Secret of Greendale (Essay)


Who here doesn't know Postman Pat? The pleasant postman, in case you somehow survived this long without knowing who he is, is a postman.

"I don't care what any adult says, there is not one person among you who doesn't wish (s)he were Postman Pat. Every child's greatest fantasy is to grow up to live and work in Greendale and mysteriously absorb Pat's very identity from right under his (gastronomically long) nose. He lives the most idyllic life of anyone in existence."

Notice the speechmarks - they denote that the statement exists in a parallel dimension, where it's actually true, because obviously it's not (entirely).

But isn't that really ashame? Many people (adults, and modern children) run away from Pat, Alf, Peter, Granny Dryden, Miss Hubbard, Reverend Timms, the children (including the forever-mind-boggling Charlie Pringle), and all those other characters who appear in the show:
Harry Enfield, some British comedian who - most likely - nobody knows these days, managed to mangle Pat with his Comedy Context-Exterminator, treating his comedy subject with such levity as to refuse acknowledgement to the facts that Pat was married to a woman named Sarah and had no connections whatsoever with the Mafia.
Meanwhile, academics, psychologists, and Ayn Rand all over the world scorn Pat for embracing a simple life, pasting aside intellectual longing, fame, or stardom, and living his life with the sole desire to deliver everyone's mail as efficiently as possible; help all his local friends through their everyday lives; and not get seriously injured (something he seems to forever be dodging by one of Jess' whiskers. Watch the show if you don't believe me). Our aforementioned objectors to Pat ridicule him as a pathetic man. Indeed, as a shameful being, who should have no right on this Earth to exist. Going beyond that, he's a man who deserves to be lost along with the entire populace of Greendale (excluding Miss Hubbard) in a train crash. Well, at least Ayn thinks so.
And it doesn't end here, though. Nowadays, all those young ruffians who were once slavering over their VCRs in a bid to get the briddin' thing to record Pat, are now... well... to be honest with you, I'm not sure what they're doing. But I'll bet it involves Skeleton Fred.

The point is, as Rob himself mentioned just recently on his website, young people these days have lost respect for everyone. Or at least us. Rob says it's partly because there is now no intermediary TV for children between toddlerhood and adult/teenagehood. I'll be smoked salmon if the destruction of Pat's not got something to do with it. Even they see Pat as a clueless 'anti-cool', mostly because he's English and doesn't carry a rocket-launcher most of the time.

Pat could be said to get a severe lack of respect in the real world, from every source imaginable, where 'imaginable' means 'I mentioned'. In our age where survival is a floor rather than a tightrope, society has determined the new survival to be success - it's not good enough to be alive, you've gotta have the brains; the looks; the rocket-launcher I mentioned earlier; or, at least, a 'social life'. Of course, (individual preference pending to the second in the list) Pat fits none of these criteria. Henceforth, he scores 0% in the test and gets booted out of World School, right behind the Care Bears.

But I think that we're all missing out on what Pat has to say on the issue. In our quest for material gain, we admonish Pat for trying to discover something which doesn't exist. Of course, it does exist, as the postman himself stands as a testimony to.

When you think about it, we don't know anything about the Postman, or indeed anyone else in Greendale, other than their families, occupations, and personalities (with the exception of Charlie Pringle, who I think we can tell a bit more about). Pat is a postman; we don't know his age, his grades, his place on the property ladder; WE DON'T KNOW SQUAT!!
There's a doctor whose name eludes me, as well; where did she train? Is she a quack?
Peter Fogg - well, I don't have a clue what he does. He has a small tractor thing, though.
Mrs. Goggins - she's the one most people know in this show aside from Pat (she's the one whose reputation Harry Enfield managed to tarnish beyond cleansing); she works in the local Post Office and gives Pat his letters for delivery. No more is known.
Mr. Pringle - presumably Charlie Pringle's father. He seems to only appear in a later (old) series, and while his accent is the only hallmark feature I can see in him from the one episode I own on video where he appears, I can also declare that he's evil.

There are many more residents of Greendale than this, but from that list we can see the range of folks who live there without achievement. Yet, no-one cares. Pat and friends are always there for one another, they're great friends with no concern for one-another's social status, salary, or school marks; their unity in love and friendship is totally unconditional. Nonetheless, I have yet to meet anyone in real life who's as happy as any one of the characters from Greendale.

People disdain Pat and friends because they have something which too many of us don't have - the ability to cast aside social whatever, economical blabberjots, and academic flair, and just be friends. There are no walls in Greendale, with the notable exception of those that line their one-way streets.

I don't have a rocket-launcher, and I'm off to University this year. However, there's one thing I stand to say:
Regardless what everyone says, we all have something to learn from Postman Pat. In fact, he is one the few remaining testaments to how life should actually be. Greendale is a place which has probably never come close to existing in real life... but it can. And it should, shouldn't it?

So, what exactly is the Secret of Greendale? Surely it's that, behind the mists of social status, beyond the crusts of personality, and beneath the ventricles of whatever-else we shove in the way of each-other, we're all friends at heart.

Cheerio, and mind how you go!

* Of note is the fact that, in reality, I don't know what kind of press Pat gets these days. He probably doesn't get any at all. Mind you, I would assume that he could get a lot of scorn like what I mentioned if anyone cared about him anymore.

Many of you may be offended at the uplifting-ness of this article - sorry about that. But really, you should learn from Postman Pat, and I actually do mean that sincerely.

  ¶ 4:50 pm