Eventually he came home and I sat him down and made him tell me the whole story. ‘I was driving along,’ he said, ‘and I saw an English mobile come up on the phone and I thought it might be work-related so I answered it and a man said, “Can I speak to Tony?” And I said, “Speaking.” And he said, “It’s Robert here. Robert Plant.’’’
‘Jesus Christ!’ I said. ‘Just like that? And did you nearly crash the car?’
‘Of course I nearly crashed the car!’
‘And then what happened?’
‘He said he’d leave tickets for the after-show party at the box office for us to collect on Monday night.’
‘For real?! We’re actually going to meet him?! And then what happened?’
‘We talked a bit about football. I said about how his team [Wolves – even I knew that] hadn’t done so well at the weekend.’
‘But how did you hold it together?’ I asked, and in bewilderment Himself said, ‘I don’t know, I really don’t know.’ And we stared at each other for a startled second, then we started shrieking again and yelling our heads off and jumping around the place and I had to hop on to the couch because I wasn’t getting enough spring from the floor to express the extent of my glee. It was FECKEN FANTASTIC!!!
The night of the gig came around and we kept saying to each other, ‘Do you really think this will work? Do you think it’ll really happen?’ So we promised each other that we wouldn’t get too hopeful just in case it all went sideways. But, sure enough, at the box office there were two passes to the after-show party.
And the gig itself was AMAZING! All the musicians were wildly talented but it was Robert, as always, who stole the show. His voice! Still as good as it was forty years ago. And his presence, his … yes … his extreme sexiness … Witnessing him singing ‘Whole Lotta Love’ … Sacred Heart!
Eventually, after several encores, the gig ended and people started to drift off home, except myself and Himself, who went to Maureen’s Bar (as instructed) and presented our passes and I was still waiting for something to go wrong.
But we were on the list and we had to wear the pass and in we went and the man himself wasn’t there yet, but other people were and my eyes were flicking back and forth, like knives, as I assessed the situation. See, I’d never before been to an after-show party and I’d no idea of the protocol. Would millions show up? Would we queue to meet Robert or would it be every man for himself?
More people arrived. Not lots. But some. Including some famous faces. Well, one that I recognized – Joe Elliott off of Def Leppard. And Joe Elliott off of Def Leppard was quite alpha – he sported an air of great confidence, an air that he very much belonged at an after-show party. I quickly identified him as ‘competition’.
Every time the door opened, Himself and I would jump, hoping that it would be Robert Plant himself, but it never was. And then it WAS! In he came, simply radiating charisma. But not being grandiose either. Just being HIM.
As I’d feared, Joe Elliott off of Def Leppard was in like Flynn! Yep – up-close and chatting away immediately and surrounded by other members of his party. Perched anxiously on my seat, I trained my eyes on him, thinking, ‘Please make him stop soon.’
Himself was scoping out the situation just as much as I was and it was dawning on him that we were going to have to actually make this thing happen.
Now, Himself is the most self-effacing man on the planet. He’s extremely shy and unpushy, to the point where people often forget his name and call him Tom or James or John. But he’d suddenly developed an uncharacteristic glint in his eye. ‘Come on,’ he said to me. ‘Up you get.’
So we got up and we went and stood beside the circle and we ‘hovered with intent’. We almost ‘hovered with menaces’. We kept our eyes fixed on Robert in a way that demonstrated that we meant business. Joe Elliott off of Def Leppard was still chatting away with great animation – then something happened: a split second where Joe Elliott off of Def Leppard blinked and broke his connection with Robert and next thing, Himself is IN!
Yes, in that tiny sliver of time he’d shouldered his way between Robert Plant and Joe Elliott off of Def Leppard and before my startled eyes he was introducing himself to Robert Plant!
And OH. MY. GOD!!!! Robert Plant was so, so, so, so, so, so, so, SOOOOO lovely. He instantly and immediately knew who we were and welcomed us warmly and then he hugged me! Yes! I HAVE BEEN HUGGED BY ROBERT PLANT! And it was a lovely hug – full, expansive, generous, humane, everything a hug should be. And yes, it was incredibly strange to be standing right next to a living legend, to a man who’s been part of my life for almost forty years, to be looking into his face and thinking, ‘You’re Robert Plant. YOU’RE ROBERT PLANT!’
But even though he was definitely Robert Plant, we managed to talk about things – music, obviously, where Himself got a chance to tell Robert how he has always loved him.
Then, mano-a-mano, Robert and Himself talked about climbing mountains because Robert is fond of the mountains in Wales, and Himself is fond of mountains in general, and we told Robert about all the lovely walks in Wicklow and he said he’d have to come back and do some and the chances are that he probably won’t but it doesn’t matter!
Honest to God, it couldn’t have gone better. The funny thing is that Himself is a quiet man, I’m the chatty one, but suddenly he’d become as voluble as bejaney, and in the end I had to give him a little ‘Settle the head there’ look because we were hogging Robert and there were other people ‘hovering with intent’, hoping to talk to him.
So, before the ‘hovering with intent’s turned into ‘hovering with menace’s, I prised Himself away and Robert hugged me again and it was just as nice as the first one and he shook hands with Himself and clapped him on the shoulder with his other hand. And off we went and as soon as we left I whispered, ‘He hugged me,’ and Himself said, ‘And did you see the way he clapped me on the shoulder?’
Then Himself stopped me and acted it out – the handshake and the shoulder-clap – and repeated, ‘He didn’t just shake my hand, he clapped me on the shoulder.’
It was wonderful beyond description and the warm glow generated by meeting him is still there. As for those people who say you should never meet your heroes? Well, FECK them! If you get the chance, meet your heroes, meet them, meet them, meet them!
Previously unpublished.
Aung San Suu Kyi
I want to tell you about my Aung San Suu Kyi experience! (From now on I’ll refer to her as ASSK.)
It began with a phone call. I’m always terrified when the phone rings, and I poke at it with a stick and shout, ‘Shut up, shut up! Stop ringing. Be peaceful! Please, I implore you.’ But for once the phone wasn’t bringing scary news, it was bringing thrilling news. It was Himself who actually answered the call and he came back into the room, where I was huddled fearfully, and I said, ‘Who was it? What did they want?’ And he says, ‘Would you like to meet Aung San Suu Kyi?’
I took a good long look at him and thought, ‘Well, that’s lovely, that is, now the both of us are mad and he’d always seemed so sane, but there we go.’ Slowly and loudly I said, ‘You can have some of my anti-mad tablets. At least for tonight. But we’ll have to get you to a quack in the morning.’
However, it turned out he WASN’T mad and WASN’T having audio hallucinations. I will explain …
I’m sure you know who ASSK is, but in case you don’t, I’ll tell you. She was under house arrest in Burma for fifteen years between 1989 and 2010 – imprisoned by the military junta for having the audacity to be the democratically elected leader of the co
untry. Several times the junta told her she could leave the country, but she knew she’d never be able to get back in, so she stayed, even when her husband – who was living in the UK at the time, because the Burmese wouldn’t give him a visa – was diagnosed with terminal cancer and then died. She was also separated from her children.
Throughout her years of imprisonment I thought about her so much, about all the sacrifices she was making on behalf of her country, and I was in total awe. Whenever I was asked by magazines who my favourite dinner guest would be, I always said ASSK because if she was able to have dinner with me it would mean that things had improved enough in Burma for her to be able to leave and that her sacrifices had meant something.
I admired her strength, her dignity, her serene intractability, her intelligence and, most of all, her powers of endurance. I mean, it must have been horrific. How did she survive, second by second? At what stage did she realize she was Burma’s ‘chosen one’ and all the personal sacrifices which that entailed? When did she realize that her personal attachments and love for her family and her husband had to be put to one side? How did it dawn on her that this wasn’t going to be over in six months or two years or five years, that she was in it for the long haul?
It made me think of that quote (and I know I’m not saying it right) that people aren’t born great, they have greatness thrust upon them. And how awful that must be. ASSK was just an ordinary person – admittedly her father negotiated Burma’s independence from Britain, but she wasn’t looking for the role as Burma’s saviour.
So, as I said, I’d cared about her and worried about her for a long time. I knew that Amnesty International were doing their best for her (sorry, veering off a bit here. I was just thinking that even when I was living in London in my twenties and drinking my head off and spending the electricity money on shoes and was totally skint, I coughed up enough lolly to be a member of Amnesty International).
Anyway, in November 2010 she was finally freed from house arrest and felt that the ruling junta had made enough concessions to enable her to leave the country.
Now, I don’t know exactly what happened, but between Amnesty International and Seamus Heaney and Mary Robinson and Bono and maybe other people, and forgive me if I haven’t listed them, she was persuaded to visit Dublin and accept the Amnesty Ambassador of Conscience award. She was coming to Dublin for literally six hours, between accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo (twenty-two years after she was awarded it) and going to Britain. And it was decided to hold a concert in her honour in Dublin.
The tickets sold out in a nanosecond and I was very disappointed not to get one, but that was that …
And then came the phone call from a mystery benefactor offering me two tickets. (The mystery benefactor was not actually a mystery to me, but they’ve asked for anonymity in case all their friends and family round on them and screech, ‘Why didn’t you invite ME, you selfish article!!!!’ Indeed, what IS a mystery to me is why I was the person chosen to be invited, but I am not going to analyse the situation, I’m just really, really, really, really, really, really grateful.)
There was just one fly in the ointment … I was going to be in Poland for the football. ‘Football!!!!’ I scorned. ‘Football!!! You think I’d miss the ASSK concert just because of some oul’ football!’
Himself and I had a chat about things and he was very conflicted about it all, because he has also been a supporter of ASSK (even before he met me), but in the end it was decided that I would go to the ASSK concert and he’d go to Poland. As it transpired, I was able to go to Gdansk for the massacre by Spain and I flew back to Dublin on Sunday.
Now, I’m skipping out so much – the fun in Gdansk when we weren’t being massacred by the Spanish, my happy hour in Oslo changing planes, my lost suitcase, my lost car, my shame at the car-park exit, the fact that I hadn’t a single thing to wear to the ASSK concert because the one good dress that still fits me was in the AWOL suitcase, along with all my make-up – but we’ll fast-forward to Monday, when I picked up my mammy at three o’clock to go to the event.
When we arrived at the theatre, it was mobbed with media! Television stations from around the world, photographers, journalists, satellite dishes, a big stage set up in the outdoors. The excitement was indescribable. The mammy and I were brought to a reception room and ALL KINDS of hobnobs were hobnobbing, then I got up to get my mammy a cup of tay and brushed shoulders with – as in LITERALLY my shoulder brushed against hers – Vanessa Redgrave! That’s the calibre of hobnobs we’re talking!
Myself and the mammy were paralysed with nerves. Canapés and stuff were put out on tables but our joint self-esteem was too low to allow us to eat. But after a long time had passed and none of the hobnobs had spoken to us, she gave me a nudge and in a low voice said, ‘Hop up there and get us a couple of bikkies.’ There was an impressively WIDE selection of biscuits, but I cleared the platter of all the Bourbons and brought them back to her and we ate them and after a while I got up and went to another platter and took all the Bourbons off that and we ate them too – it looked like none of the hobnobs were eating anything – and after a while we’d eaten every single Bourbon biscuit in the place.
Then! Finally we were told to go ‘below’ to take our seats. But we had to go to the loo! And we went the wrong way looking for it. So then we had to go back through the biscuit room and out the other side, and the staff were clearing things away and looked startled and alarmed at our reappearance, and I was beginning to panic. ‘Quick, Mam!’ I was yelping. ‘Quick!’
‘I’m going as quick as I can,’ she said. ‘I’ve arthritis!’
‘I KNOW,’ I said, dragging her towards the Ladies. ‘But you’ll just have to put it to one side for today. Pretend you’re young! We can’t be late. It’s Aung San Suu Kyi!’
We found the Ladies and then we made our way back through the biscuit room, where the staff had nearly finished clearing up and were looking really, really worried about us, so much so that I thought one of the lovely waiters was going to throw Mam over his shoulder just to get her to her seat in time.
‘Wouldja come ON,’ I said to her, heedless of who heard me. I can’t handle being late at the best of times, but ASSK is my hero of heroes. ‘I’m COMING,’ she said. And then we were in the lift and then we were in the lobby and then we got to the auditorium – just in time for the announcement that we ASSK’s plane had been delayed and the concert wouldn’t be starting for another half-hour. All credit to Mam, she said nothing, she didn’t even pinch me and she’d have been well entitled.
We took our seat and, amigos, we were surrounded by hobnobs – the mayor of Dublin was in the row behind us, the fiddler Martin Hayes was two rows in front of us. People whose names we didn’t know but who certainly LOOKED like hobnobs were on both sides of us … and then a ripple started. Like a breeze blowing over a field of corn. Electricity starting moving through the crowd and murmurs of, ‘She’s here, she’s here, she is, she’s here.’ And then! There she was! Aung San Suu Kyi! Free! And on the small little rock that is Ireland! Climbing down the steps of the Grand Canal Theatre. I thought I was going to pass out. To be so close to this woman whom I’d admired and cared about for the last twenty-two years. For all that she’d done and all that she symbolized. To be in her presence was one of the most moving experiences of my life.
Everyone was going mad and standing and cheering and clapping and taking photos (even though we’d been told no photos). And eventually she took her seat – in the row in front of me and the mammy – accompanied by Bono and Seamus Heaney and other bigwigs. At this stage I’d have been happy to go
home, the night just couldn’t get any better, but the concert started and it was utterly brilliant.
All kinds of artists – I’ll say some of them: Declan O’Rourke, Dónal Lunny, Angélique Kidjo, Damien Rice, Bob Geldof, and Saoirse Ronan, who read one of Seamus Heaney’s poems.
But – for me, anyway – the most mesmerizing performance was from Martin Hayes. I’d seen him once before, so I knew how gifted he is, but he just came on, humble as can be, one man and a fiddle and a grand head of hair (his hair alone deserves a credit) and started playing slow. And I don’t know how he does it, but he quietens people, he casts a calming spell and then starts to gather people up, like a fisherman tightening the ropes on the net of a big catch. He started playing faster and people were with him, sort of attached to him, in captivity to him. He played faster and faster, and many of the foreign hobnobs, who’d flown in from around the world just to see ASSK, started to consult their programmes, thinking, ‘Just who IS this man?’ Martin played faster and wilder, and it was hard to believe that the sounds and the emotions were coming from just one man, and when he finished up he brought the house down. He is AMAZING. He made me so proud to be Irish, and it was a fittingly magnificent performance for ASSK.
Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for: Aung San Suu Kyi took the stage. She’s very beautiful and she looks very young, even though she was sixty-seven on Tuesday and has endured a lot of physical and emotional deprivation. She wore simple clothes and a flower in her hair and she spoke with aching sincerity. One of the things that affected me most was when she said, ‘I had no idea so many people cared.’ And I was thinking, ‘If only you knew.’ If only she’d been able to feel the collective love and concern and admiration from around the world all these years.
But maybe she intuited some of it, because how else did she keep going?