fundraising – derrickjknight

This morning, whilst Jackie continued preparing the garden for the winter that only the calendar suggests is bound to come, I cut the grass, and lopped a dead branch.

From above, the progress of the rose garden can now be clearly seen beyond the Pergola Path.

Four days ago, Ian reached a milestone birthday. Today we intended to celebrate it at his favourite restaurant. Unfortunately he is ill and that has been postponed.

When he and Becky were staying with us in August, a catchphrase between us was ‘D’you want some?’. This invariably had us collapsing with laughter, and our daughter loaded this video onto our television:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jnFAexQ3PM&w=560&h=315]

The YouTube piece is 13 minutes long, and, although I do urge you to watch it, you may be satisfied to learn that it tells the story of how Gordon Hill, following an encounter at a ninth division football match, became a celebrity; and earned thousands of pounds in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital, by making a recording of the song The Wealdstone Raider, which reached number 5 in the hit parade at Christmas 2013.

This is so much more than a music video. We see how Gordon took on rival fans who were fortunately amused; we see how he was encouraged to capitalise on this; how he was only interested if the proceeds could go to the children’s hospital where he spent the first fifteen years of his life; and how the fame, at first exciting, became a stressful burden. It is a remarkable, humorous, and touching tale.

I wanted to present Ian with a copy of the song for his birthday, but am not confident in making purchases on line, so I asked Becky to buy it for me. This wasn’t actually possible, but she downloaded the track and made this cover for the CD:

She has skills far beyond mine. She sent me this copy of her work. I was to have given the CD to her fiancé, but, in the event, she gave it to him instead.

This afternoon, on TV, I watched Rugby World Cup matches between Italy and Canada, and between South Africa and Samoa.

Possibly because of its location, at 25a St Thomas Street on an awkward bend approaching the High Street in Lymington, The Royal China restaurant is not well known except for its steady takeaway service. Is, however, well worth seeking it out, as we did this evening. Its low-beamed dining room suggests the building is of considerable age. The ambience is cosy, and Dean Martin’s spectre croons mellifluously in the background. Seated near the kitchen, we could hear the homely, rhythmic, chopping of the food we were about to be served. Our delightful Roumanian born waitress was kind enough to warn us that the portions were large and we may be ordering too much. Taking her advice, we reduced the number of dishes by one, which was not nearly enough. Half of our main courses were bagged up for us to carry home for breakfast.

My choices were hot and sour soup, egg fried rice, and hot and spicy king prawns. We shared shredded duck. While we waited we drank Tsingtao beer and ate a plentiful supply of prawn crackers.

I am now about to watch a recording of the third of today’s rugby matches: that between England and Wales.

The air this morning was full of agonised screeches. Otherwise, silence. We couldn’t actually see anything, but suspected the magpies or foxes were doing their stuff. The magpies were certainly about later. Parent birds were offering strong resistance.

On my usual route through Morden Hall Park to Colliers Wood, for a change, I took a less trodden path between the back of a factory estate and what seemed to be an almost dry tributory of the Wandle. This turned out to be a rash decision as it was overrun with stinging nettles and I was wearing shorts. The similarly clad German hiker entering this path from the far end, near Deen City Farm, had no interest in my nettle warning.

The lingering stinging in my legs reminded me of a similar situation in 2003. In March 2004 my son Sam completed a solo row of the Atlantic, covering 3,000 miles in 59 days. In doing so, at the age of 23, he became the youngest person ever to have rowed any ocean and won the solo race. The previous summer he had taken delivery of his specially crafted boat at Henley and, with his friend James on board, rowed it to Newark along the linked canals and rivers. I had walked alongside collecting sponsorship. This was an 11 day trek over a distance of 215 miles.

En route Mum telephoned me. As often when someone rings a mobile phone her first question was: ‘where are you?’. Now, Mum didn’t realise what we were doing, so she was somewhat surprised when I replied: ‘well Mum, I’m in the middle of a field of head high thistles and stinging nettles – and I’ve got a dustbin on my back’. I then went on to explain that what I had thought was a simple matter of a stroll along towpaths involved some pretty scary diversions, one of which I was in; and the dustbin was meant to collect donations from all the people we would encounter en route. Unsurprisingly there were no donors in this field. I had got myself into this predicament as it had seemed a better option than a field with a bull in it. Upon encountering the bull I had crawled under a barbed wire fence, chucking the dustbin over first, and come to this. I then had to waste more precious minutes ferreting around for those few coins that had been in the dustbin. As I couldn’t see above the undergrowth to gather how far it stretched there seemed nothing else but to press on. Going back would have meant more of the same. Of course, I hadn’t got a clue where I was when I eventually emerged, so I knocked at the nearest house for directions. The woman who answered the door took one look at me, dashed inside, and bolted the door. When I reflected that, quite apart from wearing nothing but sandals and a pair of shorts, and being covered in bleeding scratches, I was sporting a dustbin, I began to see her point. Just to add insult to injury, t-shirt-and-shorts-clad Louisa and her friends, in a couple of hours outside Nottingham’s waterfront pubs, collected far more money than I had managed on my magnificent effort.

Today’s destination was Waterloo Station where I met my friend Tony with whom I went for coffee at The Archduke. As I entered the tube I tripped over the crossed legs of a seated woman. She was very apologetic. It was not until I had sat down myself that I realised I had stumbled across a rather splendid pair of pins. I leaned across the respectful empty seat between us and said ‘I could think of worse legs to have tripped over’. Fortunately she was rather amused. It’s always a bit risky making such a gesture as it is so easily open to misinterpretation. This was accepted in the spirit intended.

It was so hot and humid that this evening’s meal was a salad accompanied by a rather nice Sancerre.

Tag: fundraising

The Wealdstone Raider

Nettle Rash