35. Name Dropping

I was in the dry cleaners the other day and I heard the woman next to me tell the woman standing next to her that she used the same hairdresser as Melanie Sykes.  That meant nothing to me but it seemed to really impress the man behind the counter and the other woman.

When I got home, I looked up Ms Sykes on Google and discovered that she appears on television occasionally but is best known for appearing in an advertisement for beer.

I am not a name-dropper.  There are two reasons for this.  Firstly, I think that mentioning someone famous and trying to infer that he or she is, or was, somehow intimately connected to you is fairly pathetic and reflects poorly on your own self-worth.  
In fact, I was having a conversation on this very subject with Colin Firth only the other day.

Secondly, I never meet anyone well known.  My friend Ian, whom I mentioned in “Knock Knock” last week, once told me of a function that he attended at which he and Robin Day were the two least famous people present.   That is pretty sophisticated name-dropping.

I’ve seen two famous people in off licences.  In 1968, I stood next to Liberace at the counter of a Threshers store in The Kings Road, Chelsea and once, I had to wait for a long time to be served because Kingsley Amis took so long finding his chequebook in Unwins in High Barnet.

In 1964, when I was 17, I was on a train travelling from London to Oxford.  I was on my own in a compartment when the door opened and John Lennon came in.  He stood for a second or two, ignoring me, staring blankly at the seat opposite me and then, turned around and walked off without saying a word.

Aeroplanes seem to be good places to meet famous people.  David, with whom I was at school and have mentioned several times before, once sat next to Jackie Stewart on a flight from Geneva to Heathrow.  David tells me that, once he found out that David was a school teacher, education was the only topic of conversation throughout the flight.

Ten years ago, Willy, another old school friend, sat next to Claudia Schiffer for seven hours, on a flight from Barbados to Heathrow.  He found her charming and delightful but it was only as they walked out of the airport together and the photographers started shooting, that Willy found out who she was.

Caroline and I stood next to Michael Caine at the luggage carousel at Miami airport in May this year.  We had come from London on the same flight but his seat had probably cost several thousand pounds more than mine.  He picked up a suitcase and said,” No, that’s not mine,” and put it back down.  Not much of an anecdote, is it?

One Wednesday morning in March twenty years ago, Nigel, a friend from the cricket club, rang and asked me what I was doing that day.

“Going to work,” of course,” I said.  “Come to Ascot races instead,” he suggested.  “There’s a horse I'm following that's running.”

I didn’t need to think about it.  I hadn’t had any time off for more than ten years and in that time, I had covered the classes of numerous teachers who had phoned in “sick”.  To top it all, the government had recently introduced ‘Training Days’ that had replaced five holiday days.  I was really angry with that and felt quite resentful.  There had been no consultation.  Those days had just been taken.

“OK,” I said.  “I’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

We had a good day at Ascot but at around midday, before the meeting started and while we were having lunch in a pub, in walked Rod Stewart with his entourage.

“Didn’t you used to teach him?” asked Nige.  “Go and say hello.”

I explained that I hadn’t taught him although he had attended the school where I taught.  He had left some five years before I arrived there.

At nine o’clock that evening on our way back to North London after a successful day at the races, we stopped at The Holly Bush pub in Hampstead.  I was standing at the bar when I heard a voice behind me.

“Hello, Terry.  Feeling better?”

It was the deputy headteacher from my school - the man whom I had phoned thirteen hours earlier to explain that severe flu-like symptoms would, regrettably, prevent me from coming in.

“Yes thanks,” I said picking up two pints from the bar top, “Just a cold, I think.  Not flu.”

Thinking that I’d carried that off rather well, I carried the drinks over to where Nige was sitting at a table.  I told him how well I had dealt with a potentially embarrassing and awkward situation.

“What did he say about that?” Nigel asked, looking at my chest.

“What?” I said.

“That,” he said, pointing at the bright purple Ascot “Grandstand Badge” hanging from the lapel of my overcoat.

There is, however, one name I can drop.  Not only did I meet this “Name” but I was with him and his almost equally famous wife for about eight hours and the day ended when he and I spent ten minutes or so together in the communal shower.

The “Name” has a brother, Chris, and Chris was a member of Finchley Cricket Club, the club that I played for.  I was Team Secretary at the time and my function was to make sure that everyone selected to play knew where and at what time he was playing.  I phoned Chris on Tuesday and told him that he was playing away at Ashford, Middlesex on the following Sunday afternoon.

At around eleven o'clock on Saturday evening before the game, Chris phoned me.  My heart sank.  We were already one short at Ashford and I assumed that he was crying off.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“Are you serious?” I asked him. "Your brother wants to play?"

“Yeah, he fancies a game.”

“Well, we are one short but will he definitely turn up?”

“Course he’ll turn up.”

“I’m not sure," I said.  "Suppose he has to go to New York or somewhere?”

“Hang on, Terry.  I’ll check.”

“He’s worried you won’t turn up,” I heard him say.

I heard a very distinctive and immediately recognisable voice coming from some distance from the phone.  “I’ll be there.  Definite.”

“OK,” I said, thinking that I had been put in a very difficult position and it would all probably go horribly wrong, “Make sure that he realises what a mess we’ll be in if he lets us down.”

I arrived at Ashford Cricket Club’s car park at 1:25 pm.  Following me in was a silver-grey Ford Granada estate car that parked next to mine.  From out of the car came Chris’s parents, as well as his brother and sister-in-law with two small children.  I introduced myself and shook hands with them all.  Shortly afterwards, Chris and the rest of the team turned up.

Chris’s sister-in-law and the two children went to a quiet corner of the ground where she laid out a blanket and where they sat for the rest of the afternoon.  

Her blonde hair was plaited and she wore no makeup.  She didn’t look very much like the woman I had seen many times on television and in magazines.  She read a book, ignoring the cricket, while the children ran around doing what small kids do.

News of the celebrity player spread and by three o’clock there must have been more than three hundred spectators.  At around 7:20, the game ended.  Neither brother had distinguished himself but they had both seemed to enjoy it very much.

As is the custom, as soon as the game ended we all went straight to the bar.  Chris’s brother bought a jug of beer and generally joined in the post-match spirit.  I thought that paying his £3 match fee with a £20 note was a bit flash but nothing about his behaviour was in any way different from anyone else’s.  
His wife sat in a corner of the bar with the children sipping lemonade and reading them stories.

I went for a shower at about 9:30 pm and five minutes later, Chris’s brother joined me.  We chatted for ten minutes or so.

At 10:30 pm, it was time to leave.  I said goodbye to Mick, his wife Jerry, his friend Charlie who had turned up in a beautiful silver Lagonda during the afternoon and Mick’s brother, the Finchley member, Chris Jagger.

It’s a funny thing but nobody I have ever told this story to has ever asked me about Mick Jagger’s cricket.  All they ever ask about is the shower - and they never ask me what we talked about either!

Now, my meeting with Margaret Thatcher.

In the summer of 1987, there was a general election in Britain.  The MP for Finchley in North London was Margaret Thatcher and she was standing for re-election.  I suppose that she considered that she hadn't quite finished her life's work of destroying the trade unions and dismantling society.

As part of her campaign, her people decided that it would be a good idea if she visited her local cricket club one Saturday afternoon for a photo opportunity.

We were told that she was arriving at 2:30 p.m.  It rained on and off all morning and at 2:00 when the game was due to start, there was a constant and fairly heavy drizzle.  It was very overcast and cars driving along East End Road next to the ground had their headlights on.  We all sat in the bar waiting to see if the game was to be called off.  No one had changed into their cricket kit.

At 2.28 the lights of several TV crews illuminated the area outside the bar.  At 2:29 those crews came in, ignored us and trained their cameras on the door.  At 2:30 on the dot, the door swung open and in she came, smiling at us all.  She was greeted by the Club President who then introduced her to some of the Club dignitaries - not to me!

Dennis, her husband, had a half pint of bitter.  Mrs T had a cup of tea.  It was still raining.  I sat in a corner and glared at her.  She didn’t notice.  After five minutes, she put her cup down and announced, “Come on everyone.  Outside!”

And that’s what they did.  Out they all went into the pouring rain.  They stood on the sodden turf where she was given a cricket bat which she swung while smiling at the cameras.  Behind her, the Finchley members including several wives stood, simpering and smiling too.

All the Finchley members, except one: I stayed in the bar, shaking my head, watching the antics through the big, plate glass windows.  

After a minute or so, it got too wet, even for Mrs T.  I watched her walking briskly towards the door and I was mentally preparing myself for the perturbing sight of her security men striding back into the bar.

But no!  They held the door open for her and she came into the bar.  She entered a room with only one person in it and that person was me.  

As soon as she saw me, she put on her well-rehearsed, synthetic, artificial smile and began to walk across the twenty feet or so that separated us.  I continued to glare and stare. 

"That was fun," she said. 

I’d like to think that she was disconcerted by my lack of response and scowl but I don’t suppose that she was.  Nonetheless, for two or three seconds, I was alone in a room with Margaret Thatcher.

This is the ITV news report of Mrs Thatcher's visit to Finchley Cricket Club: