Me & Arthur Watching
Young Martin Grow
By Dan Abramson
(Editor's note: Dan was so prolific in his writing about EastEnders that often there wasn't enough room to print all that he wrote. As a result, there was always a backlog of material. This was one that I was saving, waiting for Young Martin to grow up a bit so stateside vbiewers could better relate to Dan's analysis.)
Watching those Walford Kids grow up has been one of the distinct intellectual pleasures of EastEnders.
It provides a sense of community -- folk memories of the Young 'Uns -- just like in the real world, except that, in Albert Square, the conversations are better-scripted.
I shall refrain from singing SUNRISE, SUNSET in this context. But that can't stop me recalling... Young Martin, aged five, climbing a long staircase on his first day of school as his unemployed Dad watches with joy and fascination... Kofi Tavernier starting a serious friendship with Vicky Fowler, in emulation of their parents' Romeo & Juliet routine... Twelve-year-old "Junior," the son of a con artist, bravely defending his Aunt from an abusive husband... Junior's little girlfriend Melody resisting a potential child abuser by biting the hand that pets her... An entire roomful of children at an Albert Square birthday party, reacting in amazement to an ex-rock star doing an awesomely grotesque Elvis impersonation... Clare, Janine and Sonia playing "Nancy Drew" with the life of an elderly Holocaust survivor and scaring half the neighbourhood...
These are golden memories for me -- part of the experience of living in Walford which I can convince myself I am sharing. Let's face it, kids were one of the key reasons for having communities in the first place. Their growing pains and happiness are the hallmarks of life going on. And EastEnders deals with children in a beautiful manner. Not as diminutive geniuses, not as exceptionally cute and constantly lovable. The Walford kids are sometimes quite pleasant and sometimes massive annoyances. Usually, their behavior lies between those two polarities.
Trysting Martin
Just how much that Walford Y-Generation is beginning to mean to me was brought home recently, when a friend from England sent me tapes of an episode that has not yet been broadcast here in America. The complicated set of plotlines included the first time that Young Teenaged Martin is invited by a girl to engage in what used to be called "heavy necking."
This, of course, means that Martin is now getting into adolescence, but he and the girl were both so sweet and skinny that it amounted to childhood romance. There was no heavy trauma involved, just a nice little Tom Sawyer & Becky Thatcher In The Hayloft kind of thing. Martin was a guest in the home of the young lady's parents. She invited him to sneak out to her favourite trysting place after the rest of the family had gone to sleep. And, presumably, the two wholesome Byronics had a very pleasant time together. In any case -- by the next sunrise -- Young Martin's face was defined by one of the most delightfully silly grins I personally have ever seen.
Those of us privileged to witness this occasion did not get to see the actual necking. (Among other things it was left in the minds of the beholders as to whether Martin & Friend went beyond mere kissing and fondling.) But this is one of the better aspects of the Walford Canon -- the fact that sex almost never takes place in full view of the audience. You maybe see the first kiss. The rest is silence, with a fade-to-black on the video monitor. After all, there are very few sluts or exhibitionists in Walford. If Cindy Beale is sufficiently ladylike to have all her sexual encounters take place off-camera, then we can only assume that Young Martin is enough of a gentleman to do the same.
Which made the whole matter of Martin's Tryst delightfully poetic in an extremely tasteful sort of way. Especially since this is a boy whose existence we first became aware of on-camera six months before his birth.
Louisian Anger
You see, Arthur had been out of work for two years and he and Pauline were overjoyed to have a new infant on the way -- sixteen years after Michelle. (Two years of unemployment would have left most men impotent. Arthur, however, had a very strong sense of family.)
But his mother-in-law, Lou, did not want another smelly child on the premises, which precipitated a decade's worth of psychodramas as Arthur graphically told off Lou. Pauline sided with Arthur for once and Michelle overheard and sided with Lou and a traumatic time was had by all.
We visited in Young Martin's childhood as he was born... years later when he had appendicitis....his role as Joseph in the Christmas pageant....the trauma he experienced as Pauline threw Arthur out of the extra-marital house.......and then there was Martin-aged-five having trouble with doorknobs. All these could have been incidents from anyone's childhood -- especially the doorknobs.
And I have a particularly fond memory of Martin and Vicky -- both holding hands with Arthur -- walking around a corner on Bridge Street just as Pat Butcher punches out Santa Claus. (Saint Nick was sexually harassing her, but it's kind of a long story.) Martin's facial expression was memorable.
With any luck, we will still be watching EastEnders a dozen years from now, as Martin brings up his own children in Albert Square. Maybe we'll even see Martin's son or daughter at First Kiss. Ah, the delicious continuity of it all!
In my old age I'm hoping to get acquainted with Martin's kids. They'll probably be quite nice.
