Fordyce Maxwell: ‘His demeanour indicated that I should tell someone who gave a damn’

‘LOVELY morning,” I said to the binman.“Aye,” he said, swinging the now empty bin over to me, “when it was morning.”

A riposte I hadn’t heard for years and a crushing retort to someone who likes to think of himself as an early starter. It wasn’t that much past sunrise. But a reminder that no matter how early a riser you are, others have already been at work, or trying to get to it, for hours.

Early rising and punctuality can be inherited and/or instilled early. The farming anecdote about the grieve (foreman) lining staff up at 7am on a Monday morning with the words “Only two days till the middle of the week and not a stroke of work done yet” wasn’t too far-fetched.

Being on time, preferably before it, was expected and ribbing unmerciful for any young worker who arrived late. In industrial jobs, some factories closed the gate on latecomers.

There is also a theory that an hour’s work before mid-day is worth two after it. I’ve never been convinced by that, but there is still a satisfaction in being up, shaved, dressed, and ready to go in the early morning whether to work or ready for any unexpected early caller.

Sod’s law being what it is, on a morning I was uncharacteristically late, the doorbell rang. Halfway through my explanation that 99 times out of 100 I wouldn’t have had to charge downstairs in a dressing gown, the postman’s demeanour indicated that I should tell that to someone who gave a damn.

Childish, I know, but for the next three mornings I was working in the front garden at daybreak, saying “I’ll take those, thanks.” On the fourth morning I wasn’t and he rang the bell as I came out of the shower. As he handed over a package that would have gone through the letterbox we looked at each other and decided, wordlessly, to call it a draw; I must have been playing as much hell with his round as he was playing with my temper.

There’s a difference between being able to get out of bed early, with or without an incentive, and liking it. I’m lucky that I enjoy being up and doing. My best memories of cities are early morning walks through them, and 5am summer starts bringing cows in from dew-wet fields as the sun rose were the best part of dairy farming.

Even then others probably beat me to it – young children and their mothers, newsagents, delivery vans, bakers, some commuters, postmen sadistic and otherwise. For us all, it’s a good morning – when it is morning. «