#jfsp 9

We don't have anything as… you know, the Wilkinsons are, in particular that middle family, the Wilkinsons and associated tribes are particularly fond of that sort of thing, the hat ripping and so on. So, we don't necessarily have things quite that marked, but we all have little, you know… Certainly my family, we all have odd little jokes and things we don't even know are jokes, things we just take for granted. Which is how i think of things like "half a glass" that Russ doesn't really know that's a family tradition, he certainly doesn't know where it comes from. But Walter said it to Jerry and Jerry said it to his kids and they also, it just became a thing that the family say when they are feeling tearful, and so that's instinctive in Russ when the bully approaches, you know, when he's feeling scared, just to blurt out "half glass", he's no idea why, so i'm sure there's things like that in my life, little catchphrases we all… yeah. In my family, if anyone describes something with lukewarm praise, especially with the phrase "quite nice" then whoever they're talking to will immediately go, "clean anyway", because of the famous occasion when apparently my auntie… my great auntie Phyllis went to visit my great auntie Brenda's new front room, which had just been done in new wallpaper and went, "Quite nice… clean anyway."

from John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme Season 9 Zoom discussion with Q&A with John Finnemore (bless you lovely people for recording this and @musicalheart168 for telling me three years later because apparently i'm bad at youtubing. even if you still haven't seen it yourself. just this tiny one, come on)

Gally: Was there? Or an understanding?

Newt: No. A misunderstanding. I think perhaps the same misunderstanding you're making right now.

Gally: Oh! Then... I thought perhaps we shared a family failing.

Newt: Why have you asked--

Gally: Because after all, you know, you've never been much of a one for the girls.

Newt: No! Look. Since you-- since you insist upon asking me, Gally, I, I don't have the least use for the whole silly business.

Gally: Ah.

Newt: Leaves me entirely cold.

Gally: You've tried it then.

Newt: Never. And I never shall.

For years, my mom would sing “Good Morning Starshine” at my sister and me in the mornings to get us moving. I had absolutely no idea where this came from until years later when I listened to Hair.

Told my mother and she said “Oh, where does that come from anyway?” She’d also had it in her head for years with no idea where she’d picked it up from! She thought it was Godspell (which fair enough, same time period, pretty close and yet so far apart.)

I have been projecting my own aversion to having kids onto Uncle Newt so hard I cannot reconcile myself with the (equally valid) headcanon some people have of him regretting being unable to reveal himself/act like a father towards Vanessa.