From Yealmpton to Guangzhou: a diverse week
An eclectic week featuring double glazing, dementia innovation, an ocean rower and football royalty
Diverse is the best way to explain my last week, and a little confusing. It started well on Monday when the doorbell rang. I peeped through my new double-glazed side window and opened my new double-glazed door with ‘frosted’ double-glazed insert.
‘Can I interest you in double glazing?’ said the man on the front step.
I pointed out to him that every window in the place had been double glazed, every door had been double glazed, and we even considered double glazing the cat flap.
(Yes, you can get a double-glazed cat flap.) I mentioned that we had taken specialist advice from an expert who had personally attended the fitting and handed over the 10-year guarantee. I then drove home the point that we did not need double glazing with one vital, salient point … it was him on the doorstep who had handed us the guarantee!
‘You can’t criticise me for trying,’ was his cheesy answer. I then asked him if he was related to the local shop owner who is doing a special half-price offer on de-icer. I do like a ‘chancer’.
On Tuesday evening I was driving an excavator and pile driver, putting up posts at the Yealmpton showground. There were no life-changing injuries, but I did run over a safety cone.
The next day I was part of the judging team for the commercial section of the show… congratulations to Luscombe May for winning the best display.
On Thursday I was giving a lecture on media and access to the press within Plymouth University to a group of Chinese dementia nurses and was due to have dinner with them that night, but I had to act as the auctioneer for Salcombe Rotary before their huge annual firework display. I was my normal charming self at the event and strangely have been asked back again next year.
On Friday I returned to the Plymouth lecture complex to film a report on the Chinese team from Nanfang University, which now included their vice principal. I greeted him in Cantonese and, having done my research on the location of Nanfang, I chatted to him about Guangzhou, home of the university and China’s third-largest city.
I asked whether the university campus was as dry as ours; did they have a drought? He was not too sure as he lived in Canterbury, Kent and, by the way, spoke Mandarin!
However, he was fascinated by one of the presentations… a wristwatch-style device which is being pioneered in this county and offers a fantastic way of tracking those with dementia who may have become confused and disorientated. Demonstrated by the Devon and Cornwall Police, the Chinese team thought this was fascinating and took one back to China.
I did not like to suggest that this was coals to Newcastle as I think that is where the device came from in the first place.
They were a remarkable group of people, and I hope to see them again very soon. As a farewell gift, the entire nursing team were then presented with ‘hoodies’, which I suspect was also a ‘return’ to the manufacturer’s country of origin.
That same night I completed my short film on the continuing journey of Dave ‘Dinger’ Bell, the remarkable former Royal Marine from our area. He is rowing from Lima in Peru to Mauritius and, at the time of writing, is on day 263 at sea, having rowed just over 12,000 nautical miles.
I texted him my good wishes and very kindly he texted back about thirty seconds later. Thirty seconds! I cannot text in certain parts of Chagford, but he can respond to me from the middle of the Indian Ocean?
The diverse week came to a grinding halt with a meeting with one of the most remarkable footballers I have ever met, the manager of Torquay United, Jimmy Ball.
An Evening with Jimmy had been arranged at The Eastern Eye Restaurant in Newton Abbot and, after coating myself in Chicken Tikka Marsala, stains I will have to live with for life, he agreed to sit down with me and take questions on his father Alan Ball, Everton legend and obviously a huge part of the World Cup-winning squad of 1966.
Strangely, I noticed that his record at The Toffees was 66 goals scored.
Jimmy took us on a fascinating journey, revealing the ‘ordinary’ extraordinary man that was his father. He reflected that the world of football had changed forever, especially when it came to money. With average wages at the time being between £40.00 to £80.00 a week, his Dad got a massive £1,000 bonus for winning the World Cup, but Alan and the family had remained grounded, which showed very strongly with Jimmy.
He reminisced that following England's 1966 World Cup Final victory, his father swapped shirts with Nobby Stiles on the Wembley pitch during the celebratory lap of honour. Stiles kept Ball's match-worn red jersey in his personal collection for decades before selling it at auction in 2010.
What did his father do right after the match? He drove home but stopped for egg and chips on the way!
As Jimmy said, the world of football has changed dramatically since 1966.
I only had one chance to meet Alan Ball; it was at Haldon Racecourse in the early 1990s when he was at Exeter. We both backed the sure-fire winner… the bookies said it would win, the trainer said it would win, even the jockey said it would win, but nobody told the horse!
Just after the last fence, we had a very brief chat about losing and then parted.
It was a memorable day and meeting his son was an equal pleasure, and I admit that I thought about asking him to swap shirts as mine was now as red as the '66 England team.