A couple of sentences and a handshake, so “meet” is perhaps too strong a word. But I was bowled over!
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I struggle with him as love the music, but find him and his covid views quite unpleasant. But this is not a political thread so we are not going to go there!
I have absolutely no idea why, and since both my parents are dead I can’t ask them. But I have (hopefully still have) a polaroid photo of me and Eric Gairy on my 9th birthday in Grenada when he was leader of the opposition.
And this is a bit of a niche one, but for fans Great British Sewing Bee I used to hang about in Camden Town in the ‘70’s including Esme Young’s shop and until recently still had and used one of her Swanky Modes tops. She is older than me and I thought she was so cool! Probably still do 
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My restaurant Chinon was close to Kensington house BBC and most programes were conceived in my restaurant, Nigella Lawsan, Gary Linekar. David Lean, Anita Dobson , Terry Wogan/ Martha Reeves, BB Beardie …and others I served them at their table.
Do just missed and forever regretful count? No? Alright then I won’t tell you.
Oh go on then. Yellow Cab Co, Sydney, '60s again. About 3am a call over the radio to fetch a fare from one of those far distant northern suburbs, can’t remember which, but nobody wanted to go all that way. The system was competitive calling. 1st call, if you can get there in 5 minutes. 2nd call, 15 minutes, 3rd call, half an hour, 4th and subsequent calls, anybody offer a time to be there. Finally after the long deafening silence the operator, who by this time was really pleading. ‘Come on, is there not one of you who will go and fetch Tony Hancock?’, the radio almost exploded with squawks and whistles as dozens of mike buttons were pressed and repressed multiple times, including mine. Ironically it was the bloke nearest the mast near the city centre, who therefore had the strongest signal, who got the job, rather than one of us already over on the North Shore.
The next night it was announced that he was dead by his own hand in his hotel room. Couldn’t have made a difference but what an opportunity missed. 
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Franny Lee, Man City. Used to deliver his newspapers. Allegedly (according to my mum) as a toddler I sat on the lap of Nina Simone. I don’t remember it at all, but I do remember London as a toddler, a long way from home. Mum was a very good singer and knew lots of people in the business so it may be true.
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Worked for a record company in the 80’s & 90’s
PR and artist relations. Spend my life on the road
250 concerts a year… any artist on EPIC, CBS, A&M I toured with them.
Ones I liked best - J. Cash L.Cohen, C.
Lauper , G.Estefan, B. Springsteen YoYo Ma,
N.Diamond, Stranglers, O & S Osbourne, B. Adams, N. Hagen
Moviestars… M. Wahlberg G. Cluny (A perfect Storm)
Disliked immensely P. Morgan - then writing for the Sunday times
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There is a photographic record of many of the people I have met under the auspices of the National Portrait Gallery/Sunday Times project “The Great British”. I was assistant to the photographer, Arnold Newman. There’s a book. Amongst others, my picture of Arnold Newman, Eric and Ernie are in it. See below.
Too many to mention but of the politicians Lord Hume [Sir Alec as was] was a real gentleman, in contrast to the snob, Harold Wilson [lined us up and spent 20 mins boasting abouthis addtions to the wine cellar of his Oxford college. The remote and cold-fish Ted Heath.
Arnold got confused between Oswald Mosely and Enoch Powell. Fortunately we straightened him out before we got to Powell’s house.
Absolute star - Eric Morecombe. A genuinely hilarious man. Ernie Wise could only look on and smile as Eric had us all in hysterics.
ITN News anchor Sandy Gall opened my exhibition of photographs from Afghanistan. Looking thru’ the folio of the photographs he came across an Afghan, sitting on the ground, his back against a shattered tree, with his wooden leg stuck out towards the camera.
“Oh look!” cried Mr G, “He’s wearing one of my legs!” Sandy Gall ran a small charity providing basic prosthetic legs. They really were of the Long John Silver sort but it meant people could get around. Nice man.
Standing in the dark beside the stage at Colston Hall, Bristol, while The Magic Band warmed the place up, I became aware of a figure beside me. A basso-profundo voice said, “Hello …”. I looked - Oh My God! Captain Beefheart! He seemed glad to chat. He was clearly a little nervous.
An old rocker, now sadly gone.
Of all the people I wish that I had met, Captain Beefheart is probably at or near the top. He was notoriously extremely nervous before he went on stage.
Oh and at Pefumed Conservatory I employed Marco P W as an assistant chef and we cooked for Timothy Dalton who argued with Vanessa Redgrave.
At mt vegan restaurant in New Kings rod I ccoked and served food for Vvien Westwood and Malcolm McClaren
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Please tell me more.
While working in health care Barbara Castle then when in a service industry Rev Jessie Jackson,Benazhir Bhutto,Emma Thompson ,Eddie Grant and Princess Margarets daughter.amonst others.
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Amongst
https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/set?set=344&wPage=0
It seems an odd collection now. Freddie Laker? Gov of B.o.E. ? Lord Goodman was ubiquitous back in the day, the ‘eminence gris’ of the '70’s but I doubt many will remember him now. They come and go.
Unfortunately only one Beatle and no Stones. Thatcher refused. She’s been ‘done’ by an amateur, Bernie Schwartz, the Steinway piano agent for California. Arnold was incensed. No ‘royalty’ other than M/batten.
No footballers. No rugby players. The N.P.G. was making a mess of rounding up the subjects so Harold Evans, that photophile, stepped in and got a team at the S.T. to take over.
The editor of the S.T. Mag asked Priestley who would be in his 10 greatest Englishmen list. “There are not 10 great Englishmen alive.” growled J.B.
It was a tough gig. Arnold Newman was a great portrait photographer but a somewhat hysterical character. When I rejected his assumption that I would go back to NYC to be his full-time assistant he had kanipshins.
After only a short taxi ride, whilst Arnold was weighing himself on the weighing machine outside Boots, Gloucester Rd. SW7 [“Chris, gimme a 2p”] the cabbie turned to me and said, “That bloke needs his hand held everywhere he goes.” A remakably astute observation and the reason I was not going to NYC.
But he was very generous in his dedications of the two books he gave me, one his ‘Collected Works’ and the other the S.T. book of the project.
PS. “Arnold Newman was a great portrait photographer but a somewhat hysterical character.” So was Tony Snowdon. And for the same reason - forwarned is forarmed - I turned his offer down - twice.
Bizarrely I ‘met’ Rita Tushingham, the actress, twice. Once at a restaurant in Polperro, Cornwall and again on the rooftop of a restaurant in La Plaka, Athens.
Keira Knightly at a Lebanese retaurant in Marylebone, Sir Clive Sinclair at my fave Italian, South Ken. D.Gilmore was a regular at the Warwick Castle, Maida Vale, as was a slew of other rockers - Phil May [Pretty Things], Willie Wilson [Sutherland Bros] , John Field [Jade Warrior] Tom Newman [producer ‘Tube Bells’ et Oldfield al].
I was almost knocked over by a short, stocky man escaping at full speed from a crowd of paps outside the hotel I was leaving. I told my boss [American] that I had been cannoned into in the lobby by Diego Maradonna - “Who the fuck is Diego Maradonna?”
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Fabulous, you can probably guess where I am now. We open again next year with Sir Paul McCartney et al.
Some years ago, I was a regular commuter between London and New Zealand. One year my visit coincided with a meeting of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation).
At the end of 24 hours of travel, I checked into my hotel after a disruptive diversion caused by President Clinton’s motorcade and took the lift from the lobby to my 18th floor room.
I got into the empty lift and selected the button for the 18th floor. The doors began to close when the hand of what was clearly a security guard blocked them to delay departure. The rest of the party arrived comprising a security detail and a short distinguished VIP. I was invited to leave the lift immediately as the Sultan of Brunei required it. Ill-disposed as I was to do this, the security detail was very big and most insistent. Anyway, I thought, this kind of random disembarkation happens all the time on the London underground. I got out to wait for the next lift.
Only one lift seemed to be actually working so I got into the returned Sultan’s now empty lift and selected the button for the 18th floor. The doors began to close when the hand of what was clearly a security guard blocked them to delay departure. The rest of the party arrived comprising a security detail and a short distinguished VIP. I was invited to leave the lift immediately. While the security guard spoke no English his meaning was explicit although I had no idea for whom I was supposed to make way. Overcome with complete inertia brought on by 24 hours of travel, President Clinton’s motorcade and the Sultan’s private lift party, I could only repeat pressing the 18th floor button while staring straight ahead like an automaton. In the end, the security guard gave up gesticulating and threatening in foreign tongues and selected the 15th floor. The VIP with en-suite protection squad entered the lift and we all set off for the 15th floor where everyone else disembarked and I carried on to the 18th floor and my room.
Once I was installed in my room I turned on the TV. The news was full of the arrival of world leaders for the meeting of APEC in Auckland.
Well, this accounted for the presence of the US President and the Sultan of Brunei.
The news went on to the world headlines. For some reason, they were running an eight year old newsreel of the resignation of Boris Yeltsin as Russia’s President. The footage showed Yeltsin surrounded by his acolytes among whom one was pointed out as the President-elect, Vladimir Putin. I could now put a name to the unrecognised VIP who had accompanied me in the lift to the 15th floor. I doubt that Putin has ever been as accessible since then.
I don’t want to be judged by the company I keep, so it is probably safer to travel alone than in a lift with a politician and a retinue of bodyguards. Nowadays, if all else fails, stay at home, turn on the computer screen, hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and engage on the Zoom call of your choice.
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ah but meeting someone means that you talked together even if it is just a few short words.
Mick Jagger was in my restaurant and Marylin Monroes famous husband but did not talk to them i was in the kitchen
I spent my secondary school years in the next dormitory to Bill Jewry. 
And shared a one desk classroom alone with him for our final term. For different reasons we were delaying our departures till Christmas.
He had a guitar, and a group. It was called Deke Jewry and the Judges.
He left the group and got a record contract, his name now was Shane Fenton, along with the Fentones.
Not doing all that well with that persona, he got another manager who dressed him completely in skin tight black leather and dyed his hair black.
Thus Alvin Stardust was born. Sadly he is still only one of 3 of our class at school as far as we know, to have died in the meantime. With him it was prostate cancer, the others I don’t know, but they were the only two ever to have been punished for stealing. Nevertheless I still don’t believe in devine retribution. 
In junior school I sat next to Bobby Cook whos parents owned Cooks pie and Mash shop in Ridley rd and my mother made the fruit pies at Cooks where i often enjoyed my lunch time.My mother never inspired me to become a chef it all took time to develope.