Legendary Huddersfield journalist and author DENIS KILCOMMONS is a natural storyteller who brings everyday subjects to life in his own inimitable style. Denis wrote a hugely popular column in the Huddersfield Examiner for 34 years until his retirement in 2023. Now he’s back from a break and writing for Huddersfield Hub.
Twenty-five years ago the Examiner published a book of my columns which covered the period from 1989 to 1999 when I was contributing a daily Diary column.
In a foreword I mentioned I had by then written 2,500 Diary columns totalling more than two million words. Which, as I have often acknowledged, was better than working.
This was when The Examiner was a proper newspaper with editorial offices at Queen Street South (a pleasant walk from The County pub) and a town centre office opposite Sainsbury’s in Market Street. This is where I was required to sit and sign copies for buyers.
If memory serves me right it was released in time for Christmas. Of course, these days I can’t really trust my memory any more.
I can sit down for five minutes and get up two hours later wondering whether I’ve been lost in cogitation, wandering the garden or my lack of energy is because I’ve cleaned the shower (which is a recurring theme, so I really must clean the shower).
The book – called The Diaries – cost £6.95 and the signature came free. How’s that for a bargain Christmas present for Auntie Betty?
The highest accolade I got was from a crowd of ladies of a certain age (all right, pensioners) who accosted me in broad daylight in Holmfirth one summer’s afternoon.
They were on a good-time outing when I was recognised. This is not so difficult to believe because my picture was in the paper six days a week.
“It’s you, isn’t it? It is. It’s you. It’s Denis Kilcommons.’’
Getting my name right was a plus because I had often been dubbed Denis Thingy by people who couldn’t, or Denis Kills Columns by journalist pal Winton Cooper who not only used it in the Jacob’s Well over a pint, but also on his daily show on Radio Sheffield.
Back to Holmfirth and hilarity on Hollowgate where one lady mentioned The Diaries book.
“Eh, it was funny. Are you doing another one? Get them to do another one before I die,’’ she said. To screams of laughter.
The Examiner didn’t produce another volume but that memory has stayed in place, dear lady.
By the way, I should explain my strained expression when this picture was taken to promote The Diaries. For the purposes of the configuration of copies I was required to lie on the floor with them arranged around my head.
Writing can also give you headache. My brain hurts after spending four hours doing my self-assessment tax return.
A large part of the time is always spent trying to find relevant documents I was convinced had been filed away sensibly during the previous financial year and which, on this occasion, inexplicably turned up in a file marked Plots.
These included outlines for a World War One espionage story featuring Private Tommy Atkins, a murder mystery set in a newspaper with a news editor called Jim Sarsted (known by his reporters as Sarsted the Barsterd). Investigating officers were Detective Inspector Sherlock and Detective Sergeant John Peel, and, yes, it was a comedy.
Plus the first three chapters of a rather intriguing piece entitled Memory Man about a 75-year-old chap who wakes up in a hospital bed after an accident to discover he has the athletic body a 24-year-old called Paul Templeton and a gorgeous young girlfriend called Ruth.
How did that happen? Unfortunately three chapters is all there was.
Perhaps my financial documents had been slipped into this folder because I thought they might be the basis of a work of fiction, but don’t tell the taxman that.
I eventually completed the online declaration that I was living hand to mouth on bean soup on weekdays with the culinary highlight of my week being bread and dripping on Sunday.
By this time my focus had shredded. I was more interested in how Paul was getting on in his new body.
Memory Man is still on my mind. It must have been lurking in a folder for more than 20 years but those opening chapters are still posing questions and demanding answers.
What had happened? Who was Paul Templeton? And how was he coping in a new life when he thought his old one was ending?
