Bloatermog Nice Day For A White Wedding: Mentioning our Wedding yesterday reminded me about the Honeymoon. It was a week in London, at a small hotel on the left-hand side of Russell Square. It had been booked by sending a cheque through the post, as any other method of paying for it, like the zillions of credit cards we have today, didn't exist in 1973. Indeed, the post was new at the time, and only ten years before that it was sent with a rider on a horse; well, almost. Travelling there by train, as there were precious few or no Motorways then, either, and driving directions were from one pub, or other landmark, to the next; and it was all very basic, and generally needing good to excellent map reading skills. And flying abroad was also a much more complicated affair than it is today, so by and large, people didn't. But eventually we arrived, and took a taxi from Waterloo to Russell Square.
The landlady greeted us, we signed in, a chap took our cases to the room; and the landlady called me to one side. "You were probably nervous about the Wedding," she smiled, as she slid my cheque across the counter, "but you forgot to sign this."
Oh, silly me.
And she was right, about not signing it, that is, not the nerves; so I apologised and duly scribbled upon it, and commented on how nice it was that she hadn't cancelled the booking.
Recently, whilst turning out a wardrobe to find something else, I happened to find our Wedding Photo's album. Amongst a few other things inside the box there was an exercise book, where I had written notes about the places we had been to during the day, and where and what we had eaten.
The writer was in me even then, as this exercise book went to prove, and we had visited typically 'tourist' places like Regents Park Zoo and Trafalgar Square, and forever the rock 'n' roller, we had also gone to find the Polydor and Track Records offices, just because I wanted to see what they looked like?
But one of the strangest and amazing things happened when we packed our cases and left to go home. The Russell Court Hotel took up the whole of the frontage of Russell Square; a massive hotel, and one which we most certainly couldn't have afforded to stay in. There was a green opposite the hotel, and we stood on the pavement and began hailing taxi's. But every one of them went straight past, even though they were empty! Then, (the very new) Mrs. B noticed the taxi's were picking up fares from the Russell Court, because they knew they would get a better tip from them than us; lowly beggars as we appeared in comparison to the clientele there.
So I picked up the cases, and we traipsed along the pavements until we reached the other side of The Russell Court Hotel, and managed to get one to stop for us, at a time when a taxi happened to drive past but there were no prospective 'big tip' fares waiting.
What a cheek, eh?
And I bet the same thing happens today.