The Final Curtain

I used to tell a little tale about the first time I saw Last of the Summer Wine.
I was just a young lad, still old enough to roll on along the sides of our circular pouffe in a rhythmic aid to post-prandial digestion. I saw a program that was so utterly devoid of quality, humour, wit, writing, performance, that it made impossible any remnant of pleasure. For the time my life I needed immediately to understand what was on my screen and, if possible, why.
I hunted down the family TV Guide in order to discover the name of the programme, the sole intention being to facilitate myself never bumping into it again. This debacle turned out to be a much loved BBC television - The Last of the Summer Wine. Happily, I thought to myself, "Well thank God it's the last".
This true incident always amused me and over more than the quarter of a century in which my hopeful prophecy has turned out to be more wrong than I could have ever imagined, I have related it a number of times.
But tonight, it came true. It really was the last the very Last of the Summer Wine - the final episode.
The very last of these famously lovable characters careering around in their last tin bath
I'm not sure there was never anything particularly lovable about Compo, Clegg and Foggy. To me they all had slightly sinister overtones but as I watched the last 10 minutes of 31 years of the world's longest-running sitcom, I noticed the cast contained a parade of older actors - refugees from other well-loved sitcoms.
Add in some innocent slapstick, a bit of contrived plot-propelling claptrap and a grotesque laugh track and the formula was in place for... well, let's hope now, the final time.

And in fact, I noticed that they were just a bit lovable.