With all this slaughter going on in my mind, the matter of life after death troubled me deeply. One day I found the family cat lying dead at the side of the road and told them all I had buried it in the garden but in fact I took it to the hideout for the most thorough consideration. Eventually, it stank out the whole neighbourhood and I did bury it, but not before I was sure I understood. I sat, exploring every part and reaction of that cat for hour upon hour. And that cat was dead! No doubt about it. It wasn’t feeling a thing, and if you weren’t feeling anything, what did it matter if you were in a horrible place? I couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t your physical self that went to Hell—just like that of the cat, it wasn’t going anywhere—it was your spiritual self. Spiritual selves, I was absolutely confident, didn’t feel anything either. But then, they reckoned, you didn’t really die when you died but instead you were born again. So when you were dead you were actually still alive (albeit in a different life) and therefore able to feel the pains and terror of Hell. What nonsense!
Tony Hancock, the inspired British radio and television comic, laid the basis of a long string of brilliant Pommie comedies. Most episodes were not much more than monologues delivered in his dingy flat at 23 Railway Cutting, Cheam, but these he worked into fine situation comedy stories. The Radio Ham and The Blood Donor were probably the masterpieces but they were all outstanding. Writers Galton and Simpson (who went on to write Steptoe and Son) perfected the art of making his tragic figure funny without ever descending into bathos. Sidney James was usually his stooge, and most of the Carry On gang and other top British performers were his guest stars. Beginning in 1956, he kept the show alive in various forms until 1967.
