Friday 16 July 2010

It's true! I met Rihanna ....

My lifetime celebrity count so far is George Harrison (almost), Adam Faith and now ..... Rihana! And the laugh's on me.

On Wednesday we learned that a Beatles fan, Sue Baker of Reading, was able to meet the Fab Four quite easily in the early days, by simply going to their houses and knocking on their doors.  Check it out.  She met them all that way, and they would invite her in and stuff.  That's just how it was in those days.

The same thing happened to me, pretty much.  Twice in fact.  Not so much with George, but certainly with Adam.

I went to school in Esher, outside London, and we heard that George Harrison had bought a house there, just down the road, so, without missing a beat, Sue and Heather and I went down to meet him. 

I think we went two or three Saturdays is a row and rang the bell beside the huge closed gate of his house.  We got no response at all, then one weekend a voice came out of the grill in the gate-post:  "Go AWAY, little girls" the voice said, in firm, sonorous, disembodied tones. 

So we retreated, in some disarray, feeling that our privacy had been breached in some way (before the days of CCTV don't forget).  Such is the hubris of youth.

We never went back.  We noted that the voice definitely did not have a Liverpool accent.  He’s probably on a world tour or something we said.  

 George Harrison. (1943-2001)  from M Devreux' Flickr Photostream

Adam Faith also lived in Esher, in a mock-Tudor house built on a hillside somewhere, I don’t remember where.  So we went to see him as well, now being quite experienced at this kind of thing.

There was no gate this time, so we walked up the drive, past the rhododendrons and laurels, and knocked on the door.  And, after a short pause, blow me down if the door didn’t open and we were invited in, just like that.  First time lucky.

There was Adam Faith, right there, not much taller than us, all lovely and blond and square-jawed, with two minders. He looked really shy and we thought he was soooooo sweet.

We went downstairs to a sort of billiard room, and the three of us sat on a sofa on one side of the room, and the three of them sat on chairs at the other side.  They were very nice to us and we just chatted about this and that, relaxed as can be. We asked him what it was like to be famous.  It's great he said, I get to meet lots of nice girls like you. One of the minders asked us how old we were. Fifteen we said, we are all fifteen.

After about 20 minutes one of the minders said well thanks very much it was nice to meet you, and we went upstairs and back down the drive, pleased as punch.  He had hugged us goodbye! We didn't say omygod because that was then, but that's how we felt.  We could hardly wait to tell our story to the others.  Such is the innocence of youth.

Adam Faith (1940-2003) downloaded from the Flickr photostream of Truus, Bob and Jan
Hard to believe that cardigan was EVER cool.

And only the other day I had another brush with celebrity, bringing my life-time total to three.

It was 7th June this year, on a flight from London to LA, and it was Rihanna -  omygod, omygod, omygod.

Now I totally know who Rihanna is, and the whole Chris Brown domestic abuse thing and stuff,  and how well she handled it, and I totally love her for that, but I don't follow her really, really closely, and I have to say I didn’t recognize her, especially with her new red do. 

There was quite a stir in the cabin when she came in with a friend and some guy who was carrying their bags, but I just thought that here was one helluva foxy lady, which she definitely is, and foxy ladies always cause a stir.

She came on board just at the very last minute, in a bit of a fluster, and her seat was right beside mine.  I kid you not.  OMG, OMG. OMG. And she was really, really nice and friendly with her lovely smile and she didn’t want to make a fuss or anything. 

However, I was just a tiny, tiny bit annoyed because there were plenty of other spare seats in the cabin, and I like to have an empty one beside me if possible, for my books and stuff.  I feel quite militant about that when the plane has space. And if the truth be told, I didn't think I could deal with all that foxyness right beside me all the way to LA. 

So I quickly decided to move to an empty row, and just in case she thought I was being rude, I explained why: so that we could all have more space, and she and her friend would also be able to have the empty seat between them, which makes such a difference, doesn’t it?  And just in case she thought it was the foxyness (as if!), I told her I totally loved her hair.  Fantastic I told her and it really suits you.  Oh thank you so much she said.

So I moved forward a few rows, and the next thing I knew they had upgraded to first class, and one of the flight attendants was showing me her photo in Metro.  Oh, I said, that's who it was.  Well, well.

Should have known that a really foxy lady like that wouldn't need  any help from moi if she needed a bit more space on the way home.

Oh well!



 Rihanna July 2010 by Platinumphoenix
Downloaded from Flickr under Creative Commons License


1 comment:

  1. wow what an amazing story, you have some guts to go up to peoples door. not that i do not admire it, i just would have been so scared! it's funny when someone like rihanna brings her presence with her every where she goes, i am happy she was elegant when she met you!

    ReplyDelete