What follows is a messy look back at some of my Neighbours memories and what the show means to me. If you want to do me a small favour please sign the petition to SAVE NEIGHBOURS
What are your earliest memories? Nursery? A trip to the seaside? Your first ice cream? Well, as a product of the mid-1980s it should come as no surprise to learn mine…Ramsay Street! Or to be exact, sitting on the living room carpet at my parent’s house practically on top of the television watching Daphne Clarke get hit by a car. Google informs me I was four years old, yet it’s ingrained in my brain. The viewer not seeing Daphne get hit but rather witnessing it from Daphne’s point of view as the driver.
It was also around this time my mother gave up Marmite in favour of Vegemite after my supermarket tantrums because “it’s what Henry Ramsay eats for breakfast”. I can’t especially remember being a Henry fan but that coupled with memories of playing in the playgroup trike which had a ride on compartment after church on Sundays in order to re-enact the video to “Hey Mona” (along with the fact I can still sing that forgotten classic) suggest I must have been.
Fast forward a couple of years (1991/92) and we reach that timely phenomenon – the school Blue peter bring and by sale. Home I skipped happy as Larry the proud owner of a Jason Donovan annual (my best friend Sam having opted for Kylie, and Laura the more direct Neighbours annual) and everyone’s favourite board game “Straight from the heart” which you don’t need me to tell you saw players rewarded with a broken heart for every Jason Donovan-based trivia question they could correctly answer. One of the most disappointing aspects of my parents recent house move was the revelation that that classic had been thrown away and not put in the loft ‘for safe keeping’ as I’d been led to believe.
A few years on and my mother finally agreed to let me grow out my horrific home-cut fringe. But what to do in that dreadful in between stage where to stop my hair getting in my eyes? Follow the lead of Beth Brennan (Natalie Imbruglia) of course and sport a mile wide headband.
In to the millennium and as I sat down to face my GCSE English exam I was faced with the task of using my creative writing skills to detail my dream home. Easy…Ramsay Street! I wish I was joking, but four pages of droning on about how great it would be scored a B! Clearly the lovely folk at EdExel were equally enamoured with the prospect of living next door to Darren Stark (we’ll come back to him).
On to A Level Media studies I went. While my final year’s exams saw in-depth study of all things sci-fi, sweet sweet year 12! A summative exam on the genre of Soap Opera including dissecting genuine clips of Neighbours. “No Dad I’m not faffing about watching Neighbours, it’s exam prep”.
Year 12 also saw a by far more serious Neighbours linked memory and one I was in two minds about including in an otherwise light-hearted reflection but I can’t truly think about memories of one without the other. In year twelve I was studying Media A Level as a night-class and so had a large number of free periods during the day, ending classes at lunchtime on Tuesdays. Generally I used the time to catch up on essays (unbelievably I actually was that diligent then). But one particular Tuesday will live rent-free in my head forever more and if you’ve followed the vague chronology of my rambling this far you may be there already. Having completed double-period English I hopped on the metro, meeting on board my Mam and brother who’d been to town to arrange bike insurance for my brother and one of those security pen’s you use to write your postcode etc. on the frame with. On reaching home brother heads off into the garage to sort the bike and Mam and I sit down to lunch and Aussie sunshine. All normal. All a repetition of weekday lunchtimes from toddler days to now. Then the rolling credits are interrupted by a newsflash. At that stage I could remember maybe three such broadcasts (Sally Slater’s rescue, Abby Humphreys being found & Diana’s death). A fire at the top of a skyscraper. “A plane has crashed into one of the world trade towers” came the announcement. “Where?” I ask. “New York…that’s not an accident” comes my mother’s muted reply. Before I can query that instinct the second tower was hit. Moments earlier living vicariously through the residents of Erinsborough, now witnessing the world irrevocably altered.
Two years later, I headed off to uni and for the first time in my life didn’t have access to a TV. It seems impossible to imagine now but way back in 2003, my accommodation didn’t have a shared lounge and on a corridor of sixteen only one person possessed a TV. Thank goodness for Simon! I’ve long since lost touch with the Economics student from Bath but will forever be thankful for him opening up his room twice a day (for those with lecture clashes) and allowing us to squeeze in for our fix of sweet aussie sunshine. This was the era of The Scully family, Carmella Cammeniti and the Hoylands. Izzy Hoyland! Ingrained in my brain is the day sat in the JCR (Simon presumably having forgotten to unlock his room) Ali from Gloucester turned around and deadpan announced as we witnessed Karl leave Susan for Izzy “This is worse than when my parents got divorced”! Twenty years later as a divorcee crass as it sounds, I kind of agree. Thankfully a few years later I dragged my housemate to the Australian-themed, puke-stenched Walkabout bar to see Alan Fletcher (AKA Dr Karl Kennedy) and his band The Waiting Room and a roar rivalled only by a win at St James’ Park filled the place as he announced that Susan and Karl were getting back together. As an aside, a recent episode of Only Connect saw me achieve the rare feat of not only getting a sequence the competitors failed but coming in after two reveals: Susan Kennedy’s surnames in chronological order (Smith-Kennedy-Kinsky-Kennedy).
Darren Stark time! Oh Darren, naughty Darren, cheating Darren, beautiful beautiful Darren (look I’m not apologising he is let’s face it what any sane person would draw if asked to produce the perfect face). Ever since Todd MacDonald’s wonderful face departed from our screens every time the continuity announcer told viewers “Next week a familiar face returns” I’d scream at the TV “Bring back Darren” and every day for about six years my exasperated mother would reply “Get over it. It’s not going to be Darren”. Thanks to the abolition of student grants like many I was forced to take a summer job to pay my rent and again this meant being teared away from the cul-de-sac of joy. Catch-up TV on-demand was still a dream and let’s just say on more than one occasion ‘someone’ forgot to set the video recorder for me! By this time (2004), I’d basically given up hope and really only carried on with the Stark demands to wind up the mothership so when arriving back from work to be greeted with “You’ll never guess who was on Neighbours today?” I suspected this was some kind of sick revenge. Thankfully not and even more thankfully there was recorded proof. What a happy summer that was and may or may not have influenced parental agreement to take the spare telly back to uni with me for second year (and my purchase of a video recorder). When I got my first proper job post-graduation (after a few false starts) I was blessed with flexi-hours. I’ve never been a morning person but damn straight I was starting at 8am if it meant being home in time for Karl and Susan.
Eventually of course, adult life got in the way and while over the years I’ve gone back to the show many times it’s probably been a decade or so now since I’ve been a regular viewer. Instead making do with irritating my Mam (a constant, dedicated, unwavering viewer from the beginning) by asking a million questions whenever I happen to be visiting while it’s on. The truth is I don’t watch it anymore but I wish I did. I took Corrie back up a few years ago (once Carla and Peter were safely back together) and am constantly fighting to keep up to date with the ludicrous Fair City and only a few weeks ago (before the devastating announcement of the looming grim reaper) was contemplating bingeing as many episodes as were on MyFive in an attempt to get back into it.
Marriages have come and gone, jobs changed, houses left, friendships ended, evolved, interests peaked and waned, dreams ended, achieved, altered but one constant has remained. Recently an Australian girl joined staff and within twenty seconds of meeting I found myself bringing up Neighbours. I couldn’t help myself. For those of us born in the 80s, Australia really means one thing – Erinsbrough. I hate spiders, I can’t swim, I burn like a peach, I don’t like flying, I ring my Dad for help if I so much as spill milk on the kitchen floor (true story – the legend arrived ten minutes later to mop it up) and I have no skills that would qualify me for a visa but give me the chance to live anywhere and it would be Ramsay Street. For the best part of four decades (and I mean the BEST) that’s exactly where we have lived. Back in 2008 when the BBC dropped it, Channel Five came to the programme’s rescue and those of its viewers. Fourteen years on, the show is not only under threat of disappearing from UK screens but being bulldozed off the face of the planet. I pray it’s saved but rest assured Darren Stark will live on rent-free in my head until the end of time.
