When I turned ten or eleven, my friends started to ring me on occasion at the weekend, on the landline (one of those cream-coloured Eircom phones that had ten buttons on the right-hand side, where you could pre-program your most frequently dialled numbers, then ring them at a single touch of a button. Kids these days just wouldn’t understand that level of sophistication). As my friends rang the house, they would remark afterwards that my mother was “posh”, because she would answer the phone with a jovial “1-2-3-4-5, Una speaking.” They didn’t know any other parent who answered the phone in this way.

Nor did they know anyone who, in the early ‘nineties, made double-baked stuffed potato skins. Or fancy casseroles, beef ‘n’ beer stews, or used fondues or raclettes. I’m cringing as I recall how embarrassed I was that our parents seemed to be the “posh” ones. For God’s sake, we had a patio and a conservatory. This was pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland. We were probably considered the “Bouquets” of our area.

Even the fact that we were able to watch Keeping Up Appearances on BBC1, at a time when many of our friends only had two channels, RTE1 and Network 2, was a kind of snobbery in itself. When other Irish families were watching Glenroe, we sat laughing at Hyacinth Bucket’s (“it’s Bouquet”) misguided attempts at bettering herself, social climbing on a rickety ladder. Patricia Routledge was made for this role. I loved her clumsy displays of social awkwardness, her tireless efforts to invite those she perceived to be of a “higher social standing” to one of her candlelight suppers, and her embarrassment at being related to the plain Daisy and layabout Onslow. Of course, as I grew older, I learned that the Onslows and Daisys of the world, flawed as they were, were far more relatable than the pretentious Hyacinths.

Keeping Up Appearances became one of those things I will forever associate with my childhood and, more specifically, my mother. I remember the warmth I felt inside as I watched Mum watching it, dabbing the tears of laughter away with her hand. Of course, since the early to mid-nineties were simpler times, the whole Sheridan being gay thing went completely over my head (“oh but of course, you and Tarquin must have matching silk pyjamas”), but the bragging over Violet was something I picked up on straightaway (“my sister Violet, the one with the swimming pool, sauna, room for a pony”). 

I think part of the reason why Keeping Up Appearances is so popular is because everybody who watches it can relate to it. We all have a vision of what a perfect family should look like, and we tend to think that other people have their shit together when they do not. Patricia Routledge once said in an interview: “I think great comedy is based on pretension, pretending to be something that you’re not, and the exquisite danger of being found out.”

It is also a reminder that the more we try to maintain a fake outer façade, the more likely it is that façade will fall away. Sometimes, it’s easier to live in a fantasy than face reality; for example, Hyacinth’s father “Daddy”, who clearly has cognitive issues too large for any family to deal with alone, is reduced to an eccentric genius in Hyacinth’s mind, and perhaps this is a coping mechanism for her. Violet tells Hyacinth that she’s thinking of leaving her cross-dressing husband Bruce, and Hyacinth gasps in horror, exclaiming “What about the Mercedes?”

Patricia Routledge passed away on 3 October and with that, she took another small part of our childhood, and our mother with her. I know that this mightn’t make sense to you, dear reader, but it does to me; the end of an era, a bonding ritual with both of our parents that can’t ever be reclaimed. Every time I hear that jaunty theme music, I’m back lying on that mauve sitting room carpet (no dodgy hip back then), with my head in my hands, being brought into an adult world that I otherwise had no interest in, laughing at the futility of pretending to be someone you’re not. 

I recently watched an interview with Routledge on YouTube, dated early ‘nineties, where she remarked that she “gets a bit frightened of [Hyacinth] herself.” Routledge disclosed that while she herself was nothing like Hyacinth, she thoroughly enjoyed playing her, and after all these years, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in that role.

Thank you, Patricia, for the belly laughs and for reminding us all, that despite appearances, we are all flawed, and delightfully human.