One day, a long time ago, I was queuing to pay in WH Smith, when I realised that the man in front of me was Ken Dodd. For our younger readers, he was a comedian and performer especially famous in the 60s and 70s but with a career that continued well after that. He was taller than I expected, wore a long raincoat of indeterminate colour, and if it hadn’t been for the teeth I might have missed him. He didn’t crack a single joke or wield his tickling stick at the sales assistant, which was disappointing.
Talking of teeth, years later I had a near miss with Janet Street Porter’s shopping trolley in a Faversham farm shop. I was distracted by a display of heritage carrots in every conceivable colour apart from orange, and my trolley nearly collided with hers. I was about to ask her whether there was any evidence that our ancestors ate such a rainbow selection of carrots, but Janet didn’t look as if she was likely to welcome unsolicited conversation, root vegetable-related or otherwise, so I thought better of it and headed for the tomatoes, very few of which were red.
That was the sum total of my celebrity encounters but, as the date for our move to Rye approached, I imagined so much more. I would bump into Sir Paul as I entered the bakers, and I would spot Jim Moir (who used to be Vic Reeves) with his binoculars trained on some rare bird visiting the nature reserve. Who knew what other famous faces I would see?
Now, nearly five years later, my celebrity sightings remain stubbornly at two. Sir Paul rarely visits and Jim Moir has taken his second career elsewhere. Another problem is my own complete ignorance of famous people, which means that I hardly ever recognise anyone if I accidentally tune into celebrity versions of game shows. This, added to my increasingly poor eyesight that led recently to me not recognising a member of my own quiz team, means that I could well be passing famous people in the street on a daily basis without knowing.
So what is the answer? Well, I could wear my glasses for a start. I could browse the sort of website where this kind of information is located or spend more time on social media. I could camp out on a strategically placed bench and train my binoculars on the passing crowds, but even if that wouldn’t look suspicious I don’t think I’ll bother. The fact is that there are so many lovely people in Rye that I find I care little or nothing about whether they are famous. Indeed, I suspect they are probably a lot nicer as they are…
Image Credits: Heidi Foster .