Yes, this was her moment.
Lynne had waited twenty odd years to meet, only to then partially
blind, her hero....! With his retina's no doubt fused he was
in no fit state to wave off the intrusive lens of my own camera.
Still blinking and probably shocked he slowly made his way up
the steps to the stage.
"Oh, my God what have I done, I've blinded him," gasped
a distraught Mrs Sweetman.
"Yup," I said consolingly.
And indeed so it may have been, for there was no talk delivered
that day to the Zombie folks. Instead we we're invited to form
a line up on to the stage, where Ian was busily engaged in signing
video covers, magazines etc. We joined the queue and waited patiently.
I checked again that I'd still got my list of hurriedly jotted
questions with me. As the queue moved forward I held it before
me like a talisman. Eventually the crocodile of people shuffled
its way past the table where his eminence sat and it became my
turn.
I mumbled a quick "hi"
and presented him with a small card to autograph. As he started
to scrawl his signature on it he looked up and saw my Whitecross
badge.
"Whitecross Calling...?" he enquired. I briefly explained
that we were a Survivors fan club and that we were very pleased
to meet him at long last.
"So your not from that other lot then?"
"Other lot?" I added as innocently as I could.
"Yes, that other lot. Couldn't even spell my name right,
you'd have thought they'd have got it right wouldn't you...?
Put a G instead of the C....! Really bloody annoys me when people
do that." I nodded uncertainly.
"So how come there's two fan clubs then," he enquired.
"Are you some sort of regional off shoot of them?" |
As tactfully as I could
I glossed over the differences that I'd had with Carole, desperate
not to create the wrong impression.
"How many of you are there...?"
"Twenty five," I answered.
Ian looked at me reproachfully and unimpressed. "Should
have organised yourselves a couple of years ago, or when the
series was on! They'd have probably run to a couple of more seasons,
if there were people lobbying them to keep it going!" I
adopted a suitably abashed and penitent expression, it seemed
churlish to point out that I'd only been thirteen at the time
and scarcely capable of organising my homework let alone a fan
club.
Ian continued to sally forth, having it seemed, found a subject
close to his heart. "They got that bloody Take The High
Road back for God's sake, and how many fans can there be of that...?
A couple of thousand at the most."
"Well we fully intend to expand our organisation,"
I began. "Once we've got more numbers perhaps we "
Ian wasn't listening and continued on.
"I mean, where were you all when I tried to interest the
BBC in a new series?" he added almost accusingly. I countered
that the first most of us had heard about the abortive attempt
to resurrect Survivors was through TV Zone when the battle had
been all but lost. Perhaps if he had made efforts to rally the
troops a little before he'd begun the attempt. Perhaps next time....
He slumped a little in his chair and some of the animation left
his face.
"Yes, well it maybe too late for that now," he added
moodily.
With a start I realised
that Ian, like Lorna, hadn't really been acting twenty odd years
ago. Ian was Greg, Greg - Ian. What you saw on the screen is
what you get now. I sensed that he's |