coffee; the remote controls for TV and DVD player; and of course LXV for grabbing pictures off the TV screen. The TV and DVD player sprang into life, and I was ready to press the 'play' button for a two-hour treat. I had of course half-forgotten The Dead of Jericho storyline, and couldn't quite remember what was coming. But that was fine.

Photos courtesy of LXV. My camera did rather well, despite the dim light. With the lens zoomed to 70mm, the TV screen almost filled the frame. To fit the 'wide-angle' 16:9 TV screen, they'd had to stretch the video picture horizontally. I suppose it had been filmed (or videoed) in 3:2 or 4:3 format. The graininess and narrow tonal range didn't matter: this was footage from the 1980s, not far off forty years ago, and much could be forgiven.

Ah yes: Morse, his sidekick Sergeant Lewis, and his burgundy-red Jaguar - even in 1987 a classic car.  

The opening scene. Choral practice. Morse is one of the singers. So is an attractive lady called Anne. They are exchanging glances a lot, so already there is a tentative connection.

Morse gives her a lift home in that lovely Jaguar. She invites him in, offers coffee, and they talk. He's keen on the ladies, but clumsy when it comes to asking for a proper date. But that doesn't matter: she obviously likes him. She explains, however, that she has a very complicated life and isn't free to do exactly as she pleases. But yes, they can have dinner soon. 

Morse has to leave it at that. Next thing he knows, she has been found dead, and he's in charge of the murder investigation. Needless to say, there are twists and turns galore, with another death, before the perpetrator is unmasked. In the course of this first episode, Morse teams up with Sergeant Lewis, looking quite youthful:

Lewis is of course an excellent contrast to Morse. They are very different, but somehow they click. Here they are together in one scene, where they discuss their progress over a pint at a pub near the crime scene - Morse insisting on a drink, Lewis wanting to refuse but giving in.

My goodness, what a spartan pub! Even in 1970, when I started work and an adult social life, and would go to pubs in and around Southampton with the new friends I'd found, I don't recall places where there wasn't a carpet on the floor, at least in the lounge bar - unless it was a country pub where slate or stone floors could be expected, and indeed looked for. Presumably that's the men-only saloon bar in the shot above, the cheaper bar to drink in. Of course, such bars were easy to clean: the formica table top could be wiped, and never needed a polish. The lino floors could be swept with a brush and mopped. Look: there's an ash tray. Those have disappeared, and only beer mats remain to advertise whatever beers are sold. I'm sure the average pub back in 1987 would have had cigarette smoke visibly hanging it the air - certainly all the city pubs I went to at lunchtime at that time were hazy inside with smokers' exhalations. It wasn't nice, but you took it for granted, like the smell of stale tobacco smoke everywhere, even on the  train taking you home.  

I enjoyed that first Morse episode. Two hours well-spent. But it was something of a culture shock. 1987 wasn't that long ago, but it seemed like a very different world. Different clothes; different cars; uniformed police who weren't dressed like soldiers; men in proper suits with shirts and ties; women in the Dallas and Dynasty-inspired fashions of the day. Easy places to park. Unconcern for walking about late at night in dark places. No street cameras. No laptops on office desks. Above all, no mobile phones, only landlines and red telephone boxes. So nobody immersed in what they see on a little screen, nobody lost in a little world. And without that world on one's handset, much more need to see and speak to other people face-to-face, to communicate properly, and get to know how other people really are. 

Personally, for all its anxieties, tensions and failings, I prefer 2023 to 1987, mainly because nowadays I have complete control over my life, good health, sufficient energy, and the means to seek out interesting things and visit beautiful places. I wasn't entirely happy in 1987, nor free, nor my own person. 

I haven't been to Oxford for years. Not since July 2016 in fact, when I went there by train from Charlbury - the only sensible way to do it, as Oxford makes life difficult for the motorist. Perhaps I should think about a quick visit this winter? Three or four nights in the caravan, somewhere near a station, so that I can take the train in as before. Hmm...