First Meeting

This may well have been the last week before college started again in Norwich. I had spent the entire summer holidays working at the Trust House Forte Post House Hotel on the southern outskirts of Norwich,

It was a part of the summer term curriculum that we spent several weeks on the job training working in a hotel and having the occasional visit from our tutor. I was the only one of our class at the Post House, the majority had found hotels closer to home and most were from the Midlands and North England. We were to spend a week in the various departments - reception, housekeeping, bar, restaurant, kitchen, maintenance etc.

We were paid I think £15/week for I guess a bit more than 40 hours and in the restaurant and kitchen weeks, this often meant "split shifts" having to be there for lunch, the afternoon free and back for dinner.

The management seemed to be happy with my work and said I could stay on for the summer holidays, mainly to work in the kitchen. In the very early part of this, the kitchen brigade took off on a very hot day to find somewhere to swim. The hotel pool was off limits for staff. I followed one of the sous chefs in his Mini through the windy cobbled stones of Norwich when a friend walking on the pavement waved and shouted and I turned around, just at the moment when my colleague ahead had to brake sharply. His Mini boot got a nice big dent from the metal cow-catcher bar on the front of mine.

The £100 repair costs for his car forced me to continue working whether I wanted to or not. My Dad had said from the start that I was responsible for all costs. Hard but good lesson.

So I guess I only had a week or so holiday and took off with college friend Chris du C in convey to London for a couple of days of fun with our two beach buggies.

The Blip shows our two buggies parked in London, I can't remember where or with whom we camped on a sofa but think it was with Norfolk friends somewhere in Bayswater.

For that evening Chris had arranged for us to go to a nightclub somewhere off Leicester Square and someone he knew from Norfolk, who was a trainee nurse at the nearby Middlesex Hospital behind Oxford Street would join us after her shift finished.

Was to change my life when Annabel entered the room and we were introduced. Probably with Barry White coming out of the speakers of the DJs pulpit, we got to "know" each other on the plush red sofas and darkened lighting of the club, no doubt drinking "IN" Bacardi & Cola while I was trying not to think of how in XXX's name I was going to pay for them. Thank goodness, she wasn't the champagne type or I would have been dishwashing for the rest of the hard earnt weeks holiday.

Annie dominated/determined my life for the next three years. A wonderful person who did an awful lot to positively make me grow up and I have an awful lot to thank her for.

I have had the luck in the 21st century to make contact again. Annie had the luck sense to ditch me, get married and go on to have a very happy marriage and family.