{"id":582,"date":"2004-03-30T09:48:17","date_gmt":"2004-03-30T14:48:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=582"},"modified":"2010-07-11T09:00:33","modified_gmt":"2010-07-11T13:00:33","slug":"farewell-mr-cooke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=582","title":{"rendered":"Farewell, Mr. Cooke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alistair Cooke is dead.<\/a><\/p>\n

This man was an integral part of my childhood. Masterpiece Theatre, while not always geared to children, sometimes had mini-series which were, indeed, masterpieces for kids. I remember them vividly. They were RICHly done, beautifully realized. How sad I am that there isn’t such a thing now.<\/p>\n

The Prince and the Pauper. Heidi. Ballet Shoes<\/em> (which was one of my favorite books as a kid, too … To see it acted out was a pleasure beyond belief).<\/p>\n

The Flame Trees of Thika<\/em>, with my girl Hayley Mills … I was older when that came out … but damn, it was awesome.<\/p>\n

I remember the beginning credits. The long slow pan over a desk, showing objects: a globe, a magnifying glass, the gold-lettered leather-bound piles of books (always the classics) – with the mountingly exciting music. The camera pan ending with Alistair Cooke, sitting there in his leather wing-chair, explaining to us what we were about to see.<\/p>\n

His explanations were easy to grasp, he provided context. I ate up his every word. Loved his voice, too. I can hear it in my ears now!<\/p>\n

Cooke said, when he retired last month: “I have had much enjoyment in doing these talks and hope that some of it has passed over to the listeners, to all of whom I now say thank you for your loyalty and goodbye.”<\/p>\n

Tony Blair said: “He was really one of the greatest broadcasters of all time, and we shall feel his loss very, very keenly indeed.”<\/p>\n

Indeed.<\/p>\n

Update<\/i>: Don’t miss Patrick Belton’s eloquent post on Cooke.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alistair Cooke is dead. This man was an integral part of my childhood. Masterpiece Theatre, while not always geared to children, sometimes had mini-series which were, indeed, masterpieces for kids. I remember them vividly. They were RICHly done, beautifully realized. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16562,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/16562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}