I use the word fame in it's loosest sense.....
Had a couple of trips to London this week to meet up with former colleagues. In course of conversation at first the name of a mutual colleague cropped up and I chatted briefly to him at another gathering yesterday.
His 'fame' arises from being subject of a Judicial Review case R v Lord Chancellor ex parte Nangle. That case held that Civil Servants had contracts of employment and did not, as government asserted, hold office under prerogative powers of the Crown:
swarb.co.uk/regina-v-lord-chancellor-ex-parte-nangle-ca-1991/
The fact that managers tried to discipline Mr N will be no surprise to those who knew him!!
Another former colleague was employed as a Court Service Civil Servant while waiting to start training in Air Traffic Control. He subsequently went on to take a key part in redesigning the traffic patterns around London. Traffic flying into Luton and Stansted from North routes via a waypoint called CLIPI, named after him - surname was Clipp.
Any others got similar stories?
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 16 Dec 17 at 13:34
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Watching Crimewatch some years back I was surprised to see a former driving pupil of mine appear in the lead story. He got eighteen months for being part of a protection racket targeting a local pub and was busted by undercover police working behind the bar.
Quite a nice bloke otherwise, I got on very well with him though he was a bit of a geezer. He came back from a stay in a hotel once utterly disgusted because a couple of the mates he was with threw a TV in the swimming pool. He reckoned it was a terrible waste as they could have nicked it instead.
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I used to go windsurfing with a very pleasant chap with a devastating sense of humour who is now both honourable and a High Court judge having been a high profile and often reported upon QC.
Does that count?
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I once sold a new car to Lord Saville (who subsequently chaired the b***** Sunday enquiry). He part exchanged his Citroen XM and bought a white Xantia. Must have been some time in 1999 as I only had a very shortlived career as a car salesman. He and his wife were both lovely people... Would
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The results of my work appear on every episode Fawlty Towers, and I worked on a piece of kit that appeared in every episode of UFO.
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>> The results of my work appear on every episode Fawlty Towers,
Did you write the Manuel for it?
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I have the only empty 5L bottle of washing-up liquid in the universe that has been signed by the late Sir Patrick Moore.
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Briefly spoke to Barry Fry last week and shook his hand (he offered it). We don't know each other and I've absolutely no interest in football.
Daughter was in the same school badminton team as Gail Emms.
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I was saved from an extended stretch in the Tower of London by a protection policeman who moved Prince Charles's Range Rover as I was about to drag it out of a very restricted area with a tractor. Maybe the person who let it in there ended up in the Tower. :-)
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>>Daughter was in the same school badminton team as Gail Emms.
Ooo, that's a thought, I can claim more fame; I was at school with Crispin Cole, Paul Harrison and Martin Vine. [George, George and David]
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I once co-shared a flat in Nottingham, with a young Frank Williams , of later and current, F1 fame, and assisted (not technically, but by hand-painting) his second competition car, an Austin A40 Farina.
I later had an "interesting" journey in said, fully race tuned, car from Nottingham (via central London, the Edgware Rd, route) The return journey was also "interesting"!
Last edited by: Roger. on Sat 16 Dec 17 at 18:44
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>I later had an "interesting" journey in said, fully race tuned, car from Nottingham (via central London, the Edgware Rd, route)
Oh that's pretty good. Beats going to school with someone.
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. .......from Nottingham to Sussex where ha had PXed it for a race-tuned Lotus 7.
(could not edit previous post as it had been repied to.)
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I once filled the wellies of Lord Fermoy with cowsh**e whilst he was still wearing them! - I was working on one of his estate farms in Chilton Foliat, one day as I was scraping out the cubicle building with the tractor and scraper He and the farm manager appeared in the doorway, I stopped the tractor ok, - but the tidal wave of Shi*e kept going and swamped the pair of them up to the knees! ;-)
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I can see why you are no longer working there.
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I bumped into Terry Scott when he opened a Texas DIY store (The Big One) in Plymouth.
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I got Wayne Sleep going again (ooh err) when his Rolls Royce came into Membury services overheating. Topped up the coolant for him and he was on his merry way again. But not before being extremely camp and doing a few dance routines around the car park in front of me and a couple of my friends who had helped him. Not sure if he was practicing or what?
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Teachers, by virtue of the large numbers of students and parents that they come into contact with, are probably going to have more brushes with fame than most people.
It wasn't until a parents' evening that I realised that the father of one of my very quiet and unassuming twelve-year-old students was David Coleman; both parents were in fact utterly charming.
Another student of mine, very bright but unable to settle down to steady work at A.L., went on stage for the first time in a serious way when I directed him in a school play. Some years later I went to a performance of something he had written. It was called Jerusalem and his name is Jez Butterworth.
Last edited by: Focal Point on Sun 17 Dec 17 at 00:15
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Joanna Lumley provides a scholarship to the school that my eldest went to.
She gave a speech on the last "Speech Day" and was captivating.
Eldest was presented with a book which she signed and she spent time with all of the award winners at the garden party afterwards and was, in my eldest's words, "absolutely amazing".
Unfortunately I didn't get to meet her. :-(
Last edited by: zippy on Sun 17 Dec 17 at 02:01
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Had a bit of an argument with Tom Baker about images on the cover of his autobiography. If I hadn't stuck to my guns it would have looked crap.
Designed a few covers for Fay Weldon which meant going to her house and visiting her in hospital.
Margaret Thatcher told me I'd follow a higher career path if I didn't wear jeans at work. I was very drunk.
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I was at school with Andew Manze, the conductor, not that I knew him really.
And in my time at a Cambridge College there were loads of well known people floating about, and children of them too. One parent was an actress I've had a terrible crush on since the age of about 12. One day she happened to be on the premises and everywhere you went men were swooning about whispering, and trying to be professional.
I had an argument with another famous TV actress over something trivial. She wasn't very pleasant so I was forced to play the "I have no idea who you are but you're not getting special treatment" card, and that didn't go down well. I did know who she was. Don't regret it though.
Quite a few famous people attended as well in their own right, and they would appear from time to time. You never knew quite who you'd bump into, which was one reason I stayed in my office as much as possible.
I went to lunch once and got shouted at by some security guards dressed in black. And asked to go another way. There'd been a helicopter landing a few minutes previously. I don't know who that was, I didn't ask!
Oh, and one Master was C, the ex head of MI6. The staff, of course, varied from "ordinary folk" like me to Nobel prize winners and everything in between, but unless you looked them up and knew, nobody was likely to tell you. Didn't matter really, they all came and had a coffee and a chat about how to read email on iPhones or whatever just the same.
All good fun.
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I once sat opposite Lord Longford on the tube. He looked uncannily like his cartoon pictures in Private Eye.
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I have had my picture on the front of the Daily Telegraph, twice.
I organised events involving, and therefore met, a number of well know political figures in the late '90s/early '00s.
Around the same time I had a peripheral involvement in F1 and met a few of the characters.
I also met, well kind of bumped into, Muhammed Ali.
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I had a J. Carroll Nash with Dennis Thatcher. He bumped his head and said sh--.
I have tole this before, shirley?
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Who or what is J carroll nash?
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>> Who or what is J carroll nash?
>>
It's rhyming slang.
I believe that many years ago, he was a Hollywood actor.
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>> >> Who or what is J carroll nash?
>> >>
>>
>> It's rhyming slang.
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>> I believe that many years ago, he was a Hollywood actor.
Never heard of J Carroll but got the drift. Pie'n'mash is more familiar.
J Arthur Rank had two meanings - you could go for one or to one!!
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So what's J Carrol Nash rhyming slang for then?
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>> Slash
>>
>> tinyurl.com/y7csvfdt
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It's not one I had heard though I guessed that, however it didn't seem to fit with Dennis Thatcher quote.
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Father in law worked at BBC for many years and I used to visit him at work.This meant I saw many famous faces around the place from Tom Baker and Paul Daniels toJohn Inman and David Hemmings and I once had a chat with the tiny but very glamorous Kate O 'Mara in the queue in the restaurant about the standard of the food supplied .
Anyway...
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my odd claim to fame....
On one occasion Pans People were rehearsing and their record player ( yes that long ago) broke and I changed the plug to get them back to work. I had always fancied them but the sweaty unmade up scraggy haired dancers in rehearsal were quite different to the glamorous girls on Top of the Pops.
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Myself and ex once had a game of mixed doubles with Vidal Sassoon whilst on holiday. Whilst living at home with parents before moving out my next door neighbour had played bass guitar for ‘ Love Affair’ band and we played squash and went to karate together each week ( my Mum baby sat for him and his wife).
I used to share the odd pint or three in my local with John Helliwell who played sax for Supertramp when he lived just up t’road from me.
Some of my school day contemporaries are probably famous in their own fields, but as they were the worst years of my life I’ve tried to forget that dark period. Constantly propping up the class gets you down!
Last edited by: legacylad on Sun 17 Dec 17 at 10:40
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I don't think this quite cuts it after reading the above but here goes anyway!
I've put petrol in Gary Linneker's car and checked his oil and water.
Paul Weller's too...the LCF footballer that is!
Pat
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I have just remembered that my above claim to fame with Pans People happened to be 42 years ago at the end of 1975....the tune they were rehearsing to dance was Il dulce jubilo by Mike Oldfield.
I was going to post the link to it on You Tube but decided not to when I realised it was Mr So vile who was introducing that episode of TOTP........
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>>
>>
>> I was going to post the link to it on You Tube but decided not
>> to when I realised it was Mr So vile who was introducing that episode of
>> TOTP........
>>
>>
So what? You can't airbrush people out of history because of what they did or we'd have hardly any of it. It isn't as if he is going to benefit from it, being dead and all that.
No one refuses to listen to the Rolling Stones because Bill Wyman was over familiar with a fourteen year old girl and a considerable number of people still regard Michael Jackson as an icon of entertainment. Whether we forgive, ignore or revile past figures for their misdeeds depends very much on how "Cool" they were, hence John Peel gets no flack for a well publicised interest in girls in school uniforms, even going so far as to get one pregnant.
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>> Agreed. Thoroughly.
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Me too.
No one tries to hide or feel ashamed at once having had a chance meeting with Hitler. There was an obituary in the DT a few days ago about someone who did. Italian anti-fascist countess.
Jesus even met Satan once, but wasn't tempted.
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>> always fancied them but the sweaty unmade up scraggy haired dancers in rehearsal were quite
>> different to the glamorous girls on Top of the Pops.
Scraggy haired and sweaty pans people dancers would have been fine by me.
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...though Mike Harding always reckoned Babs had "Segs" in her belly button for taking the tops off beer bottles.......
:-O
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>> Scraggy haired and sweaty pans people dancers would have been fine by me.
Some people would pay good money for that.
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 19 Dec 17 at 02:00
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sweaty pans people dancers
"Some people would pay good money for that."
I would. They're just at the right age now.
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Not a patch on the Roly Polys.
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>> Not a patch on the Roly Polys.
A wet patch?
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Um, I met Lord (Jago Nicholas Aldo) Eliot, son of the 10th Earl of St Germans back in the day.
Went to his owse en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Eliot with my friend Lauri Smith the leather craftsman, who used to call him Lordy.
Bit-of-a-lad was young Jago.
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When I was about 20 my late sane, sensible and always sober grandfather, told me that we were related in some way or another to the aviator, Charles Lindbergh.
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Pans People .....
'Just at the right age' says BBD...
Four of them are dead...
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I thought they were a bit quiet.
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Your point is helicopter?
As if that would bother BBD...
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"Four of them are dead..."
Ooops. I must have been a bit rough.
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>> "Four of them are dead..."
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>> Ooops. I must have been a bit rough.
>>
and you wonder why they did not say 'no'
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I had a chat with John Wayne at the bar in The Anchor pub by the Thames. He was in London filming Brannigan in about 1974. I shook his hand - it was enormous.
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Was he pleasant? I hope so, I've always thought he would be.
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Yes, a really nice chap who was happy to talk. He would have contentedly posed for a photo or two, but my meeting with him was about 40 years too early for that - no phone in the pocket.
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Dulwich. You win. Beats everything so far in my book
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>> Dulwich. You win. Beats everything so far in my book
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Even my Mohammed Ali?
;-)
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...well, I like John Wayne, and I like Muhammad Ali, so there's only one way to settle it....
....fight!....
;-)
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>> >> Dulwich. You win. Beats everything so far in my book
>> >>
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>> Even my Mohammed Ali?
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>> ;-)
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Yes I'm afraid so. Hands down!
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>> Was he pleasant? I hope so, I've always thought he would be.
>>
A mate of mine was a ship's captain until he retired. He met John Wayne when he was moored nearby somewhere in the Americas and said Wayne was a very warm and friendly guy. Bald as well, he wasn't wearing his wig at the time.
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Ha, I win ! I used to service and MOT the Lada 1200 belonging to Anna Bhanji in the 1980s !
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Well, ok, since you all ask. She was the mother of Krishna Bhanji...the celebrated mummer Sir Ben Kingsley of Salford.
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I was next to this guy in the class register at secondary school, and sat next to him in some classes in early school days. he was famous for stuff like being the youngest QC and recently for representing Gina Miller on the Article 50 case.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Pannick,_Baron_Pannick
When away on business in in Aberdeen I popped out of the hotel for a fag and David Dimblebum came out, asked to borrow a light and lit up a fat cigar. We chatted for 10 minutes or so. What a nice bloke he is. He was actually waiting for his driver, who was staying on a cheaper hotel up the road - he was there to do a series on castles or something.
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OK ..heres another odd one.
Flew once through a horrendous thunderstorm sat next to an American guy who was apprehensive in the extreme so I reassured him and was chatting to pass the time .
He was a musician called Kevin Montgomery whose father played music with Buddy Holly...and sat two rows in front of us was a member of his band .... a big tall guy wearing a Stetson (yes ..on the plane).
The reason Montgomery was.apprehensive was that guy was called Tommy Allsupp and he played with Buddy Holly on his fateful tour and had a seat on the plane with Holly when Richie Vallens pestered him to give him the seat so they tossed a coin and Tommy Allsupp lost the seat to Vallens
We all know what happened to the plane that Buddy Holly was in.
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Odd Claims to Fame - Robin O'Reliant
