Day 25: Saturday 12 April - London, Knowle and Solihull, by Ken

The day got off to an unusual start when Sue spotted the rear lights on her old VW Golf parked at the bottom of the garden were on. She was convinced Richard and I were responsible we having been down there the previous evening, but we hadn’t touched the car. Her second theory was it was the sun but, as I pointed out, the car was in shade. Richard set off to investigate and was soon back asking me to go with him while Sue and Jane stayed where they were saying “there’s a man in the car!”

Sure enough, there was a slightly built man, 40ish, sound asleep in the driver’s seat! Tapping on the window had little effect and after opening the door it took a fair bit of shaking and gentle coaxing from me along the lines of “Good morning"," time to wake up", "have you slept well?” before there was a glimmer of life. As the man slowly came to it was obvious he had had a big night, there were grazes on his face and there was a strong smell of alcohol. When Richard and I finally got a few words out of him he spoke incoherently with a thick central European accent. Eventually, he struggled out of the car with a helping hand from me which he shook and said thank you before wobbling off into the parking area that Sue and Richard’s house backs onto. The rear gate and garden fence were too high for him to have climbed over and Richard surmised that the gate, while locked, had sufficient movement for the man to have slipped through. The car lights were off, so the man must have been sleeping with his foot on the brake.

Our planned 8:00 am departure was delayed somewhat by the man in the car incident. While Jane and Richard were ferrying our bags from the house to Sue’s other VW Golf parked in the street the same man came striding down the street apparently well rested and had got his legs going again.

Sue kindly lent us her car to get our luggage up to Knowle, the other option of taking the train would have been virtually impossible. The autopilot in my brain started us off on the route to Hatfield, my usual destination while staying at Sue and Richard’s, but not the most direct route to Knowle. By the time I realised my mistake, the only way  of rectifying it was to take the M1, M25 and finally the M40 which we should have been on from the outset.

At John and Ruth’s house in Knowle we were introduced to Twiggy, Olivia’s 4 month old Labradoodle, that we would be looking after while John and Ruth were away overnight in Scunthorpe at a reunion of Ruth’s university friends.

After lunch it was off to Solihull with Kerry, Amelia and Martha to see a matinee performance of the Producers in which Phil had a part in the chorus, or so we thought.

For anyone that hasn’t seen the Producers it’s a Mel Brooks musical based around the central character of Max Bialystock, a down and out Broadway producer, responsible for Broadway productions that usually flop on opening night, e.g. Funny Boy. Leo Bloom, an accountant, discovers there is money to be made from theatrical failures and Max and Leo set out to create the world’s worst musical. They hit on “Spring Time for Germany” written by former Nazi and on-going Third Reich enthusiast Franz Liebkind. To add to the farce the producers employ Roger de Bris, a flamboyant homosexual, as director. The musical is in the worst possible taste with jack booted troops in Gestapo uniforms strutting around giving Nazi salutes. At one point the cast circulate together in the centre of the stage and by way of a carefully arranged large mirror we could look down and see the cast had formed a human swastika that rotated slowly!

The Producers Poster

Phil had a number of parts including an accountant, a Cherokee Indian and even an old woman. 

Phil (Centre) As An Accountant

Phil - Fourth Man From Left

Phil Is In There Somewhere!

Phil During Rehearsals Dressed For His Hitler Audition

Our favourite part was Phil's audition for the part of Hitler in the musical. He appeared in a German uniform wearing a Prussian spiked helmet and sporting a Hitler moustache. His audition required him to sing and he started seriously and then gave a camp performance before the producers shouted “Next!”.

While the whole cast were amateurs the performance was very professional and extremely funny. And Phil displayed a talent that I would never have picked. While he signed up as a member of the chorus, he was asked to take on more and more roles which he did with aplomb. In fact, he looked as though he had been treading the boards for years instead of it being his maiden performance.

Back in Knowle we fed Twiggy and then walked her up to The Vaults – a dog friendly pub off Knowle High Street. There she met two fellow Labradoodles, owned by neighbours of John and Ruth, who were puzzled that a Twiggy lookalike had entered the pub. It was a while before they asked whether it was Twiggy which resulted in texts to John and Ruth saying Twiggy had been kidnapped by strangers.

It was Jane’s first visit of the trip to an English pub, my second. As she said there is nothing like a pub anywhere else in the world. It’s where the English congregate and meet friends. In addition to John and Ruth’s neighbours we got talking to quite a few other people – and Twiggy was definitely a conversation piece.

We rounded off the day with takeaway curries from the Ellora Curry Centre.