As the bread rolls flew and the booing started, I rose to respond.
With rover mike in hand, the floor was mine but the clock was ticking…
I had been charged with producing the ‘History of 1020 in Pictures' – It had taken nine months to cull the right images from my 65 albums and the A4 colour pages had been copied, duplicated and laminated by STAPLES in Holdenhurst Road and then one set was ring bound whilst the second set of 40+ sides were given to Adrian and Michelle Oates, who had been charged with the decoration of the room, for blu-tacking to the walls completing the effect with our MG bunting and the stunning helium balloons (black and gold – club colours- with the RIGHT numerals on them!). Superb.
The novel anchors for the bunches of balloons were gold painted SU carburettor parts which prompted much admiration for ingenuity and much covetous mutterings. Chris Adamson counted ‘em all out and counted ‘em all back in again…
So, to my words. Non sequitur, hit ‘em with the unexpected, keep ‘em off balance…many had noticed my very thick packet of notes for my speech. I revealed it to be a well worn copy of ‘Lord of the Rings'. J. R. Tolkein actually lived at the Hotel Miramar for some time to get out of the hot house of attention he was attracting in Oxford and, in 1973, he died in our town. I started, with the help of Andrea Cooke's finger (she's very well read) to read Bilbo's speech where he addresses the guests at his party…and then slips the one great ring on his finger and disappears for a thousand pages to avoid all the fuss and attention. Many, I fear, missed the point I was trying to make, but then I've never pretended to make sense and I speak much better up on a wall or a picnic table.