Coolamundo

The kids and I took our lovely ex-neighbour, John, to see the last performance of this year's pantomime at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool, today, as an early birthday treat - he will be 100 in 10 days time. When the children were little we always used to go with John and his late wife Doris to see the panto at Christmas, so it brought back good memories for all of us. This year it was Peter Pan, and Captain Hook (and Mr. Darling) was played by Henry Winkler, aka The Fonz, erstwhile coolest man alive in the 70s. For a reminder of the Happy Days experience, take a look here.

The kind staff at the Empire cleared it for us to take John to meet the cast after the performance; he was quite overcome and shed a few tears about how kind people were, when the actors made a fuss of him. When I was much younger I never dreamed I'd meet the Fonz one day; he may be older now but still the epitome of cool, and the nicest guy you could ever hope to meet, even using the kind chat-up line about thinking #1 daughter was my sister (yeah, right). #2 daughter whose birthday it was the other day is watching here with great amusement.