Читать книгу Best Day of My Life: True stories to inspire, move and entertain - Told by a cross-section of the UK's celebrities and courageous everyday people - Giles Vickers Jones - Страница 18
ОглавлениеFeatures Editor, Heat
How can I possibly pick one day? The answer is: I can’t. So I’ve whittled it down to two. The first is more serious (and, if I’m honest, a bit on the worthy side) and the second involves me and a famous midget …
The best day of my life (part 1)
Euston Train Station. Destination: An adventure/activity hostel in the Lake District. I’m wearing a pair of ridiculous orange baggy trousers. Well, they were cool at the time (they were Maharishi, it was 2001 and I’d seen Jennifer Aniston wearing some a few weeks before). I’ve recently started working as a writer for Heat magazine, having just finished a five-year stint as a presenter on youth channel Trouble TV. Directly opposite me, waiting for the same train, there’s a group of about 18 teenagers all huddled together underneath a sign for Burger King. I’m standing with an equal-sized group of adults, and we’re being eyed suspiciously. We’re a motley crew of all ages – Anne is a 48-year-old teacher, there’s Sarah, a 35-year-old photographer, John, a 36-year-old Irish lawyer who speaks fluent French, Jane, a 24-year-old nurse, Richard, a librarian from Scotland … etc. etc. Then there’s Tony, a friendly 6ft Rastafarian – the mastermind behind the trip.
For the adults, this day is the culmination of months of training. We’ve been meeting once, sometimes twice a week in a Camden youth centre, having volunteered ourselves as mentors for young underprivileged people in the area. There were no promises, we were told. Although there was little doubt these youngsters needed guidance in their lives, this was a voluntary thing for them too. And it was up to them whether they wanted to spend their time in this way, meeting with their assigned mentor, once a week for a whole year – that was going to be some commitment. But, if it worked, these kids would benefit from the company and opinions of someone they wouldn’t normally come across in their social environment.
‘It’s not going to be easy,’ Tony advised. Some of these kids were drug dealers, some had been raped, some dysfunctional, others simply in dire need of social skills. But, as mentors, we would never necessarily know what or why they were here. We would only have that information if they wanted us to. And there were rules. Once paired with a teenager, we were told we must meet on neutral territory – never invite them to our house or tell them where we live. ‘They will test you,’ Tony warned. ‘They’ll try to catch you out – and ask you things about your lives which they might use against you.’
Once paired up, we were expected to meet once a week. But Tony advised us the chances of them turning up would be rare. They’d be doing their damnedest to work out whether or not they could rely on us.
And that’s what this weekend was about: trust building. Forcing the teenagers and adults out of their comfort zones – making us spend time together, sizing each other up and crossing the difficult age (and class) divide.
En route to the Lakes, it’s adults in one train carriage, teenagers whispering, swearing and causing havoc in another. The idea that anyone from either group will ever have anything to say to each other seems unfathomable. A few of the youngsters recognise me from the TV and cheekily sidle over.
‘Can you be my mentor?’
‘Will you get me on TV?’
‘Could those trousers be any more orange, Miss?’
I find out later from Tony that, rather than this being seen as a reason for me to be paired with one of these kids, it will go against me. The idea of a mentor relationship is one that’s neutral, not premeditated.
What follows are two days of confidence-building exercises between the scary-looking teens and their apprehensive potential mentors. Every hour we’re split into pairs, and these rotate to ensure that everyone gets a chance to bond. From guiding each other around a hilly verge wearing blindfolds to wading together through treacherous waterfalls, admitting our insecurities in discussion groups and overcoming debilitating fears of heights on high rope ladders, we’re thrown in at the deep end in what is to become a weekend I will remember for the rest of my life.
Evenings are spent tentatively chatting, trying to coax the anti-social squirt in the corner to play team games and attempting to mix with people we’ve never mixed with before. Slowly but surely, the divide lessens (having to sleep in the same dormitories helps – once they’ve seen you in the morning with hair that looks like Swampy, there ain’t much more to hide!). The kids are a mixture of overconfident scallys and shy, nervous underachievers. Some venture to the adults with inquisitive ease, but most start off thinking they’re way too cool. One boy, James, fits neither camp. His acute lack of social skills results in his being left out in the cold by his peers as well as removing himself from all contact with the adults. I learn that he’s in foster care – his mum, who he refers to many times, is an alcoholic; there’s a deep scar across his face and he has a severe nervous twitch. James spends his first day trying hard to appear nonchalant, while barely masking his desperation to be liked. The last person he would be seen dead with is 48-year-old Anne – after all, she’s the oldest, most unfashionable and squarest of the adults. Whenever she approaches and tries to introduce herself, he bristles and walks away muttering, ‘Fuck off.’
As the weekend draws to a close, we’re all told to find a place on the grounds of the hostel and write a letter back to ourselves which will be posted to our home addresses in a month’s time. We must document what we’ve learned as individuals and about the time we’ve spent together. We’ve hardly spent 48 hours in one another’s company – but so much has changed, so many barriers broken. And as I sit on my bed, looking outside the window, soppy as it seems, I actually choke back a tear at how much this weekend has affected me.
The image I see captures it all.
Seventeen-year-old James is lying on the grass, poring over his letter – laughing. Beside him, offering tips and suggestions with a calm smile on her face, sits 48-year-old Anne.
A few hours ago, James would rather have cut off his right bollock than do that.
The return journey is in complete contrast to the one getting there. Kids are clambering to sit with the adults, demanding to chat to them, poking and shrieking with laughter. When we part company, knowing that we’ll meet again as mentors and mentees (Tony will assess who should be paired with who based on his observations from that weekend), it’s like – as EastEnders’ Peggy Mitchell would say – ‘We’re faaaamily’. All the more poignant when we remember some of these kids don’t have proper families to go home to.
A few weeks later, I was paired with a young, shy girl called Leonie. I was surprised as I felt I hadn’t spent as much time with her as I had with some of the others. Tony sagely told me that this was the very reason. Leonie was the only one who hadn’t been impressed by my job.
As for James? He was paired with Anne. And, despite Tony’s reservations, turned up – on time – for their meetings every day for a year.
Five years on, they’re still in contact.
The best day of my life (part 2)
OK, so enough of the righteous. As features editor on Heat mag, I have to admit there are several contenders for the best day of my life, such as getting to spend the day as the Hoff’s PA (must’ve done something right – he sent me flowers!), and being an extra in Ant and Dec’s film Alien Autopsy (no, I wasn’t an alien). But without doubt one of the funniest days of my life occurred pre-Heat, in the days when I was a kids presenter on Trouble TV. I had just interviewed an actress called Sheridan Smith who was in Two Pints of Lager anda Packet of Crisps at the time. We were in my hotel in London – and, although we both had commitments that evening (and cabs arriving in half-an-hour), we’d really hit it off so decided to go and neck a quick drink together afterwards.
As we entered the bar, we noticed a small bald man perched on a stool sitting opposite another equally stunted man (who looked spookily like a mini Lionel Richie). We recognised the first fella as Mini Me from Austin Powers (aka the actor Verne Troyer) and scuttled past him trying not to giggle. Pretending we couldn’t decide where to sit meant we could scour the room, clocking several glimpses of him without the poor guy feeling like some strange species in a zoo. Eventually we landed at a nearby table (I won’t go into the exact nature of our conversation but it had something to do with midgets and bedroom activities).
After a few minutes, a barman came over. ‘There are two gentlemen in the bar who’d like to buy you both a drink,’ he smiled.
‘Oh my God!’ said Sheridan. ‘Is it Mini Me?’
The barman replied that the men in question didn’t want to disclose their identity, but they insisted on paying for whatever we wanted. So, naturally, we ordered.
By this time the bar was filling up and we couldn’t see the two little chaps any more. Instead, every time we glanced across the room, we were met by two pairs of eyes belonging to a duo wearing kilts (what kind of place was this?!).
‘I hope it’s not from them,’ Sheridan said.
As the barman returned with our drinks, we again asked him to reveal our benefactor, but he refused.
‘OK, can we write them a note to say thank you?’
He nodded and handed us a pen and a piece of paper from his note pad.
‘To whoever you are, thanks for the drinks, we chose “Sex on the Beach” … love Lucie and Sheridan.’
We craned our necks as we watched the barman walk away to deliver the note – but the room was so packed we didn’t have a clue who was on the receiving end. Mini Me and his mate might have fallen into their drinks and drowned by now for all we knew.
Just as we were about to go our separate ways, I noticed something waving at me from the edge of our table. A piece of paper was slowly making its way round the periphery, as if being guided from the ceiling by an invisible thread.
It was our note.
And there was a person holding it from below …
Suddenly, a hand appeared on the stool next to me and a tiny-but-very-sturdy-body hoisted itself up. Sitting bolt upright, thrusting a hand into mine, the little man spoke: ‘I bet you didn’t know it was me, did you?’
Stunned silence.
‘The name’s Verne.’
‘Er, hello,’ we answered with suppressed smiles. ‘What are you doing in London?’
‘Verne’ proceeded to tell us he was in the UK playing a goblin in a Harry Potter film – which nearly caused Sheridan to choke on a peanut – before cockily asking if we fancied joining him for a night on the tiles.
‘No paparazzi though,’ he warned, looking nervously over his shoulders.
We politely told him we had prior engagements.
He casually asked if we’d ever been to the Playboy mansion before. It turned out he was quite a regular there. So not the small shy retiring type after all. He began telling us about all the glamour models he knew, while we sat open-mouthed.
Time for a change of subject. ‘Verne, tell us, what else have you starred in – besides Austin Powers?’
‘Well,’ he began, before leaning in conspiratorially, ‘I was actually the stunt double in a film called Baby’s Day Out.’
Oh. There’s our taxi.
Aaaah. What could have been, eh?
