Never Meet Your Heroes

There’s a saying that goes: ‘you should never meet your heroes’.

But I think whoever made it up just picked the wrong ones.

I didn’t so much as meet my hero as stumble upon him by accident - not once, but twice.

The first time was far too many years ago to quote accurately. My Granny Munro had taken me to Edinburgh for a few days; a treat to celebrate moving on from primary to secondary school. I believed I was going there to help her, reading the numbers on approaching buses, hailing cabs, deciphering street maps, that sort of thing. In reality, of course, she was looking after me; taking me to interesting places and buying non-stop treats. The things we realise after folk have gone!

One of the excursions she arranged was a guided tour of Edinburgh Castle. The youngest of the group by a good sixty years, I trudged up the cobbled hill towards the castle, trying to pay attention to what the kilted guide was saying, hoping we’d get back to the shops before long. But then a couple of louts joined us, smirking, at the back.

Nervous of ‘bad boys’, I kept my head down.

            “Excuse me,” the guide called out to them, after a few minutes. “This is a private tour. Do you mind leaving us alone?”

            So the two louts shuffled good-humouredly off down the hill. I risked a glance over my shoulder. Tchuh. One of them hadn’t even bothered to get dressed - he was in his pyjamas!

            Hang on.

            He was in his pyjamas…

            He was Johnny Fingers from the Boomtown Rats.

            The other lout was Bob Geldof.

Heroes? I’m telling you, it was all I could do not to point and shout “Bob! Bob! There’s Someone Lookin’ At Ya!” which was one of their singles and would have guaranteed instant stalker status - quite an appealing thought for a twelve-year-old.

            Beside myself with excitement, I dashed over to Granny and brought her up to speed.

            “Then what are we waiting for?” was probably more or less what she said, and together we gave chase, back down the cobbled hill, eventually collaring them for a photo near the car park at the bottom.

            Bob couldn’t have been more charming. Obligingly, he stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders, and smiled into Granny’s camera. I could feel his breath on the top of my head.

The photo is a hoot; I still have it in a scrapbook. He’s wearing a leather jacket, red drainpipe trousers, green suede shoes and a soft, sexy smile. I’m wearing a blue ski anorak with a collar wide enough to land helicopters on, a checked lumberjack shirt, flares, Jesus sandals with grey tights underneath, and a miniature Coca-Cola can necklace which I’d just bought and which broke the same day. My puffy wee face is an ominous reminder never, ever to give up the jogging.

            Anyhow, I bumped into him a second time, just last year, in a DVD rental shop on London’s King’s Road. He was Sir Bob by then. It took a few moments before I realised that the craggy, greying man in the shabby long tweed coat browsing the DVD rack beside me was HIM.

            What had we both done in the intervening years? Well, I’d lost some of the puffy face. He’d fed Africa. Hmmm. I chose my hero well.

            Sir Bob seemed in no hurry to pick a DVD. Meanwhile I went through agonies wondering whether to say something.

            How about the cheesy-but-honest: “I love you very, very much and think you are a wonderful human being,” or, bolder and scarier: “Sir Bob! Edinburgh Castle! You and me! Remember - Granny took our picture?”

            He must have been aware that the strange woman to his right had kind of frozen, holding ‘How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days’ in one hand and ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ in the other. Just…staring.

            Cowardice, plus a desire not to come across as a mad bat, won out. I left the poor bloke alone, and he left the shop, unmolested.

            Both encounters made my day. I’ll never forget them. Nothing much happened, but, well, y’know. That’s the thing about meeting heroes.

            So let’s hear it for heroes! And Grannies, come to think of it. They are so often one and the same.