Monday 3 August 2015

A sight best never seen

I said last time that I'd tell you about our trip to CarFest North, and I will.  But if you've been following the news over the weekend, you'll appreciate that it wasn't the weekend anyone had envisaged.

I've reached that stage in my life where, every so often, I think I've seen most things.  And then I'm corrected.

We were standing watching with many others at Oulton Park in Cheshire on Saturday afternoon when pilot Kevin Whyman's fast jet flew overhead before disappearing behind a clump of trees, probably a mile away.  I turned around for a few seconds for a reason that escapes me.  When I looked back, the sight was one of a plume of black smoke.

My initial thought was that the plane had gone down.  But then I said to myself that, as with many so things, I was wrong.  You see planes crash in films or on TV but the odds of it happening in front of your eyes are minimal.

Anyway, you know the rest.

The whole episode kind of passed Charlotte by but we're still trying to explain it to Jamie.  We're not getting very far, but we're trying.

A couple of passing thoughts.

The way the organisers in general and host Chris Evans in particular handled the incident was a huge credit to all involved.

As you may have seen, Chris Evans spoke to the crowd late on Saturday afternoon - about three hours after the accident had happened. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

And on Sunday, we stood for a minute's silence - bookended by two tunes from a military band.  


But back to Saturday.  The first band on after Chris Evans' short speech was Texas.

But what to do?  Lead singer Sharleen Spiteri (pictured below) could hardly come out and shout "Are you ready to rock?!" Because the crowd was anything but.  


So she guided everyone through it. Slow stuff to start, gradually building up.

She was great.  But what a sad weekend.

I'll try to inject a bit of fun tomorrow.