"That's another part of my childhood taken away ...."

[ImJustMadAboutSaffron]

Oh this phrase drives me crazy. I have read it on a comments page about the death of Dennis Waterman. I really don't understand people saying this. Nobody's childhood is taken away because one of their favourites from then has died, because they've moved on and grown up, and their childhood is intact with the memories from that time.

Histrionic rubbish. Some people are just soo over the top.

I think death just makes people think about the past. I was madly in love with George Peppard, Larry Hagman and Robert Vaughn when I was younger and when they died, I did feel slightly wistful about a simpler time. I think it makes you realise that no one is infallible. God help me when William Shatner goes!

But some people do take it too far (the Diana effect for example).

Hmm, I dunno - I've voted YABU as nostalgia is a powerful thing.
A lot of us grow up watching certain shows when we're little, and it does kind of feel like something's missing /sense of loss when people from your childhood die (regardless of whether you knew them in person or not.)

I agree OP, nobody's childhood died when a celebrity did.

God help me when William Shatner goes!
🤣🤣🤣

I feel like this about David Attenborough. I feel like who will mind us when hes gone 😭🤣

@Ginger1982 Exactly
I actually cried when Alan Rickman died.
Had never cried over a celebrity before!
Had fancied him ever since I was a young teen watching him as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
It does feel like a loss sometimes even if you don't know them if you have grown up with them, so to speak.

I cried when Rik Mayall died, but my childhood memories of watching him remain intact. I can go and watch that stuff even now if I wanted.

disgusting get a grip

It’s just something people say. You’re overthinking it.

Well it is a silly OTT phrase for sure, but people are allowed a moment of wistfulness at the passing of someone who featured large in their childhood, albeit just as a character in a TV programme.

I remember crying out in dismay when I read Paul Darrow had died, much to the mystification of everyone else in the office

Oh so did I! I went to the castle in Carcassonne too! My friend got a rabbit on the day he died and named him Alan.

A way to make it all about them I guess. But I think Dennis Waterman's death has raked up some stuff about him again that would mean he wasn't that many people's childhood favourite in hindsight.

Yes that's what I mean. I just find it a very weird phrase. I didn't think a piece of my childhood had gone anywhere when Caron Keating died even though I loved her on Blue Peter. I still remember it.

Would kids have watched Dennis Waterman though? I know he was in Minder and the Sweeney (before my time) and New Tricks (never seen it) but the only thing I recall him in when I was a kid was a show where he ran a chauffeur company, not a children's show.

I've been watching a rerun of the Wogan show and in one episode from the 1980's, I noticed that every one of his guests in the short clips - including Terry of course - were all gone now.
Some of the Celebs, like George Michael, weren't very old when they died either.
Passage of time is like a juggernaut 😟

Ducksinthebath
🤣🤣🤣

Would kids have watched Dennis Waterman though?

I guess it all depends on your age and what your parents let you watch/wanted to watch. From memory there was Minder and the Sweeney and I never watched either but presumably could have. Not sure. I always get mixed up between The Professionals and The Sweeney.

I know what they mean though. I'm old enough that houses I lived in have been flattened and replaced by flats. People that were always there, in person or on TV, keep disappearing into the past. It reminds me of that scene in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind where they are running through scenes from their memories as it all dissolves before them.

Basically it reminds us of our own mortality. Luckily in a few weeks I will probably start to forget that he is dead and have to check it on Google if someone mentions him 🙄.

I think we under estimate the role TV can have in people's lives. (Or sport, or now I guess you tube/insta)

I've worked with people who have a deeper relationship with a character than they do with their family because the character was always there

Would kids have watched Dennis Waterman though? I know he was in Minder and the Sweeney (before my time) and New Tricks (never seen it) but the only thing I recall him in when I was a kid was a show where he ran a chauffeur company, not a children's show.

Everyone watched TV together in the olden days so yes, if we were up, we watched Minder.

But the character is still there, because the programmes and films are still there, they haven't gone away. There's You Tube.

It's like the threads that ask which slebs you are dreading dying.

It reminds you that you are ageing. Most people who were regularly watching Dennis Waterman on t.v must be roughly my age or older, so it definitely hits home in the mortality stakes.

Yeah, it annoys me a bit. But my point of comparison is my kids’ actual dad dying when they were 5 and 7. That tends to have more of an impact on your childhood than a favourite celebrity dying many years later when you’re an adult.

But I’m sure it stirs up memories for a lot of people; some of them just express themselves rather dramatically. Obviously I never do that myself 😬😅

🤷‍♀️ it’s just an expression.

And it is true that as these celebrities pop off we are reminded of our own mortality and our childhoods slipping further back.

Would kids have watched Dennis Waterman though?
I'll have been about 8 when Minder was on, definitely remember watching it.