CHATTING IN GUMMIDGE...
GRAHAM Rushworth of Brockholes was talking about how life can take unexpected turns. Like the time he and wife Trudy visited the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
The former mission is now a national shrine to freedom and the location of John Wayne’s finest hour.
“We were on the Freeway but had passed San Antonio and turned back. The next direction sign we saw was for Banfield and I once lived in Banfield Road in Huddersfield so we turned off there.”
They stopped for a Coke, still lost, and asked the location of the Alamo. “Just round the corner,” they were told.
There was also the occasion they were sitting on a beach in the Mediterranean when actor Jon Pertwee, who played both Worzel Gummidge and Dr Who, climbed off a pedalo. “I started talking to him in Gummidge,” Graham says, “He immediately replied and we talked Gummidge to each other.”
In Dallas, Graham and Trudy were in a cowboy shop that sold riding equipment. They bumped into royal photographer Patrick Lichfield.
“How’s your cousin?” Graham said, conversationally, meaning The Queen.
Lord Lichfield said she was fine and stopped for a chat. He explained he had his boots made at the shop. “What a lovely bloke,” Graham says.
Graham wonders if such encounters just happen to him and Trudy? Or do other people have similar experiences of happenstance?