I’ve been to Edinburgh, but I don’t remember that much about it. It wasn’t that memorable.
Grey clouds, and rain.
I stayed in quite a nice hotel, small, and a bit classy. I had a nice first floor room that overlooked a rather elegant street.
None of this was planned.
The hotel just happened to be close to where my bus from York dropped me off and it was late, so I booked into the first place I came across. As I waited at reception, I recall thinking ‘this is all a bit Somerset Maugham’ but in retrospect I think I meant Evelyn Waugh – effete, late ‘20s décor, a hint of Brideshead, and if Wallis Simpson had walked through the foyer no-one would have turned a hair.
I crashed early and woke early. Breakfast was à la carte, which was nice, A tad English, but most agreeable.
I went for a walk.
I remember it was bone-chillingly cold. Edinburgh in January. I found a gallery with a heater and some interesting modern art, experienced a busker playing the bagpipes in full kit and kaboodle (a first), and went back to my digs for lunch.
In my room freshening up, I noticed a fair bit of noise down in the street. Naturally I had a look and there was a big black car, some police milling about, and a few protesters with signs who were shouting a lot. A chap in a dark suit opened the car door and out stepped none other than good old Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and the target of the protesters. He disappeared into a building over the road and the crowd dispersed. I didn’t see him again which was fine by me. I’m not a royalist in any shape of form so the need to rubberneck on this occasion was slight, but remembering does remind me of how every so often I’ve found myself somewhere when history was being made. This wasn’t one of those moments, but it was mildly interesting all the same, especially given that Diana had died tragically a mere four months previously.
Speaking as I was of long-standing relationships – and I’m blessed to have quite a number – one stands out as being more than extraordinary.
Michael Braithwaite and I met in 1986 when Michael was an undergraduate student at the University of Canterbury. He a mad keen musician, and musical theatre was his passion. From memory, his dream was to go to the UK and work for Cameron Macintosh and, even then, if I’d been a betting person, I’d have laid odds that he’d make it happen.
At that time, I was boss witch of the Ōtautahi Christchurch City Council summer festival ‘Summer Times’ and Micheal joined our Year One Team with two other likely lads on that wonderful employment programme Student Job Search. The young men were magic to work with, reliable, smart, and I doubt we could have achieved what we did achieve without them. It was the birth of the event management industry in Aotearoa, and we were writing the book as we went along.
That’s another story that needs to be written, but not right now.
Michael and I have kept loosely in touch and here we are, almost 40 years later, still mates. One of us hasn’t aged a bit, and that one isn’t me!
In 2012 I had a student who was an international footballer. She still is. How’s that for longevity! She was at the end of her undergraduate study with only one paper to go, a thirty-pointer that required her to get an industry placement, work through that process, gain valuable experience, survive, come out the other side, and graduate. The problem was she was in line for selection in the New Zealand women’s football team, the ‘Football Ferns’, for the London Olympics but that selection hadn’t happened yet. She was at a loss because, if she took the semester off to go to London, she would not complete at the end of 2012, would have to catch up the paper she’d missed in 2013, and not graduate with her cohort which she desperately wanted to do. Finding a project for her in New Zealand would have been a breeze – she was a great catch for any company – so that became Plan B should she not be selected.
My Plan A was ‘let’s get you a placement in London and go from there’,
I’d created a precedent for past students to undertake this paper internationally, mostly for kids going to Thailand, China, and, of course, Australia, so sending her off to Blighty wasn’t much of a problem, whereas finding a suitable project in the UK might be. In all other cases the students had found their own projects, and my only job was to sign off on them, but, in this instance, we had an idea but no project and the criteria were quite restrictive – time off for training and games and all those official Olympic occasions, with the university project tailored to fit in and around the primary ‘project’ which was the Olympics and football.
I guessed my starting point in finding my student a project should be the Olympics themselves, so I Googled to find out dates, venues, and schedules and went from there. While doing this due diligence I found a link on the official Olympic website entitled ‘Volunteer for London 2012’ so I checked that out. It felt like a good place to start so I searched for a contact email and came up with ‘Michael Braithwaite’ who was in charge of the whole volunteer shebang. Could it be, I wondered?
Seriously?
Wouldn’t that be a turn up for the books?
I emailed to check it out – nothing venture, nothing gain – and it was him.
After confirming that it was THE Michael Braithwaite, I hooked him up with my student and they took it from there. I well remember the laconic Michael response to my query ‘yep, that should be possible, leave it to me.’
‘Leave it to me’ was a Michael catchphrase that always set him apart from the pack. He delivers.
My student was selected, had a great Olympics, came back with a wee memento for Finn, and graduated with her cohort.
How cool is that?
There was another wee challenge – I had to explain to Michael that I’d undergone a few changes, but he couldn’t have cared less.
I am blessed to have had a number of friends who have gone on to do outstanding things in the event management industry and Michael is one of them. He returned recently, and we had a catch-up lunch – Turkish of course – and he filled me in on his most recent adventure, a ‘threepete’ running the iconic Edinburgh Tattoo, yep, not once but an astonishing three times, and I had the joy of watching the latest iteration on TV over Christmas.
Outstanding!
Our catch ups run the gamut of things we’ve done or are doing and he spoke of adding a Kiwi flavour to the Tattoo a couple of years ago by including some New Zealand music – a piece by Moana and the Tribe who just happen to be friends of mine. Having assured me that he had sought and received permission to use the piece, I shared with him that I was going to Moana’s in a couple of days for her annual Christmas party at her home at Muriwai beach and asked if he’d like to join Cushla and Finn and I at the event. Even though he was flying out to Ōtautahi Christchurch later in the day we managed to make it work. I confirmed it with Mo and it all happened as planned.
Knowing those two, something extraordinary will come of their meeting and I’ll get to enjoy it, whatever it is.
I love and respect Michael beyond words and to think of how this friendship started and how we’ve somehow kept it going for all these years, it’s really pretty remarkable. It’s as though every time we connect, something good happens for someone else, which borders on the magical. I wouldn’t swap that for all the teriyaki salmon on the planet.
I’d like to say I taught Michael everything he knows but I suspect he was already way better than I have ever been, even as a student way back in 1986.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
Thanks, Michael, for the truly precious times.
dykiegirl 