Okay, this may be a stab in the dark, but nothing ventured nothing gained…
I remember hearing a radio play when I was a boy. I may have been about ten, which puts the date of broadcast as being roughly 1992, although I have reason to believe that I listened to a repeat, and that the play is actually quite a it older than that.
The plot concerned a teenage boy whose mother was dying of terminal cancer. At the start of the story, the mother was in hospital on her deathbed, and it was not known whether she would hang on for hours, days, or even weeks. The boy obviously wanted to spend as much time with her as possible, but she insisted he go to school every day. Anyway, the boy has a run-in with this teacher who has a reputation for being a real hardass, and he gives the boy a detention. Now, the boy, who has been going straight to the hospital after school every day to be with nis mother, obviously doesn’t want to serve this detention, but the teacher says he can either serve it or be suspended, so the boy serves it the next evening. During which time, of course, his mother dies, alone in her hospital bed.
Fast forward 20 years. The boy is now a 35 year old man, and he still hasn’t forgotten what this teacher did. He has resolved to pay him a visit, and murder him. He tracks down the teacher’s address, and, with a gun in his waistband, rings the bell. The door is opened by a wizened, decrepit, feeble old man, well in his eighties, entirely bereft of the fire which made him so formidable during his teaching days. The young man introduces himself and the old teacher, who doesn’t remember the detention incident at all, invites him in for a cup of tea. They sit and chat, and it transpires that the house belongs to the old man’s mother, who passed away some 20 years earlier. The teacher remarks, with a tear in his eye, that, no matter what age they reach, men never stop missing their mothers.
The young man, on hearing this, relents and decides to spare the old man. He leaves, and the teacher is left believing that all that has transpired is that he has received a nice visit from an old student. He has no idea just how close he came to death.
This story had quite an effect on me when I was little. Does it ring any bells with anyone? I’d love to track it down and listen to it again. Cheers!