So long Ramsey Street

Or how I used Neighbours to practise memento mori

It’s finally happened. The kingdom of Harold Bishop has come to a close. I guess nothing is permanent after all.

I used to watch Neighbours when I was a kid. It was always on at 5 in the evening (I think), so I’d manage to smash through whatever programming the BBC had put together after school and then it was half an hour of Australian sunshine before dinner.

The problem with looking back at the old cartoons that I used to watch, like He-Man, Thundercats, and the lesser known Centurions (yes, I grew up in the 80s) was that Prince Adam of Eternia doesn’t age. He’s the same blond haired powerhouse now as he was 40 years ago. Not Dolph Lundgren, I mean the cartoon one. Although Dolph Lundgren is still a fucking blond haired powerhouse 40 years on.

There’s no sense of the passage of time when I watch these cartoons, so I’m immediately transported back to childhood without there being any sense of my having aged. There’s no frame of temporal reference.

Neighbours, on the other hand, having not watched it for a good 20+ years, gives me a real sense that time has passed. I remember watching Toadfish bumbling about in Harold’s diner and thinking he couldn’t have been that much older than me at the time (the actor who played him is, on researching, only 2 years my senior).

I started paying attention to it again because it’s ending. I’m also planning on having a full on Neighbours party tomorrow night when the last episode airs on Channel 5 at 9pm. Sadly I can’t get hold of any VB.

Now I’m looking at some of the same characters in the show now and thinking “fuck me, Toadie got old”. Then I remembered that he’s about the same age as me and I’m thinking “fuck me, I got old”.

Those 20+ years since I last watched neighbours feel like a mist. I look back through them and it’s a bit murky and hazy and I’m left wondering what happened to the time. It’s reminded me that life is fleeting and transitory. That we have to do something with it. That we have to make the moments count by having agency and not squandering time on pointless endeavours.

I need those little reminders sometimes. It’s easy to get wrapped up in playing Halo: Infinite and procrastination. These little nudges are like the Universe going “come on, sort your shit out, we haven’t got all the time in the world after all”.

We’re all prone to forgetting our own impermanence. It feels like a natural state of being for most of us. Every now and then it’s good to be reminded we aren’t. For me, at least, it’s a good motivator to pay attention to what’s important to me. It brings my vision back into focus.

So long Harold. I’ll miss you and your tuba.

Much love
David

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