Which famous people have you actually met?

General Discussion
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Renè Kollo came to do a gala performance of Lohengrin at the opera house in Mannheim. As usual, there was a rehearsal with the conductor on the morning of the performance, and I as repetiteur was to play the orchestral part on the piano. I was quite excited about this of course.
Kollo came in, we shook hands, then he said to the conductor, Christoph Perick (his real name is Prick, but he changes it in English-speaking countries), “We don’t need to rehearse, do we?” Perick was a bit put out, but said “OK”.
Kollo then warned him that he sang a particular passage very slowly, and with a “till this evening then”, said goodbye and left.
And that was my rehearsal with René Kollo!

My brother-in-law was in the Australian Air Force and got to fly Prince Charles. PC insisted on taking over the controls. My B-I-L let him, but as the plane flew lower and lower, he said, “i think I had better take over again, Sir”.

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Small world! I was definitely in that pub during that period as a friend organised some kind of event there and I remember meeting him.
Mind you, I was definitely in most pubs in Kingston during that time…

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I used to go to the Grey Horse in Kingston frequently in the 90s. It was a music venue and Ruthless Blues were the house band

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The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh 1977.
Bobby Moore (taught his kids to swim), Sir Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters - All three absolute gentlemen. You would not believe just how down to earth Mooro was.
Ron Greenwood, John Lyall, also absolute gents.
Trevor Brooking, a lovely guy.
Paolo Di Canio, really nice guy.
You might guess from this where I might come from. I met almost all West Ham players from the late 60s to the late 90s.
I also had a couple of encounters with a certain prize fighter named Lennie McLean, who also appeared in the film Lock Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels. A very humerous man.
Barbara Windsor (a couple of times in the 80s), but my opinion of her is not the general opinion.
Many more, but not worth a mention so I will leave it there.

26

I worked for a certain “rather prone to throwing a punch” deputy prime minister, so met all sorts. Best was the project he gave me to get the statue of an extremely famous South African into Parliament Square as got to meet him when he came to unveil it. It was a project started off by Dickie Attenborough, so met that lot too.

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I had a conversation, (when hobbling along on crutches with a broken leg, at Badminton Horse Trials), with a very nice, smartly turned out bearded chap who rode up to me on his horse. “Did you fall off your horse” he asked? I had absolutely no idea who he was, until after he’d ridden off, when this BBC cameraman standing next to me said, did you know Prince Charles then? Charles was in his bearded, Royal Navy phase, which is my excuse.

Sooty & Sweep (does this count?!) -and Harry Corbett, when I won that day’s performance of the Sooty & Sweep show.

I ran an illegal,informal toasted sandwich bar at university, and one rainy night took pity on, and gave shelter (and a free toastie) to this chap who appeared, covered in silver paint. He turned out to be David Irving, far right ‘historian’ who had exposed the Hitler Diaries as fakes shortly before, and had paint tipped all over him by fellow students.

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28

Yup remember it well!

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They certainly were. You’ve led a bit of a life haven’t you?

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What a bunch of desperadoes we are! :rofl: Al Capone and the prohibition moonshine rackets “ain’t got nuttin’ on dis place”.

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And I was a chef in a Michelin rated restaurant which did not serve samwhiches but
I once lived near the Kray brothers which is the closest i got to mischief. In those days
you many of us had very little other than determination and that is what kept us going.
If I had the grammar and the energy I would write a book about the amazing people
whom I have met in London…mainly.

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Indeed. I was going to say how I used to serve Van Morrison when I worked in his local fish & chip shop, and how miserable he always was… But there’s not really much point now.

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Oh well Van Morrison may have been miserable but people liked his voice.
No amount of sarcasm will erase my memories.

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Oh absolutely! I’m a big fan of his music, which is why I was disappointed when I met him.

He had a lovely house too. Think he eventually sold it to the film director who did Chariots of Fire and who’s name escapes me. He then sold it to James Dyson, iirc.

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I was also a journalist, with Reuters, so I got to meet rather a lot of people. So, the Queen, on board Britannia in the Barbados Harbour in 1977 on her who would you really tour. Terrifying and then just delightful. Someone you felt you could talk to for ages.
Back in 1965? I also met Prince Philip in Spadeadam in Cumberland as a cub reporter when he came to watch a static firing of blue streak. Remember that?
I was in Barbados as"our man in the Caribbean! For three years during which I met most of the leaders in the 25 islands that were my patch. People like Michael Manley of Jamaica who I interviewed while he dressed for dinner. A lovely man with a huge laugh. And Tom Adams, the Prime Minister of Barbados, a very approachable man.
Before that I had spent nine years in Paris, spending most of my time reporting sport which meant I met most of the top sports men and women of that time, tennis stars, skiers, racing and rally drivers and football and rugby international, most of whom were easy to chat to. Jackie Stewart stands out in my memory is a really lovely person who spent a lot of time patiently explaining to me how best to navigate the Paul Ricard circuit.
The only time I met Charles de Gaulle was at his funeral so he didn’t say very much!
The only top politician I really knew was Willie Whitelaw, a truly lovely person who invited me and my family to tea when I asked him for an interview during a general election in Cumberland where I trained for Reuters on the Cumberland News…
I also met Gaddafi in Belgrade of all places. A frightening man.
And back in the Caribbean Eric Geary, the Prime Minister of Grenada, patiently explained to me and a bunch of other reporters just why he knew that UFOs existed.
I also met Boris Johnson when he was a reporter for the Telegraph in Brussels. Not impressed!
As my eyesight has deteriorated to the point where I cannot reread what the computer has made of my dictation, I hope that our to many errors.

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36

Was the fish and chips good?
Perhaps he was dissapointed with them…the fish and chips
Very dissapointed with the offering a few weeks ago from a van.
On a good day there is little better than decent fish and chips…not even Michelin starred cooking.

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My son used to play football with his grandson (I was the coach) so I used to meet him very often.

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This in an interesting thread - I have enjoyed reading through it.

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You got to meet the South African? - if so the bar has just been raised still further in my opinion.

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You have to go further back to remember mine, and the best of the first two I can’t remember myself. :confused:

Gordon Pirie, a runner of some sort in the 50s. He was on the docks at Stavangar as I and my schoolmaster and friends began our epic tour in an Austin Cambridge pickup to the Arctic Circle and back.

But the best was when I was taxi driving in Sydney in the 60s and picked up a large booming voiced Jewish comedian married to a woman called Paddy. Come on, come on you oldies, tell me his name. We got to his hotel and were so engrossed in our conversation of a mutual fascination for accents that I turned off the meter and we didn’t part company for an hour.

A less welcome customer was a drunken Australian TV sports commentator who famously blotted his copy book on air by describing Mexico, soon to host a major international sporting event, as ‘a hepatitis ridden country and why the hell are our boys going there?’ He was blotto and, on thinking that I hadn’t recognised him (I had but always had a policy of privacy unless otherwise invited) launched into a furious verbal assault which got even worse when he noticed my accent and ‘why the hell don’t all you lousy Pommie bastards get the hell back home to your miserable country and leave us to ours?’ He was swiftly turned over to the police at Darling Harbour police station and locked up. :rofl:

Best thing is I can’t remember his name either, and Tory will be no help, far too young. :wink: :grinning:

Edit: Alfred Marks was the booming comedian, a really lovely man and a pleasure to be with. :joy:

There were others, taxi driving is a great way to meet interesting, as well as horrible, people.

Taxis again, Nottingham this time. Peter Shilton, late for training at Forest and beside himself with anxiety because he was late. I thought that was a bit weak of him but, having just read a really interesting book about Brian Clough, I can now see why. :rofl:

Another Aussi TV host of something like Blind Date I think. I had just been given a name at a nightspot and, being a night driver had never seen the show or the bloke. Instead of giving his name to me he kept shouting ‘Blind Date, Blind Date’ as I arrived to collect the love birds. He was really upset that I didn’t know who the hell he was and they only got on their way to their restaurant for the evening when somebody gave me this creep’s name. :rofl:

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Nobby Styles, Man United - as a van delivery boy (early teens), I delivered bread to his house… he answered the door on a few occasions and took the goodies of me and I think paid the bill too.

Not me but Vanessa. We wrote enabling software for disabled people and were introduced as company to The Princess Anne at a conference. The programmer with Vanessa on that occasion was himself disabled and when asked by HRH whether he used the software he retorted indignantly to her “no! I wrote it!..” she moved on to the next stand…