Jonny McCambridge: Enjoying listening to Hugo Duncan - how has it come to this?

Thus, when I remember, I turn on my wee radio at the top of the hour to acquaint myself with all the stories that I have likely missed.

Due to lockdown, the kitchen table has become my place of work. The little red radio is at the far side of the room, beside the kettle and toaster and carpet of crumbs. Turning it on involves getting up from my spot, which is an easier task for me to write about than accomplish.

It follows that often when I go to the bother of switching the radio on, I let it play for some time after the news bulletin has finished, rather than navigate the obvious trauma of standing up twice within too short a period of time. The radio may play for 10 minutes, or even 20, or, on the odd occasion, I let it run for the whole 60 minutes just so I can hear the bulletin on the next hour without having to endure the ordeal of getting up again.

This means that I consume a fair amount of radio programming in between the headlines. In the morning, Stephen Nolan can often set the news agenda for the day. Lynette Fay’s ‘Kitchen Disco’ in the afternoon usually brings some relief at just the moment when the burden of the day’s labour appears insurmountable.

But, more often, I don’t really notice what is being broadcast. I tend to become immersed with my long series of tasks and the radio is just something that is on in the background, at the edge of my consciousness, like a fly buzzing in the corner of the room.

This is how it is as I work today. My mind is occupied with a troublesome intro to a story which I am struggling to get right. I try various alterations but can’t quite seem to find a combination of words which works.

I’m only vaguely aware that the radio is playing a song. I have a sense of it being pleasant and soothing. Soon I notice that my foot is tapping and my fingers drumming across the surface of the mouse mat. I force my focus back towards my work.

I hear a voice. It speaks of being ‘on your nerves!’, of a ‘wee woman with the big stick’, of ‘the cream buns’. I smile inside and sink back into my chair, perhaps drawing comfort from the familiarity of the tone.

Suddenly I sit up straight. I have just realised what is happening.

‘Good ******, I’m listening to Hugo Duncan!’

Actually, it’s worse than that. We’ve all heard a bit of Hugo at some point or other. What has shocked me is that I was enjoying it. I shoot out of my chair, forgetting my previous physical lethargy, and walk quickly around the room, shaking my head repeatedly. How has it come to this?

I begin to mutter under my breath.

‘No…it can’t be so…it can’t be so.’

I turn the radio off and brusquely instruct Alexa to play some Thin Lizzy. I have to make things right with the world once more. I go back to my desk, but I’m a little shaken.

None of which is to suggest that I have any personal aversion towards the diminutive fellow from a town in the north west. I’ve met Uncle Hugo briefly twice (he’s not really my uncle), once at an awards ceremony and once at the BBC’s Broadcasting House, and he was perfectly charming each time.

But his show, with its mixture of country music, relentlessly upbeat chatter and mentions of baked goods, is something which has always been off limits. My parents might listen, but I’ve never considered myself the target audience.

I think about what has just happened. Perhaps this all represents a mellowing within my soul. When I was an abrasive teenager, musical taste was not so much a matter of preference as one of conditioning. There was no space for divergence or compromise. If you liked my sort of music you were lucky to be one of the chosen people. Those of us who adored the rock guitarist pitied the poor fools who lived in the dark and liked dance or soft pop music.

For a young man, credibility with peers could be forged or broken by the contents of your tape or CD collection. Extra points were awarded for the obscurity of your favoured bands (jackpot was finding an emerging act acclaimed by critics that none of your friends had yet heard of), and anything which strayed too close towards mainstream popularity was worthy of solid, hissing contempt.

County music was a controversial subject. The anguished, brooding blues of a US artist such as Steve Earle were approved. The anaemic, floating country and Irish melodies of a Daniel O’Donnell were ridiculed as, to quote John Lennon, ‘Granny music’.

That was then. Now I’m a middle-aged man more likely to tune into Radio Two than One. While I still like what I like, I have learnt to be tolerant of different opinions. My tastes are certainly much broader than they once were - but they have never before been stretched to such far distant limits, to an unknown landscape inhabited by Hugo Duncan and Boxcar Brian.

Perhaps there is more to it. Maybe this is another symptom of lockdown, of being trapped in a relentless series of days which mirror each other, which are so unremarkable and banal, with so little variety and colour that eventually our resistance is broken down and we all end up conforming to the same cultural tastes, with a diminished appreciation of artistic individuality. Possibly, due to the restrictions, I am subconsciously slipping into some Orwellian nightmare of beige uniformity, with ‘Flash Your Lights At Me’ as its soundtrack.

I go back to work, warning myself to be more careful in the future. But what if it is already too late? I think of my tapping foot and wonder if I am irreparably altered. Is this how it will be from now on? As I’m sure I’ve heard someone, somewhere say before, ‘sure, it’s like the wheelbarrow, it’s all in front of you’.