The big treat at BR’s decade-late retirement party was a helicopter ride for his closest colleagues. Since I’d worked with him for a decade and a half from the late 1990s until mid twenty-teens, I was welcomed aboard as one of the passengers.
I don’t remember much about the flight. When I came to, all alone in BR’s kitchen, I recalled boarding the helicopter with the others and could feel a lingering sense of terror. However, I couldn’t account for the time between our departure and return.
When BR’s wife walked into the kitchen, she explained that I had knocked myself out while shrieking and screaming mid-air – so much so that the entire trip had to be cut short.
I followed her into the sitting room to face the others. My presence cast an obvious shadow over the gathering. However, I was grateful to learn that RL looked after me when I took my funny turn.
Back in the kitchen again, BR’s wife pointed to a couple of cardboard boxes that were crammed with ‘junk’ that BR had brought home after he cleared his office on campus in 2015. She said that he would never look at the contents again, and that I was welcome to anything I fancied.
First I slipped some commemorative £2 coins into my pocket. Then I spotted Prince William’s patchwork Harris Tweed flat cap and Prince Harry’s woollen beanie. The former was definitely coming home with me. I left Prince Harry’s cast-off behind; anything associated with him was now worthless.
Dreamaticus 