Carolyn’s Withnail For Waterford

February9

Carolyn recounts for the mailing list the next day

Well, it’s 7.00am in the morning and Neil and I have just had one of the most exhausting sleeps ever.

In answer to enquiries regarding the W4W, I will now endeavour to fill you in on the details of the event.

After weeks of preparing for W4W, the day finally arrived. The 14 of us had communicated regularly through this message board but we had never met.

We were all staying at various locations in and around London and had arranged to meet beforehand at a bar near to Leicester Square. It was decided that we would all wear carrot badges in order to be recognised. There were carrot badges of different varieties from knitted ones to Tracs large ribbon variety which ended up wrapped around her head at the end of the night (but that’s another story).

When we all met, we instantly got on so well (12 girls and Neil my Husband), who, surrounded by 12 gorgeous females felt like a film star himself.

The atmosphere in the cinema was exciting, with famous bods turning up and everyone was in good spirits, then REG came on and made a speech (he was all emotional) and was amazed at the support which he had received, after which we sat down to watch the film on the big screen.

People kept looking at us wearing our carrots wondering what on earth was going on (who were we?) in fact, it was heard that one person made a comment about us belonging to some sort of Vegetarian Society (tee hee). At certain parts of the film people would laugh out loud or cheer, our cheer came when the reference to carrots was made.

After the show REG made a speech where, along with a long list of acknowledgements Dominique and the REGiment got a thank you and were asked to stand up. The cast emerged and sat on stage one by one (some too humble to come up until cheered on by everyone).

In particular, one famous Policeman who has less than five minutes in the film but quotes one of the most famous sayings of it all “Get In The Back Of The Van”, was applauded along with Presuming Ed.

The auction took a long time and consequently the question and answer session could not go on as long as intended (to REG’s disappointment), but, all in all the atmosphere was electric and I am pretty sure that everyone who wanted autographs got them as the cast stayed on for some considerable time, meeting with fans and signing autographs.

The VIP party was at a club across the road and the booze was flowing free all night. REG and Paul McGann were at the club and quite happy to talk to people and have photos taken, in fact I felt sorry for Paul McGann at one point as he must have been blinded by flash lights as we all furiously had our pictures taken.

Each person was polite and happy to talk even though they must have been exhausted, like true professionals they battled on and gave each and every one of us a night to remember.

Later on in the evening as most of them left ‘the girls’ and Neil descended to the dance floor (the booze still flowing) and so were we, we danced ourselves into exhaustion into the early hours.

Trac, Karen, Di, Neil and myself made our way back to the hotel after the party some of us a bit worse for the wear.

Near to the hotel was a building site, so we started messing about outside, doing usual loud and drunken things etc, and I said, “When you are drunk – you have to do the classic stuff like put a traffic cone on your head’ it is part of the membership of being drunk club.

So, I picked up a firm young cone and Trac found a limp one and we were posing for all sorts of pictures and being generally loud. Suddenly, from a little hut, a man shouted at us to put the cones down, and then another appeared, the hut was very small for two men, so maybe it was a Tardis.

Of course, we all started yelling ‘sorry’ and then Neil shouted “What are you two up to in there? Toilet Trading?” Neil also climbed up a pole to pose for a photo and hurt his private parts.

It probably sounds stupid and immature stuff etc, to those who were not there, but what you have to remember is, we had all had the most fantastic night, and were still on a very large ‘high’ combined with the booze which had been flowing freely all night, lets just call it high spirits.

The next day, how we managed to get up and get to the restaurant for 12.00 noon, Lord only knows. We had all had an incredibly late boozy night and although most of us managed a few hours to get some sleep, I understand that Dominique had, had an incredible urge for chocolate at 5.00am in the morning (I will leave her to tell you that one).

We all waited at the restaurant and was then taken to our table, Neil had found it quite strange when we first got there and saying to the Receptionist “we have a reservation” where she replied “What name?” and he said Richard E. Grant.

REG turned up precisely at 12.00 Noon where he said to us all “you are all early”. I think at first we were all actually stunned because it went incredibly quiet for about a minute or so whilst REG sat at the head of the table, but we soon all relaxed and got chatting.

The one thing which was nice about the whole thing was that he was interested in us. He went round the table asking us where we came from in turn and questioned each and every one of us about our jobs. REG stayed with us for 2 hours, he even swapped seats so that everyone could get to talk to him.

REG has the most amazing presence about him which I will never forget, he talked to each and every one of us, he had time for us all, he listened to us and what we had to say and was interested in what we had to say.

He signed everything we asked and we had tons of photographs taken, whilst the rest of the people inside the restaurant just watched the events with intrigue. The restaurant was called ‘The Criterion’ which is a French restaurant owned by top chef Marco Pierre, located in Piccadilly Circus. The food is served on the plates as if they were an artist board, all pretty and delicate looking.

Before he left he gave us all hugs and kisses (apart from Neil of course) and then left.

When he had gone, we all sat there a bit stunned by the whole thing and then the emotions suddenly hit me that this was the event which I had been building up for, for weeks and it suddenly hit me that it was now all over and suddenly the tears flowed (not just myself I might add).

Once outside we parted ways with this wonderful group of people whom we had only just met but had grown to love so quickly, we stood outside the restaurant, hugging each other and kissing (we had all shared a wonderful experience and had bonded). As I went around hugging everyone I could not stop crying as I said goodbye, I will never forget that day as long as I live. I felt like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz as I went around saying goodbye to everyone, hugging and kissing everyone, I really cannot explain how emotional I felt.

As we disappeared towards the underground Neil’s parting words in a loud voice across the square was “GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN” and that concluded what had to be possibly the best 2 days of my life.

I wanted to share this experience with everyone and although I said it last night I will say it again, it was a pleasure to meet such great people who all got together thanks to this website, I will never forget this event for as long as I live.