My claim to FAME
It’s been a few years since Van Morrison embarked on a world tour – he prefers to play mainly smaller venues near his home town of Belfast.
And at 77, who could blame Sir George Ivan Morrison OBE – as he is properly known – if he wants the comfort of his own bed after a gig.
He also claims his reputation as the grumpy man of rock is unfounded, which reader Peter Walker in Blyth, Northumberland, can confirm.
“In 1996, my wife Linda and I were on honeymoon in Ireland,” says the now 66-year-old Peter, who retired from his job at HMRC last July.
The couple flew over to Dublin from Newcastle then on to Cork. After a trip to remember, Peter and Linda were at Dublin airport waiting for the plane home.
Peter says: “I saw this gentleman walking towards us. He was quite short, dressed all in black, fedora-type hat and sunglasses.
“I said to Linda, ‘You know when you see someone and think doesn’t he look like… such and such? Well this bloke walking towards us? Doesn’t he look like Van Morrison?”
As the man got closer, Peter realised it looked like him because it was Van Morrison. In awe, Peter says: “We had heard his music everywhere over the last week or so but he had a reputation for being grumpy, and I wasn’t sure what to do next.”
In the end, Peter went over and asked Van for an autograph. He adds: “I thought he might just tell me to go away but he was as nice as could be. ‘Sure,’ he says, ‘If you’re quick, me plane’s boarding soon’.
“I rushed over to Linda screaming, ‘Give us a bit of paper and a pen’.
She pulls them out of her handbag, and Van the Man signs his autograph, and off he goes!”
The next time Peter and Linda were in Ireland, they bumped into another celebrity.
“We were in Sligo airport which is tiny,” explains Peter. “We had a drink with Johnny Logan, the Eurovision Song Contest winner, in the bar. Lovely bloke!
“We thought, ‘Blimey, you must see someone famous every time you come to Ireland’.”
Van’s autograph is still treasured.
“It’s been framed and hangs on the wall next to my record collection,” Peter says.
■ Send your brush with the stars stories to siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk