England 1997

15-year old Scotch has a potent punch the next day! John drops me off at King’s Court to grab a quick breakfast and a few hours sleep.

We meet in The Twisted Boot (the pub associated with the Hotel) and gather with about 30 or so friends and guests of John’s.

We load onto a bus (or coach, as it is called) and head off to Birmingham for an all-day/night event.

The World-Famous English singing star, Sir Cliff Richard, has a pro-celebrity charity tennis event every year. For the past two years, John has donated a Rover as the “grand prize” in the raffle drawing. As such, he and his guests (that’s us!!) are accorded the “luxury suite” and more food and drink than you can shake a stick at!

We start off with lunch as we arrive, and stay through dinnner! There are desert courses, cheese courses, appetizers, drinks, everything! Gads…

The tennis was entertaining, and the “celebrities” are all British, of course, but I recognize one of them as the host of a very humorous show I saw last time called “Can’t Cook/Won’t Cook”. The host, Ainsley Harriott, ends up being a very good tennis player.

We get to meet Sir Cliff and have our pictures taken with him. In addition, we get to go back stage and meet a good number of the other pros and celebs, including Ainsley, who is an absolute riot!

The Rover is given away, much to the delight of a local woman! John is appropriately and very graciously acknowledged for his generous support of Sir Cliff’s charity efforts. What a guy! 🙂

The very late evening (surprised? no!) finds us getting off of the bus back at King’s Court and gathering in the lobby for one more drink and round of conversation. Then… it’s off to bed, as we have another full day ahead of us tomorrow!

2017 UPDATE: I’ve found a couple of YouTube videos of that night – the first one of the broadcast of the actual tennis that was played (and lots of funny comments by the stars), and the second one of Sir Cliff’s concert during the evening. I’m so glad to have found these – really brings back the memories!!!!

2019 UPDATE: Sadly, those videos aren’t available at the moment!  Next time, I’ll download copies if I find them.  In the meantime – if YOU have links to them, please contact me!