Pav’s Patch; Pining for TV’s Wild West

The type of TV programme I miss is the Western. The ones around nowadays tend to be rather hard-edged and realistic, but I remember lots that were nothing more than escapism.

In the early 1960s there seemed to be dozens. Do you remember “Cheyenne”, “Laramie”, “Lawman”, “The Big Valley”? I could go on and on. They were great fun, but they also taught important lessons. For example, if you’re determined to join the US cavalry for a career, make sure you don’t get promoted to corporal. Why? Well it’s always the corporal who gets killed.

It’s the middle of the night and the sergeant will say to the corporal: “I don’t like it, it’s too quiet.” Next thing, there will be a whoosh and the corporal is killed by an arrow, probably fired by a red Indian hiding over the crest of hill.

Of course, you’re not supposed to call them red Indians any longer. Today, they are native Americans, although when I met one in 1991 he didn’t seem to care what you called him.

Almost 20 years ago, when I was single and fairly affluent, I could take exciting holidays and went to Arizona for a couple of weeks. This is real Wild West territory with places like Tombstone and Tucson, and while there I visited Monument Valley.

For those of you who don’t know, Monument Valley is the place you see in so many Westerns, with the huge rock formations rising out of the desert. It’s a truly stunning place in the middle of a Navaho reservation and it’s the Navahos who take you round.

So I was looking forward to meeting my driver. What would he be called? Running Deer, Charging Buffalo? No, Elroy Phillips. Elroy told us he had appeared in “Back to the Future III” — the scene at the beginning. This brought in a very earnest member of our tour. A very caring man from upstate New York.

“You must feel very hurt by the way the white man has exploited you,” he said. Elroy looked a little bemused, shrugged, and then said: “But we got paid a lot of money.” You can’t really argue with that, can you?

Later, while in Phoenix, I went out in the desert on a horse, wearing a Stetson and gunbelt. I know it sounds childish, but I was living the dream.

Trouble was, I didn’t ride the horse so much as it carried me. And it was rather worrying when Dobbin stopped in the middle of the Rio Verde river and refused to move. Good job we had a real cowboy with us.