Children in Need

November 18. I spent a large portion of the day at the baggage Reclaim area of Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport. No, I wasn’t waiting for my luggage to appear on the carousel, I was collecting money, not very successfully as it turned out. It was all because I had decided to support the Rotary collection at Heathrow for Children in Need.

Baggage Reclaim at Heathrow

Every year at around this time the UK public go crazy collecting money for the BBC Children in Need appeal.  The event gets massive coverage on TV and Radio for weeks beforehand, then on the day itself the BBC broadcasts a telethon during which £millions are raised. People do all sorts of things to raise money, including sponsored swims, runs, cycle rides, parachute jumps, baking cakes to name just a few of the more normal activities. Alternatively people can just phone in to the Children in Need telethon to pledge money. Pudsey Bear, the Children in Need mascot, is ever-present.

The Rotary collection has been going on for several years now, but it’s the first time our Rotary Club has got involved.  It was being organised by District 1090, not my own District, but I was attracted to it as Heathrow is local to me. Altogether 350 Rotarians were to work in shifts in all passenger areas of the airport, including the terminals (landside and airside) and even the trains that run shuttles to and from the departure gates at Terminal 5.

Collectors in Terminal 5

I travelled there with Ken and Min, as we were all working a four hour shift in Terminal 3, airside, from 10.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. Car parking was free for us, we just had to drive to the long term car park and ride in on the shuttle bus. It seemed quite surreal travelling in with all these excited holidaymakers heading off to exotic climes. I wondered how much it cost to park in the Long Stay car park, as opposed to the cost of a taxi to the airport. I must look it up some time.  Today none of this mattered , as the organisers were going to give me a free pass to get out of the car park when I left.

Shuttle Bus to Terminal

After a short ride in to the central area, we were duly dropped off at Terminal 3 and we presented ourselves to the registration point with 10 minutes to spare. Besides myself, there were some other celebrities present that morning, including the President of Rotary International in Britain and Ireland (RIBI) Eve Conway and also Paralympian Naomi Riches. However I never came across either of them during my 4 hour stint, and wondered whether they were worried about being upstaged by me.

Eve Conway meets Pudsey

We were duly checked in, given our air-side passes (with photos) and a group of about 12  of us were assigned to an airport worker (many people working at Heathrow were also volunteering today) who would guide us to our posts. We were also given a £5 voucher for our lunch break. I wasn’t confident this would go very far at airport catering outlets, and suggested to Min and Ken that we pool our vouchers for a bag of chips. Our guide took us through some security doors and to my surprise we came to a check point, where we had to show our passports. I had thought our registration earlier would be the only formality.

Volunteers get registered

At this point a rather extraordinary situation developed. I was just following another couple of Rotarians who I didn’t know through the security area when the chap in front of me got out his passport then stopped in his tracks, horrified. He said to his companion ‘I can’t go through.’ When asked ‘Why not?’ he said ‘ I’ve come out with my wife’s ex-husbands passport!’ This exchange left many questions forming in my mind, but before I could ask them, he was whisked off. He could still collect for Children in Need today, but would have to stay ‘land-side’.

That looks like me getting registered

Meanwhile the rest of us underwent the procedures of emptying our belongings into a tray and passing through an X-Ray machine, familiar to anyone who has travelled by air in recent years. Apparently all airport staff have to go through this procedure before they are allowed air side. As usual the machine beeped as I went through due to my replacement knee, and I consequently suffered the indignity of being frisked by a security guard. I was determined to remain cheerful, being worried that if I made a fuss the search may have become more intimate.

Ready to collect - Min myself and Ken

Once we were safely airside, we learnt that we had been allocated the baggage reclaim area in Terminal 3 for our collection activities. The reclaim area was quite busy, as many trans-Atlantic flights were arriving at about this time, and I spent some time deciding where to stand with my bucket in order to maximise the opportunities of receiving donations.  We were not allowed to rattle our buckets, but were encouraged to engage people in conversation. We also had some Pudsey bear merchandise to sell if the opportunity arose. Any currency could be accepted, whether notes or coin.

Ken and I are wearing our merchandise

To be honest, it didn’t go very well. The first thing that was apparent was that whilst Children in Need is a national institution in the UK, nobody from any other country knew anything about it. I consequently found myself trying to explain how people up and down the country would be raising millions of pounds for this cause today, to people who didn’t seem particularly interested. By far the most generous people we came across were British travellers, but then they knew all about Children in Need.

Min and me

I met some interesting people on my shift. ‘ Welcome to London’ was my usual chat up line as I approached them. The first family group I approached had travelled from Texas overnight. They weren’t leaving Heathrow, but catching an onward flight to Ukraine. A surprisingly large number of travellers seemed to be using Heathrow as a transit point, rather than staying. There were some, of course, who were staying in London, and naturally I gave them the benefit of my local knowledge in telling them the best places to visit. It was surprising how few people had heard of Craven Cottage.

Registration desk gets busy

Engaging people in conversation wasn’t easy, because most of them had been flying all night and were exhausted. They just wanted to find their luggage and get on their way. In hindsight, putting myself in their shoes, if I had just arrived at a foreign airport and whilst searching for my luggage some bloke approaches and asks for money, I would probably think I was the victim of some scam and would consequently refuse to co-operate. To make things worse, many who I did manage to speak to, told me that the flight crew had already persuaded them to part with any spare money as they were leaving the aircraft. I can certainly recall that happening to me as well.

Pudsey puts in an appearance in Terminal 5

Halfway through our shift, our group were given a 30 minute break for lunch, and we spent our £5 vouchers in Pret a Manger. I was pleasantly surprised that for less than a fiver I could obtain a good sandwich and a drink. I had a laugh with a chap from Gerrards Cross Rotary club, who had regularly been wearing the Pudsey Bear suit during the previous week, and he was telling me about some of the visits they had done to local schools. It was great fun, he said, being dressed as Pudsey, but sweltering hot inside the costume. He was wearing just a T shirt and shorts underneath but was dripping with sweat, and had to be helped in and out of the suit. Apparently the latest design of Pudsey Bear outfit costs about £800, and has a built-in fan to help cool you down. It made me think maybe we could share one with other local clubs and take it to our local schools.

Pret a Manger Terminal 3

After lunch it was back to our posts in the baggage area. On our way there we briefly passed through the Departure lounge. This is where passengers congregate once they have dropped off their luggage and gone through security. It occurred to me that this was where we should have been collecting. Everybody here had an hour or two to wait for their flight, and were just sitting around, shopping, or drinking coffee. We could have made a killing here, I thought, relieving people of unwanted UK currency, which was just weighing down their pockets. We’d be doing them a favour.

Departure Lounge Terminal 3

However, some other group had this pitch, and we couldn’t trespass, so back we went to baggage reclaim for the rest of our shift. It was more of the same for the rest of our time there, until I had the brainwave of talking to the people at Travelex, the Bureau de Change. They had 3 separate offices in the baggage reclaim area, and I reckoned they must be given a lot of coin that they have difficulty dealing with. So I had a chat with one of the staff there, she told me she gets loads of coins, and their policy is to throw them away, as it costs too much to exchange them. ‘Throw them into my bucket’, I said ‘We can deal with them’. So she opened her drawer and poured loads of coins in to my bucket, more than I had collected all day. I had a similar result at the next Travelex counter, although the third one claimed not to have any.

My bucket weighed quite heavy now, so I was pleased with myself at the end of my shift when I handed it over. I don’t suppose there was much value in it, but at least it showed I had done some work.  Back at the collection point I looked in vain for Eve Conway, but it appeared she had been and gone already. She will be disappointed to learn that she had missed meeting me. Min, Ken and I headed back on the bus to the Long Stay car park, from where we headed off home, having felt we had done something worthwhile today.  We later learned that the Rotary day at Heathrow had made over £32,000 for Children in Need, and the school visits a further £18,000. A decent return, I would say.

 

Ancient Rock

As I stood centre stage at Chertsey Hall, in front of a capacity audience, many of whom were on the dance floor looking expectantly  at me, I looked across at Tony and nodded. The band launched into the intro for the  Creedence Clearwater Revival classic, Proud Mary. I was sweating. I had rehearsed this moment for weeks and was terrified in case I should miss my cue, or worse still, forget the words. 

Creedence Clearwater Revival

I needn’t have worried. I counted the bars of the intro and launched into the first line exactly at the right moment and virtually in tune. The crowd went wild (well, they started dancing), and didn’t stop until the final drum-roll, signalling the end of the number.

Yes that really is me

So what was I doing on stage singing rock and roll? I’ve never been renowned for my singing ability. Once at a White Lodge charity event I sang Maggie May to the backing of a karaoke machine. It was a disaster. Even I had known I was off key so it must have been bad. But as I had started, I felt I had to carry on to the end, however mortifying it was. So what on earth was I doing singing in public again? Had I gone mad?

White Lodge Centre

To answer that question I have to take you back to last July, when I ascended into the post of President of the Rotary Club of Shepperton Aurora. One of the privileges of being president of the Rotary Club is that you get to select a couple of charities which the Club will support during your year of office. These are called ‘The President’s Charities’. One of my charities this year is CAMEO, a Shepperton-based charity which provides respite care for families of people suffering from dementia.

They do this by looking after the (usually elderly) relative for a day, stimulating them with activities, providing lunch and perhaps most importantly giving them company for the day in a safe environment. Our support was timely, as Annette, CAMEO’s manager had told me earlier this year that they have lost much of their Local Authority funding, so were looking for new ways of funding their work.

Annette from CAMEO at one of our meetings 

Not long after I had announced that CAMEO were to be one of my Charities this year Doreen Pipe said that her husband Tony’s band would like to do a charity gig this year for the benefit of CAMEO. I was thrilled at this idea. Tony plays in a rock and roll band called Ancient Rock. I have seen them play a few times and think they are terrific, in fact they played at my 50^th birthday party a few years ago. The guys have mostly known each other since their school days, but are now dispersed across the country and come together only occasionally to play. I felt honoured, then, that they had offered to support one of my charities.

Ancient Rock

However, there was one catch. Part of the deal was that I had to come up on stage and sing a song with Ancient Rock backing me. I could choose any number I wanted (within reason). They would help me through it but whether or not I got up on stage to do it was not negotiable. ‘What if I mime it and you sing?’ I asked, desperately. ‘No’ came the reply. ‘How about if I just sing the chorus?’. ‘No’. There was no way out, I had to sing. Being a Creedence fan, I chose Proud Mary as I thought I could cope with the lyrics and the key. Tony gave me a lot of confidence when he said ‘Just start singing and we will play whatever key you are in!’ We decided to keep my performance  a secret, so nobody but us would know I was going to get up on stage to sing.

Our venue

A date in November was duly fixed and tickets printed. The evening would cost £15 a head, which included a fish and chip supper. All proceeds were to go to CAMEO, so it was important to sell as many tickets as possible. I had arranged with my former employers, Barclays, that they would match anything we raised in the raffle, up to a maximum of £750. A number of my Rotary colleagues offered to assist on the night, and many good quality raffle prizes were donated. We were told that the Hall had a maximum seated capacity of 120 so our intention was to fill all seats.

CAMEO themselves sold over 50 tickets, Doreen and Tony sold around 40 to existing Ancient Rock fans (apparently they have groupies too), and the rest were snapped up by Rotarians. In fact I think we sold over 140 altogether, but managed to fit everybody in somewhere. I was at a Civic Reception being hosted by the Mayor that afternoon, so hastened over to Chertsey in time to help set things up. The PDG stationed herself on the front door to make sure no-one got in without a ticket. I was hoping to get some rehearsal time on stage with the band, but this proved to be impossible.

So, by 7.30 the hall was full of expectant people, many of whom had never seen Ancient Rock play and had no idea what to expect. The band started off fairly low key, with more laid back rock music such as the Shadows and Beatles. Later they would get a bit heavier with the likes of The Troggs and Rolling Stones. In fact during the first half they did a brilliant rendition of the Shadows’ Wonderful Land, with Tony giving a virtuoso performance in the Hank Marvin role.

Virtuoso - Tony Pipe

This was actually the first record I had ever bought, in the early 60’s. At the time I didn’t even have a record player, so I bought it as a Christmas present for my elder brother who did have one, thinking that he’d be thrilled to listen to Wonderful Land all day long. What I hadn’t foreseen was that he was into the likes of Elvis Presley and Bobby Vee, and thought the Shadows to be rather un-cool. Needless to say, I struggled to get the new record played at all.

Sally enjoys the show

Anyway back to the concert, which progressed very well. Tony and the band had nearly everyone dancing and singing along to classics of the 60’s and 70’s. The plan was that after the interval, the band would play 5 numbers, then I would appear on stage to say a few words, before making to leave. Tony would stop me leaving the stage and tell me the band wanted me to sing a number with them. I was to protest that unfortunately I don’t sing and try again to leave. At this point Tony would ask the audience if they wanted to hear me sing. He was confident they would reply in the affirmative, and that would be it.

                                                                                     I say a few words

As the interval came and went, and the raffle was held (we also auctioned a few items which raised a lot of money thanks to Richard Edgar’s brilliant work as an auctioneer) I was becoming more and more nervous. By the time fish and chips had arrived and been consumed I tried to keep my mind off my coming ordeal by making myself busy clearing up the rubbish. Des and Moira said they would need to go shortly after the interval, but I said I would be making a speech shortly and they should at least stay for that.

Dance floor looks busy

Finally my big moment arrived. I was waiting backstage when Tony announced that I would be saying a few words, and on I came. After thanking everybody as usual I explained about President’s charities, and why CAMEO was one of them (they used to look after my late mother), I thanked everyone for coming and expressed the hope that they would enjoy the rest of the evening. Tony and I then acted out our little charade, which ended up with me launching into Proud Mary. The PDG recorded the whole thing on her iPad, but neither of us has the foggiest idea how to send the video anywhere, so it can only be viewed on her gadget.

The audience are putty in my hands

The evening was an outstanding success. The raffle alone raised over £800, and Barclays topped this up by a further £750. Altogether the evening made over £2800 for Cameo, and I was delighted to attend Christmas lunch at the Greeno Centre in Shepperton (where CAMEO are based) to hand it all over to Annette. I’m trying to persuade Tony to make this an annual event.

Tony joins me to make presentation to Annette

Roman London

22nd  October. You wouldn’t think there was much evidence of Roman London today, (or Londinium, as it would have been called then) some 1800 years after the Romans left Britain. Today Pauline Hedges took us on a guided tour to demonstrate that there is actually quite a lot of it to be seen, just by wandering around the City. This tour was arranged a year ago, following a tour of the Financial areas of the City of London, also guided by Pauline. We had such a good time last year that we  decided there and then to do another trip a year later, when we would visit Roman London.

Londinium circa 200 A.D.

As usual, we gathered at Shepperton station for the 9.45 a.m. train to Waterloo. We were 17 in number, and most of us elected to obtain a group ticket, which meant an all zones day ticket to London cost us just £9.10 each.  A few of us made other arrangements. Mark Steptoe is a season ticket holder, and was able to obtain a ticket for himself and Jenny free of charge. Des and Moira were heading to the West End after the walk, so used their senior Railcards for a discounted fare to Waterloo.  So none of us paid the full price for a rail ticket, which pleased us immensely.

All aboard the train at Shepperton

The guided tour started earlier than I had expected. As we passed through Fulwell station, Doreen pointed out that this is where she went to school. I tried to get a photograph of this historic site but the train was moving too fast. A little later, somewhere near New Malden, Mark pointed out the very building where he used to work. Yes, the very building!

Doreen's old school - Thames Valley Grammar

I wasn’t going to be left out of this, and when we arrived at Vauxhall station I made sure everyone was aware that this is where I got off the train during my commuting years. Mark, a fountain of knowledge on many subjects told us that in the early days of railways, a delegation of Russians came to learn about this new  transport  system. Members of Parliament took them to the nearest station which was Vauxhall. When the Russians asked what it was called, meaning the type of building, they were misunderstood, and were told it was called Vauxhall. Thus it came about that the Russian word for station is ‘vauxhall’.  Strange but true

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Vauxhall Station

Upon arrival at Waterloo, we went our separate ways for 10 minutes for a ‘comfort break’, arranging to meet in the usual Waterloo meeting place, under the clock. From there it didn’t take long to go down the escalators to the London-City line, and a few minutes later we emerged from Bank station  and crossed the road to the Royal Exchange.  Here we met up with our tour guide Pauline, and off we went on our quest for Roman London. Most of it lies 7 yards under our feet, but parts of it can still be seen, as we were to discover.

On the steps of the Royal Exchange

Pauline tells us about the Bank of England, behind us

The City is divided into numerous wards, which were established in Medieval Times, and it wasn’t long before we were walking through the ward of Cheap. The word in old English means ‘Market’. An interesting aspect to this part of the walk was the large number of livery halls we passed, including the Mercers, Goldsmiths and Saddlers.  The most famous of all is the 15^th Century Guildhall itself, a magnificent building which I was fortunate to visit many years ago. Inside it has two giant statues, called Gog and Magog.

The Guildhall

Pauline showed us a number of public gardens in the City. Apparently there are dozens of them within the square mile, mostly very small, but they provide a tranquil place to sit or stroll for City workers. We had a walk around one of them ourselves, I can’t remember which one. There was a board in the garden showing a map of all the green spaces in the City of London. You could easily spend a relaxing day just strolling around these gardens.

A City garden

We passed the Barbican, the 20^th Century walled City, on our way to London Wall, a street which gives a useful clue to what might be found there. This is where the PDG and I met up with the Lord Mayor’s procession a couple of years ago. Today however we were here to view the remains of the actual Roman wall, which can clearly be seen. There has been some restoration work, but if you look closely it is still possible to see Roman workmanship in the wall. The Museum of London is also here, and Pauline suggested that we come back and spend some time in this Museum, which has amazing displays on the subject of Roman London.

A piece of the actual wall which surrounded Londinium

 Narrow medieval streets

Walking past the famous bells of St Mary-le -Bow, the time was just after 12 noon and we heard the bell rather strangely chime 4 times. Shortly afterwards it chimed another 4 times. I assumed it was striking 12 but taking its time over it. Pauline explained how the prevailing wind is from the west, which explains why only East Londoners can claim to be born within the sound of Bow, and are therefore true Cockneys. Mark Steptoe, born in West London, sadly cannot make this claim, even if he wanted to. The bells are also credited with persuading Dick Whittington to return to London, and of course are mentioned in the Nursery Rhyme ‘Oranges and Lemons’

The clock tower - St Mary-Le-Bow

A plaque nearby

As our walk continued it was interesting to come across fascinating road names which clearly indicated the activities which went on there, for instance Milk Street, Poultry, and Pudding Lane. If you were looking for a brothel in medieval times, you would go to Love Lane or Cock Street (it's true, believe it or not). Wardrobe Place really was the place monarchs kept their state clothing, and Mincing Lane was actually named after nuns from a nearby Church who lived there. The Medieval word for a nun was mynchen, from which Mincing Lane derives.

Fancy gate post at a City garden

All too soon we were back at our starting point. Des and Moira left us to go shopping in the West End whilst the rest of us headed off to Waterloo, from where we walked down to the South bank for lunch. Ken suggested a Restaurant called The Archduke, which he had been in before and found to be good.  So in we went, and were very impressed. The Restaurant sits among railway arches, but the upstairs area we sat in had a super view to the London Wheel and the Thames beyond. If I ever I feel like coming to London for the New Years Eve celebrations, I will book this very table. Despite a large number of us turning up at no notice, the staff couldn’t have been more friendly and helpful. The food was good quality and unusually for London, reasonably priced. I had a home made burger with stilton, which was quite delicious.

Archduke Restaurant

It had been another excellent guided tour in London, and Pauline have already planned next year’s tour, which will be Chaucer and Shakespeare’s London, including the Globe Theatre. I can’t wait.

The Globe Theatre

District Conference 2016 Eastbourne - Day 3 - Parade

We were up early today for another fine breakfast at the Cavendish. We also had to pack, as we needed to check out before heading off to the Conference Theatre for the final morning session of the Conference. Fortunately the Hotel allowed us to keep the car in their car park until lunch time. The car park at the Cavendish Hotel is quite unique. The Hotel is on the seafront, and is part of a  block of buildings, with mostly hotels on each side. In the centre of this block is a private car park owned exclusively by the Hotel. You have to access it from the rear of the Hotel and there are not very many spaces, but if you book early enough (as I did last Friday) your parking space is allocated to you for the duration of your stay by means of a traffic cone with your name on it. This is very useful given the difficulty in parking cars in Eastbourne generally.

Cavendish Hotel

We were joined this morning by Pauline, Doreen and Tony who had just come for the day. The session started with two terrific presentations. The first of these was Mike Goody. Whilst serving with the RAF in Afghanistan in 2008 he lost a leg when he stepped on a landmine. He also suffered brain trauma, and was wheelchair bound for 3 years. However, his determination and competitive spirit enabled him to overcome these terrible injuries.  He swam the Channel in 2009, and won 4 gold medals at the Invicta Games of 2014, a feat he repeated in 2016. He spends much of his time visiting schools promoting the value of swimming, not only  as a leisure activity but as a valuable life skill.

Mike Goody

He was followed by Patricia Parker, an extraordinary woman whose charity Kids for Kids provides goats to help families with milk and food in war-torn Sudan. The charity supports 78 villages in the province of Darfur. The UN reports that there are malnourished children in every village in Darfur, apart from these 78. The Charity plans to include more villages in coming months and years. It must take unbelievable courage to operate a charity in such highly dangerous conditions, but she has been doing this for many years and aims to continue doing so.

Patricia Parker

After a coffee break, it was time for my big moment, the Parade of the Presidents! The president of each club in the District is introduced on stage, and he or she then walks on to raucous applause from their club members. I had been looking forward to this for some time, and had been practising my triumphant wave as my adoring public cheered me to the rafters. I wasn’t sure if there would be time, but just in case, I had prepared a short 20 minute speech about my plans to develop the role of Rotary Club President, once the applause had died down.

I get a hurried shake of the DG's hand

Things  didn’t quite turn out that way. Having sacrificed my coffee to be corralled back-stage with all the other presidents, we were then called out six at a time to shake the DG’s hand. It was all over in a couple of minutes. At least we were called up in alphabetical order, so the three Spelthorne Presidents present, representing Shepperton Aurora, Shepperton & Sunbury and Staines all followed each other on to the stage (me first of course). I think I heard some noise from the audience, but it was all a bit low key compared to previous years.

Spelthorne Presidents. From left Kevin Bridge, Geoff Williams, me.

The keynote speaker for the morning was Nicholas Owen, former newsreader and Royal correspondent for ITV. He was very entertaining, giving lots of anecdotes about the different jobs he has done in his career, including times he met The Queen. He said he must be the first Republican ever to get a job as a Royal Correspondent, although he admitted that he has a lot of admiration for the Queen. Nicholas played a major role in reporting the death and funeral  of Princess Diana, and has written a book on her life. He also appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, a programme I have never watched, but said that he didn’t last long. He was speaking today on behalf of The Children’s Trust, the UK’s leading Charity for children with brain injury.

Aurora members in audience ; Brian, me, Tony, Pauline, Doreen and Lyn

After Nicholas Owen had finished, all that remained was for DG Frank West to bring proceedings to a close, and wish us all a safe journey home. Our group from Shepperton Aurora decided to stay in Eastbourne for lunch, and settled on fish & chips at Harry Ramsdens, which we had seen earlier near the pier. However, for some reason, as we passed one of the seafront hotels, The Cumberland,  we were irresistibly tempted by a carvery Sunday lunch, so in we went.  The PDG and I had to go on a circuitous route through non-public areas of the Hotel to avoid the staircase at the front, but arrived safely in the Restaurant.  We enjoyed an  excellent  lunch here, and were laughing rather a lot, to such an extent that the PDG went over to one of the other tables to apologise for the noise. ‘They’re Rotarians, you know,’ she said.

Cumberland Hotel - good carvery