What a coincidence

Friday 12th February 2010

Whilst seated at our breakfast table, another couple came to sit at the adjacent table. It was apparent from their accents that they were from Yorkshire and when Kath got into conversation with them, as inevitably happens, it transpired that they were from Meltham in Huddersfield. Kath told them that her brother lives in Meltham, “”What is his name”, enquired the man, “Mick Brammah”, replied Kath. “You’re not Jim Brammah’s daughter are you”, asked the man. “Yes”, said Kath. At this point the introduced himself as Peter Mellor, known as Charlie, along with his wife, Margaret. He worked with Kath’s father in the fire service for many years and goes out with her brother every Wednesday night to Meltham Liberal Club. It turned out that Kath’s father, Jim, looked after him when he first joined the fire service and Jim even saved his life one day at a mill fire when he shouted to everyone to get out quick just before a fireball ripped it‘s way through the room they had been standing in. Peter attended at Jim’s funeral after he died three years ago and Kath asked if he recalled someone doing a reading of a poem about firemen at the service. He did at which pointed to me and said, “ that was Andrew, my husband”. We sat and discussed things in general before wishing them a happy holiday in Australia and saying our goodbyes.

We didn’t have to check out of the room until 4pm and it was a hot sweltering day with plenty of sunshine so we decided that we would sit by the hotel room for some of the day. As I went to find out exactly where the pool was and see if there any sun-loungers available, I bumped into Pater and Margaret again. They had decided to sit by the pool until 1pm when they were going on a 4 hour trip to the east coast and Changi Prison. We spent the rest of the morning with them, drinking Coca-Cola at $S10 a can (over £4.50).

We remained by the pool until it was time to vacate the room after which we again bumped into Peter and Margaret as they returned from their trip. We went out for a drink and some food to Harry’s Bar, just around the corner from the hotel before returning to the reception area to get changed before getting a taxi to the airport. This time we did say goodbye to them as they headed off for Raffles and a Singapore Sling or two. Hope they took plenty of money.

We arrived at the airport at around 9.30pm only to see that our flight was going to be delayed until at least 3.25am. It should have departed at 11.55pm. I didn’t fancy the prospect of a 3.5 hour wait and even that departure time wasn’t guaranteed. We made our way to the BA / Qantas check-in and decided that I would have to put on my best charm to try and get the flight changed as there was a Qantas flight leaving at 11.30pm to Heathrow. I explained to the ‘nice man’ that I had someone coming to London to collect us from the airport but he insisted that there was no availability on the earlier flight. “Everyone wants to change” he told me. I asked him if he liked football (they all do out here) to which he replied “Yes”. I said that if I couldn’t get on the earlier flight I would miss the football match that I was going to when I got home therefore it was very important. He agreed and went off to speak to someone else. His boss had by now joined him at the check-in desk and between them they agreed that we must change the flight to get to the football….success. By this time it was 10pm and we had to be at the gate for boarding at 10.30pm so it was a quick dash through security etc to the gate. I phoned Dave who is picking us up at Heathrow and told him that the flight had changed from BA to Qantas therefore if he saw that there would be a delay to our flight, to ignore it as we wouldn’t be on it.

As I type this, we are about 2 hours from London and all has gone well. I wonder what time the BA flight got away