I’ve had my brushes with the famous but on a really MINI scale

We were watching a silly comedy movie when one of the characters starting talking about all the famous people he had met in his life. Presidents, Popes, Hall of Famers, Astronauts….. you name it, everyone.

“Dad as you are about 50 times older than he is you must have 50 times as many famous encounters than he has…”

Sometimes even Hawklad can’t keep the smirk from his face before he has landed the verbal punch….

• I once was smiled at by a beautiful international tennis star, kind of. We were walking in a small town in Switzerland when Anna Ivanovic walked past me and smiled at me…. Well actually she smiled and waved at the blue eyed toddler who was holding my hand. But that counts.
• Years back I was out for a run when a bus pulled up and this rather familiar looking lady stepped out and asked if I knew the way to the local concert venue. I gave her the directions and it wasn’t until later that I passed the venue and saw the poster. Thankfully I had correctly directed Alison Moyet to the venue.
• The former 6ft4 England Rugby captain once stood on my toe while I was waiting for strawberries at Wimbledon. I think the price of the 5 strawberries was far more painful than the trodden toe.
• I was training at a gym in York when the world snooker champion came onto the mat next to me to do sit-ups. Bizarrely Ronnie O’Sullivan had a broken leg…..He was playing in a major tournament in the city.
• At school we played cricket against a boy who would go on to be a fast bowler for England. Paul Jarvis. We lasted 4 overs as a team and got bowled out for 11. I bravely scored 8 of them. Two boundaries. Actually both were attempts to keep the 90mph ball from hitting me in the head. Paul Jarvis got 8 wickets. One lad refused to go out to bat. My claim to fame is that he never got me. I was bowled out by a spotty face kid who was barely strong enough to hold the cricket ball. He slowly bounced the ball down the pitch, I took the biggest swish with bat, missed and on the fourth bounce the ball trickled sadly into my wickets.
• I once got the former European footballer of the year, Kevin Keegan to sign my arm. I didn’t have any paper…
• Peter Ustinov walked past me once.
• Some of the cast of the hit TV show Auf Wiedersehen, Pet stood next to me at a bar before a Newcastle United game.
• I once patted the backside of the famous racehorse Red Rum.
• When I was at college I picked up the courage to ask this girl to dance with me at a nightclub in Middlesbrough. She unsurprisingly said NO. But one minute later she said yes to an international footballer. Bernie Slaven.
• Michael Caine might have or might not have sat at my work desk when a spy movie did some filming one weekend at the computer firm I was working for.
• In my very early 20s I had been visiting friends in London. It was early Monday morning and I was making my way back home. I was stood on the tube platform looking an absolute state. Long, uncombed hair, unshaven, metal T-shirt, holes in my tight jeans. Next to me was this immaculately dressed old man in a pin striped suit and bowler hat. He kept giving me one of those LOOKS. The great unwashed look. That chap was Enoch Powell. A famous politician. Former Member of the Government. The person who made one of the most infamous and racially charged speeches in British political history. Clearly he wasn’t impressed with me. Which is ok as I was giving him a real Paddington Bear stare back…..

That’s it. That’s my encounters with the Presidents and Popes of the world. Took me about 2500 years to do achieve all this. But it’s my own brush with fame….