A good goodbye

Writer James Griffin. Photo / File

Over the many years I have been writing this column (which is 12, just in case anyone is counting) I have, from time to time, wondered how I would approach writing this column: the last one ever. And now I am about to find out.

Goodbyes are tricky, in my experience. For example, I am completely crap when it comes to leaving parties. When the word comes to go, I turn and I go - head down, out the door. In the process, of course, I forget to thank the hosts and to bid farewell to all the nice new people I have met at the party who might want to be my friends if I wasn't so rude by not saying goodbye. The only thing in my favour is that I usually forget something and have to go back inside to retrieve it so at least there's a second chance to not say goodbye properly.

I definitely don't want to rush out the door here, but neither do I want to trumpet my departure, like those people who make a big fuss when they leave Facebook. "Hello! Look over here! I'm going now, I want you all to know! I have deep and dark reasons for leaving! I'm not going to tell you what they are but please know that by leaving Facebook, I feel vastly superior to all of you!"

A good goodbye, I reckon, needs to acknowledge what has gone on before; to place the goodbye in its historical context. When I first got asked to write a weekly column about "anything I damn well wanted to write about", I checked out all the wonderful columnists who are much smarter than me; writers who turn in thought-provoking work, brimming with knowledge and understanding of complex matters. I very quickly realised I was not one of those people and the best thing I could bring to the game was to represent those who look at the world through baffled, bewildered eyes and who sometimes need humour as a refuge from this world before it drives them mad.

Luckily, as I got older and realised how truly little I actually know about everything, this position has been relatively easy to maintain.

As if to prove this very point, one of the things I still truly do not understand about writing a column, even after all 12 of these years, is what makes a column resonate with the punters. I have slaved over columns, rewriting feverishly to make sure every word rings true. And nothing; not a sausage. And I have dashed off 800 words in an hour, panicking as the deathly deadline looms, that have somehow cut through and got people talking, commenting, and saying very nice things to me in the street.

I very much like that I leave none-the-wiser, because it reassures me that truth isn't something that can be manufactured to order; that sometimes the good stuff just comes out of the moment, and the writer's job is to get out of the way.

Any goodbye, of course, comes with regrets. In my very first Canvas column I made some jokes at the expense of Greenpeace. As if driven by a primal need to prove the stereotype that well-meaning lefties have no sense of humour, Greenpeace contacted me and offered to take me to lunch so they could correct my woolly thinking. Because I love being taken to lunch, I immediately accepted their invitation. And that was the last I ever heard. I'm sad we never had that lunch - I was even willing to go vegetarian, if need be.

A good goodbye is also a chance to say thank you to the appropriate suspects. In this case I first must thank the dearly departed Jan Corbett for giving me this gig. Then I need to thank Michele and all the Canvas gang for, essentially, letting me talk complete bollocks in their magazine for 12 years. I need to thank the offspring (also known as Ruby and Max) for letting me filch material from their lives and for being very patient in parent-teacher interviews when the teacher spends most of the time talking to Dad about his column. And mostly I need to thank the Beloved (also known as Tania) for being the best sounding board, the greatest source of material and the most gentle reader a writer could ever want.

So that's it, I'm out of here, leaving behind the world of print to devote myself entirely to the sandpit of television. Ironically as this chapter in my life closes, the next one opens with a series called 800 Words, which I helped create, about a guy who writes a weekly column for a newspaper, where each column is exactly 800 words.

Just like this one.