A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace
Tennessee Williams
My memory was easily tested a few weeks ago, when I was chatting with a friend about one of my favourite ITV programmes from my childhood.
We were all in a trivia chatroom where people get on mic and play music. The other members have to name the tune. My friend played the theme to London's Burning - the series about a fire brigade unit in England's capital city. I watched the series religiously back during its peak.
I obviously knew the answer to the tune. I cannot recall if I came first or not. Anyway, once the theme had been played, we chatted about London's Burning and the topic of our favourite characters came up.
Without a shadow of a doubt, my most favourite person on that show was Colin Parrish (played by Stephen North).
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| I asked AI 'create an image of Colin from London's Burning'. It gave me one which looked terrible, so I asked 'make it more cartoony' and - to be fair - it looks somewhat better |
Without looking up Wikipedia or London's Burning fansites, I choose to guess Colin was in the series for at least three seasons. Maybe a little more. The character came in as a young - and very naive - recruit. He was the butt of the crew's jokes at times, but kind of overcame it by the end of his run even if he had that innocent charm about him throughout.
I'll always recall how he was written out. It still hurts,
I remember it more vividly than maybe I should because Colin's final episode coincided with the same day I went to my first-ever WWF event.
It was on December 5th 1993. I obviously couldn't watch London's Burning as it aired that night, so asked my parents to record it while I went to watch the likes of Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, 'Macho Man' Randy Savage, Yokozuna, The Undertaker and many more live an in-person.
As I've written countless times in the past, but especially in the post titled
The Day The WWF Came To Town, I was fortunate to meet the entire crew from that show in the hours before the event. It was a special day for this wrestling fan, but all the good came crashing down when I pressed Play on the video recorder once I returned home later that night.
It was clear Colin was departing Blue Watch. He had managed to secure a job working as a fireman at an airport. There was one scene showing Colin with this look of awe on the engines as he visited where he was set to work. Stephen North, who played Colin, made it so believable with just the expressions. You could sense Colin was about to thrive reaching the next stage of his dream.
Which makes it all the more shattering when we would witness Colin having an accident on his last shout with his then current station.
If memory serves me correctly, the team had just dealt with a fire at a theatre. Colin was standing on the stage and the rail holding the curtains came down on top of him, shattering his legs.
Colin survived, but his injury meant his career was over. There went the dream.
As I've noted, the gutting feeling for Colin's departure has remained with me right up to this very day - its thirty-second anniversary.
The emotion shouldn't be a complaint, however. I applaud the writing, and the acting. Colin Parrish's underdog story was perfect, even if it feels the opposite. Not all dreams are fulfilled. Some never happen, some - like Colin's - are taken away just as the high station is in reach.
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