A Funny Thing Happened….

I went to England in September to visit family and friends as I always do, and every year my daughter, Jenny, gives me a surprise evening out before I come back.  This year was the best ever, she got tickets to see Cliff Richard, knowing I have been a fan for about 40 years or more.  I was so excited!

Being a teacher, she was very organized and got pre-booked train tickets from Oxford to Birmingham NEC center, and also bought us a lovely picnic for us to eat on the train; nice things like smoked salmon and blue cheeses and crackers and lots of other things, including gateaux for dessert.

Well, we started off OK.  I met Jenny at school and we drove to Oxford, that’s where our first problem happened.  In the car park we had to phone a number and give the car description and registration number, and then give a number from the platform (how can you do that when you are in the car park?).  So, we left it and went to get our tickets and pre-booked seats.  As we had time, she phoned the car park number again, and luckily they had all her details so only had to give the number of the platform and her credit card details, as it’s 5.50 now to park your car.

Anyway, all done and we get on the train and go to find our pre-booked seats.  Well, we could hardly get on the train, it was so full, yet alone find our seats, so we just stood and waited until we stopped at the next stop.  There, we got into someone’s seat to eat our picnic, but I had forgotten to put in anything to eat it with, so we had to use our fingers, which wasn’t easy, but we laughed a lot.  It’s a shame we didn’t have any wine, but the orange juice was fine.  We left the gateaux intil we got home as too sticky.

Then we came to the NEC center where the show was.  The steward on the train asked where we were going and we said the Cliff Richard show; he said, “It’s the Franchise Exhibition tonight”, but we took no notice and went anyway, only to find another man at the NEC who said, “If your looking for Cliff, he’s not here”.  So we asked where, and he said the N.I.A. center, so we had to get back on the train one stop and then get a taxi to the N.I.A. center which was enormous and very full.

Jenny was worried now that the tickets she bought off e-bay would be no good, but they were great; 5 rows from the front and right in the middle.  The show was fabulous!  Everyone was singing and clapping except Jenny, who said that she was the youngest one there and didn’t know the words.  Cliff and the Shadows were really good, and the atmosphere was fantastic.  I shall always remember it.

Then, when the show came to an end, we went back to the train station to get our train to Oxford, but couldn’t see any signs for it so asked the guard.  He said there were no trains tonight.  The next one was at 6 am, and it was only 10:30 pm.  So, she said, “What shall we do?”  I said, “We’ll have to have a hotel for the night and get up early to catch the 6 am train”.

So we walked out of the station to look for a hotel and came across a Holiday Inn.  “Oh good”, I said, “we’ll be OK here and near the station”.  No, fully booked.  So we walked a bit further, not feeling very comfortable as there were a lot of students waiting to get into the nightclubs.  Jenny stopped a taxi and asked how much to take us to Oxford.  He said 110 pounds, we said no, and found another one who said 90 pounds.  Jenny said, “Get in Mum.  We’re going home in style”, and the taxi driver took us straight to our car in Oxford.

Jenny said it would have cost us more than that for a hotel, and we got back safe and sound and in style.  We found our car OK and drove home in 30 minutes.  Still laughing at 1.30 am, we had our lovely gateaux and a nice cup of tea.  At least we were home safely, and she could get up for school in the morning.  It was certainly a night to remember, and I don’t think she can top that next year.

Joyce Aldridge