Strathmiglo is a village in Fife, in which comedian Ronnie Corbett once had a home. We pass it on a regular basis. The road on which we do that, though, bypasses the main street but the way we come in passes a road named Cash Fues as the land there once belonged to the ancestors of country singer Johnny Cash.
One day last year we took the time to stop for a look round the village itself.
This is the tolbooth, built in 1734:-
View towards East Lomond – the second highest hill in Fife. (The highest is the West Lomond.)
There is a wonderful monkey puzzle tree (araucaria) just off the main street – with the kirk beyond:-
By the entrance to the kirk is a Pictish stone:-
A plaque on the wall beside it has a description:-
The tag line was too good not to use as a post title but it’s still sad that now it’s The No Ronnies.
Mr Corbett never lost his Scottish accent. I believe for a while he retained a house in the village of Strathmiglo, which is only six miles from Son of the Rock Acres.
In my days as a teacher I was wont to employ a catch phrase from one of the TV shows he starred in, Sorry!, (even though it wasn’t Ronnie who ever spoke it.) Rather his character was the subject of its admonishment, “Language, Timothy!” [At least one bewildered child responded to me, “I’m not called Timothy.” ]
From his time on the “Class” sketch in The Frost Report through the immortal “Fork ‘Andles” in his heyday as the smaller half of The Two Ronnies he made memorable contributions to lightening the nation’s heart.
Some of his comedy from that era may have tired but the best of it is up there with with anyone’s.
The Frost Report: Class
Ronald Balfour “Ronnie” Corbett: 4/12/1930 – 31/3/2016. So it goes.
I meant to say when I mentioned the film Austenland that the classification certificate displayed on screen before its start said “Contains one example2 of moderate language.”
I admit I perked up a bit at that as I immediately therefore expected all the rest of the language to be immoderate. That it wasn’t (the extent of the “moderate” language was one “Wankers!” in the whole film!) might help explain my odd sense of dissatisfaction with it.
1This was the catch-phrase retort of the father in the sit-com Sorry! which starred Ronnie Corbett and featured an overbearing mother.
2The noun may have been instance rather than example. Whatever, it implied only one.
