Urinal Mates

 

This section is being produced somewhat tongue-in-cheek.  The connection between these three characters merely rests with the fact that at one time I had occasion to use the urinal stall adjacent to the one being occupied by -

 

Cecil Parkinson

I was attending a luncheon of the Middlesbrough Chamber of Commerce, in my capacity as Managing Director of Containerships Ltd which operated out of Middlesbrough's Teesport Container Terminal.  Cecil Parkinson was the after-dinner speaker.  It must have been around the time that he was, briefly, Minister of Transport in the Thatcher government.  I was pretty angry about something he said in his speech and tried hard to catch the eye of the Chair in order to pose a question.  But without success.  A bit later, in the toilet, I found myself serendipitously alongside Parkinson.  I said, "This is obviously the place to go if you have a question to ask.  Unfortunately I no longer remember the question."  He was not amused.

 

Bamber Gascoigne

In the 1990s I was a member of the Society of Authors and attended their functions assiduously.  At one I was introduced to Bamber by Ann Kritzinger who had arranged for Lynn McGregor's book Homage to Hope, published by under my ASPEN imprint,  to be printed by her Book in Hand service.  Bamber was working on his first book and was hoping that Ann could help him.  A bit later I went to the toilet and found Bamber alongside me at the urinals.  This was actually just a few weeks after the encounter with Cecil Parkinson.  I told Bamber about this and suggested it might be misunderstood if I made a habit of this kind of thing.  We both laughed.

 

Brian Blessed

It was a performance of The Canterbury Tales at the lovely, intimate Southwark Playhouse, and daughter Caroline and I had arrived early so as to claim one of the front tables.  The show was boisterous and a riot of singing.  Brian Blessed sat a little way behind us.  He was quiet and reserved, quite unlike the presence he projects when appearing as a guest on a TV chat show.  In the interval I went to the loo.  I saw him standing at a urinal and, a bit of devilment seizing me, I took my place alongside him and said, "I seem regularly to meet celebrities in public toilets."  He said nothing, but adjusted his clothing, then turned to leave.  As he walked past me, the blighter goosed me, then let out a loud guffaw, and went back to his seat.  When I returned to my place and told my daughter what had happened, she laughed, and we both turned round to look at Blessed.  He just sat there as placidly quiet and reserved as before.  I began to wonder if I had imagined it!