By Gay Byrne
Sunday Sep 14 2008

The RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) newsletter proclaims that the number of deaths on Britain's roads has fallen below 3,000 for the first time since records began 80 years ago. We're talking about last year.

It is wondrous good news, and the result of much good work by various agencies over the past 20 years. The Road Safety Authority -- scarcely two years old -- would hope to be able to announce a commensurate figure for Ireland in time to come.

What is fascinating is the fact that, in the Sixties and Seventies, in both Britain and Ireland, there were twice the number of road fatalities as at present, with only a fraction of the number of vehicles on the roads -- and no one made any fuss about it.

In the Seventies, all our attention was focused, it seems, on Northern Ireland and what was happening up there, which left us little time to concentrate on anything else. But we were killing people on our Southern roads at a murderous rate -- more than 700 per year -- and no one was particularly bothered. Our attitude to drink-driving and speed limits, you might recall, was relaxed, to say the least.

But here's something I cannot figure out: the RoSPA says that in 1941 there were over 9,000 deaths on British roads. How can that be? The war was well and truly under way, petrol was severely rationed -- down to essential services, doctors, vets, military personnel -- there cannot have been many vehicles on the roads at all, so how can they have killed 9,000 people? And don't tell me the wartime blackout might have been responsible: all those people cavorting around the roads in total darkness, killed by the few drivers who were on the road not being able to see where they were going? Doesn't add up. And the RoSPA doesn't explain the figure.

And here's another fact: I've just discovered that the first person in the world to be killed by a car was -- wouldn't you know it -- Irish. Mary Ward was killed in Co Offaly in August 1869 when she fell out of a steam-powered car and slid under the wheels. She was one of the Parson family of Birr Castle, and the car was being driven by two of her Parson cousins. She was quite a distinguished woman and had done pioneering work in science and astronomy, which was unusual for a woman at that time. But then, she came from a scientifically distinguished family. I just thought I'd throw in that titbit, in case you end up in a pub quiz tonight at short notice and it happens to come up.

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I was a lifelong fan of Bernard Levin. I hugely admired his journalistic and writing talent; I envied his prodigious memory; I was in awe of his world knowledge and of his grasp of so many different facets of arts and culture, and I was sad to hear of his eventual, agonising descent into dementia and death.

As a schoolboy, when his class was given, say, a long poem to learn, he could glance at it once, and it would be locked in his memory forever, while all his pals struggled for hours over the same task; in his cups he was given to singing long operatic excerpts from memory, although he hadn't a note in his head; and extended passages of Shakespeare, recited with passion and feeling, were part and parcel of social dinners.

I interviewed him several times and found him a delight: self-assured and opinionated to the point of arrogance, but such was my admiration that I felt he was one of the few whose arrogance was justified.

He was a London City boy, born and reared -- upset by anything even vaguely bucolic: cows looking at him over a gate, or sheep grazing in green fields. He never learned to ride a bike or drive a car, but he was a prodigious walker, always in the city.

One of his favourite walks was along the Thames, taking in all the bridges and crossing each one as he came to it. He reckoned it was a 15-miler, and he liked to do it on a Sunday, and take all day at it, picking up and dropping companions along the way, and taking time out for snacks or a drink.

I've taken to copying him: it's not anything like walking in my beloved Howth, but since we've come to Dublin 4, I've walked from Sandymount to Heuston Station and back, crossing the river at each bridge. It's not as long as Levin's London walk, but it must be about 10 miles, although I've never measured it. Yes, I'm well aware that this newspaper has many readers far outside the Pale, but if you are a Dub and you've never walked this before, you might try it. Not on a weekday, though -- I've tried it and it's heavily trafficked, noisy, polluted, busy and unpleasant. And the congestion is such that the traffic is halted for long periods, which gives every taxi driver in Dublin the chance to shout and roar at me about road safety and yella-box junctions and speed limits and related matters as I pass by -- stuck in traffic, they've nothing better to do. This might be disconcerting for you, but I've been shouted and roared at and cat-called in the street every day for the past 50 years and it doesn't bother me. But on Sunday morning, this walk is a delight, and the earlier the better.

The campshires on both sides of the river from The Matt Talbot Bridge down to the East Link are a lovely amenity, as are the boardwalks upriver. And on foot, you have a chance to stop and stare at the buildings all around you, new and old, and to realise just how many of them are truly quite outstanding.

Dear, old, dirty Dublin: on a fine Sunday morning, it's not a bad place to be.

Try it sometime.

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Just re-reading what I've written, out of the blue, I was reminded of my utter shock one day, during the run-through for Who Wants to be a Millionaire? discovering that one of our contestants, a teacher of English at one of our foremost colleges, had never encountered the word "bucolic" and had no idea what it meant. He was followed some weeks later by another teacher of English Literature at senior level who didn't know that Damon Runyon was the author of Guys & Dolls. Teachers of English?

I'm not trying to be uppity about this. I'm just remarking on the different categories of general knowledge possessed by different people, or, more importantly, not possessed.

Put me on any quiz and ask me anything about Coronation Street, EastEnders or Fair City and I wouldn't have the foggiest notion what you're talking about. I mean, zero. Zilch. Nada. Ditto, the current pop scene, whatever that is. Still. Teachers of English: bucolic? And Damon Runyon?

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So taken were we with An Ideal Husband at the Abbey Theatre -- in our opinion, the best thing the Abbey has done in the past five years -- that Kathleen called the theatre the next day to offer her congratulations to all concerned; and the woman to whom she spoke was so chuffed that she promised to put Kathleen's comments up on the general noticeboard, for actors and production staff. And I hope she did.

Couldn't make head nor tail of Pinter's No Man's Land at the Gate, and neither could half-a-dozen other people whose opinions I sought.

But if you want to see one of the finest pieces of acting stage-craft that I've seen in the past 10 years, go see David Bradley in the part of Spooner. Crafty, cunning, charming, wheedling, calculated -- a fantastic, sustained performance.

They're taking the show to London soon, so you'd need to be quick.

Not only that, but also: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Charlotte Rampling in The Duchess: 17th-century London; carriages, costumes, castles and courtesans, sex, adultery, love and betrayal!

What more could you want? We loved it for a rattling good yarn, well told. And Charlie and Di and the Paris tunnel never got a mensch.

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And here's something: at Dentist Bonar's funeral in Dungloe in August, I met Rory O'Hanlon, and we both agreed as to how we were looking well and still above ground and life was good. I hadn't seen the man for years.

On the opening night of Pinter's play at the Gate, I met Ardal O'Hanlon, and again we both agreed as how we were looking well and still above ground and etc, etc. I hadn't seen him for years, either.

On Monday morning, I was viewing some Late Late Show comedy moments through the years for a proposed compilation, and up came Dermot Morgan telling us that he'd just been booked to do a comedy for Channel Four, written by two mad Irishmen, and it was about priests and would be called Father Ted; and he was wildly excited by the whole thing, which represented a major showbiz break-through for him. Must have been round about 1990.

And immediately after the viewing, I was told of the death the previous day of Geoffrey Perkins, the producer of Father Ted, the man who brought the whole thing together, as he had done so well for countless other outstanding comedy shows in his lifetime.

He was killed by a van crossing a London street. Apart from being a wonderful comedy producer, he was a much-loved and admired man.

There are no conclusions to be drawn from these few coincidences: just events, dear boy, events.

- Gay Byrne

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