I thought I’d offer you something different this week. I’m going to split this in two parts, spread out over two weeks. Like a two-part thriller, designed to keep you on the edge of your seat, until I deliver the second part, next week. How exciting is that?
The reason for that is that I can’t really complete this column until the weekend. Then I can bring you the gory details. Because this weekend, I’m going to Bognor. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’m going to Bognor for an eighties weekender.
Let me take you back to the beginning. Earlier this year, my wife and I were at a dinner party (I’m in my forties) and a good friend of ours suggested we all go to an eighties weekender in Bognor. That didn’t quite sell it, so she added that we’d be staying at Butlins. At this point, friends gathered around the dinner table started to shuffle uncomfortably in their chair. This sounded like hell on earth.
However, as the drinks flowed and we discussed the possibilities, the idea started to grow on us. Like a bad case of eczema. Our friend, by this time, practically begging us to join her on this weekend of nostalgia, went on to explain that real eighties bands would be performing. We wanted names. She came back with Five Star, Heaven 17 and The Beat. It’s no Glastonbury (not even in 1983) but we were intrigued.
We woke up the next day, hungover, hoping that the whole idea was alcohol fuelled and that the idea would fizzle out. Within a couple of hours I received a text on my phone, ‘are you in then?’ After much discussion with Mrs.L, we agreed. Many of our friends at the dinner party the previous night just point blank refused. It was down to a hardcore group of seven of us.
We paid for the tickets and set up another dinner party to discuss how we were going to hit Bognor for the eighties weekender. We decided we had to hit it hard. A shopping list was made up of mainly alcohol and crisps. Next on the agenda, we had to decide on our fancy dress. We came up with ‘Friday Freestyle Night,’ where we all come individually dressed in someone or something from the eighties and on the Saturday, it’s ‘Denim Day,’ where the rules are clear.
On the Sunday, we’ll want to come back to Brighton 2014. Wish me luck, I’m going in………..