Rapid Response Team
During his “time” at Martin-Baker, Kevin moved to Paul Sandom’s team, referred to as the ‘Rapid Response Team’. Kevin’s rapid response was to offer up his resignation.
Many people secretly wondered whether it was Paul Sandom’s singing that finally made up Kevin’s mind to leave. Paul thought he had the voice of an angel. We know he made the noise of an Angle…..Grinder.
Dina Martina
One night Kevin attended a ‘Cultural Extravaganza’ at Soho Theatre with Linda and Bill. They went to see a performer called Dina Martina. Now, Dina is ‘different’ in that she does have rather more testosterone than many female performers …..and rather more bodily hair.
Dina seemed to take a shine to Kevin and started to point directly at him from stage, and included him in her songs. Now, Kevin is not a shy individual, but in this case Kevin seemed to physically shrink, and he leaned towards the safety of Linda’s shoulder. “Oh look at you”, Dina shrieked, “You think you’re safe there, sitting with your wife”.
This came at no little surprise to many of us!
Happily, Dina did eventually let Kevin off the hook, and Linda (his wife) did not lose him to the life of show business and sequins.
Antiques
Kevin is a big fan of antiques. Sometimes old and dusty, even to some considered ‘useless’, Kevin nevertheless enjoyed collecting them.
Or..
Kevin had a deep and thorough knowledge of many antique technical terms. With Queen Anne legs and antique chest ……he cut quite a dash at many auction rooms
El Chorizo Bandito
A big fan of recycling, and with a deep sense of not wanting to waste money, Kevin was surprised to find someone had left a chorizo in the fridge. After asking around, and after being told by persons unnamed that “he might as well take it home”, Kevin took it home and made quite an appealing Chorizo salad. It was as he was tucking into this salad the next day that he heard Paul Fieldstead angrily asking where the chorizo that he had left in the fridge was!
Parking Fine
On evening Kevin was keen to pop into Uxbridge to do something. I would say ‘buy’ something, but the words ‘Kevin’ and ‘Buy’ rarely occur within the same sentence. He was probably going to steal the contents of the Battersea Dogs Home collection dog outside the railway station. Anyway, Paul Hickman offered Kevin the option of parking in Willlowbank and strolling into town. This was deemed too far for Mr Hartley to walk, so he drove into the Chimes Car Park and duly parked his car. Unbeknown to himself, his close friends and colleagues had obtained the yellow plastic envelope that parking fines come in, and had surreptitiously followed him into Uxbridge. So, when Mr Hartley finally returned to his car he found the following ‘Parking Ticket’ under his wiper.
See attachment called OFFENCE
Oh how he laughed…………
Union and Gnome Improvements
A shop steward in the Union, Kevin has always stood up for the ‘little person’. Perhaps it was in recognition of this that some time ago Kevin’s garden was invaded by little people. Whilst suspicion for this deed had always been laid at the feet of Paul Carpenter, I blamed the ‘gnome’ office (and the Martin Kingshott joke book)
Holidays
‘Kevin and Simon do like a holiday’ is a comment we often used and heard, although their choices of venue did make us modify our statement to ‘Kevin and Simon do like a War Zone’. There are not many people that can boast of having Kate Adie as a holiday rep.
When we hear the word ISIS, we tend to think “Islamic Terrorists bent on the overthrow of western democracy and the imposition of a Caliphate”.
Kevin and Simon think “Quiet group, kept themselves to themselves, didn’t seem to want to sunbathe or drink, and there was never a queue at the shack for the hog roast. All in all, a great bunch of lads”.
Heron
Kevin was always a fan of wildlife, but less so when it had it’s eye on his fish. One evening Linda and Bill popped round to see Simon and Kevin, to have dinner and then go on to the theatre. While Simon was in the kitchen, Kevin showed us around the garden. He explained that he was having a problem with a heron landing in his garden and eyeing up the fish in the pond. The heron had been surveying the food source from the roof of the house to the right of their garden. Kevin explained that one evening they had snuck up the garden, and hidden in the garden with the aim of startling the heron. He showed us how he and Simon had hidden against the hedge on the right hand side, and explained how they had waited there, ever so slightly hunched over, back pushed partially into the hedge, awaiting for their target to glide silently to land over their heads. The plan was to jump out and startle the heron out of its wits, so it didn’t dare land there again. (I am sure you can picture the scene).
“And then”, he said pointing up to the roof to the left of the house, “we looked up there, and the little bugger was sitting up on that roof looking down at us!
