Today I was filling up my Jag XJS with petrol alongside a truly horrid thing, Range Rover sport in sickly orange colour (like Ford Focus ST colour) with matching orange wheels.
Driver was non other than Rupert Grint, aka Ron Weasly from Harry Potter, they are fliming just down the road from me at Leavesden.
I think he took a lock of his hair to one of those colour matching services!
It was enough to scare the horses. Mind you I think RG has the capacity to be a truly fantastic actor, and I will enjoy watching his future roles with interest.
Anyone else come across anyone else (famous or infamous) on the forecourt of their local petrol station?
GUY
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I used to work very near the old McLaren factory in Woking. Filled up next to none other than David "DC" Coulthard once in the petrol station across the road.
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pinky the petrol pump
we go back a long way
it was love at first pump (can i say that?)
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I filled up next to a bloke with a Lamborghini Miura on a forecourt just outside Monaco last year. He was probably a Monte Carlo dustman. He had to raise the whole back bodywork of the car to get at the dipstick, too. Who thought that one up?
ps, GC. I bet the actor guy looked at your car as much as you looked at his...
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Quentin Willson at a Shell garage in Stratford on Avon, absolutley genuine guy.
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genuine guy.
No moustache or pair of football socks down his trousers then? Good, good....
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Lots of people have filled up next to me but they have all been polite enough to respect my privacy.......
;-)
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Not a famous person, but I still think its worth telling. Some guy with a gold Ford Capri with the brown vinyl roof, with a sunroof to boot! And the back seats were covered with fake leopard skin. And he was wearing a cowboy hat. I was starring at him and the car for a while, because I think Capris are so cool. This was a few months back. I now wish to own said Capri and cowboy hat. :-)
Edited by Jcoventry on 09/12/2009 at 15:50
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Humph,
Didn't you fill up next to a well known moderator once ?
Rob
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When the Miura was the latest supercar, a lime-green one used to be parked outside the house where a lady who later became my mother-in-law lived, just up the road from here really. It belonged to a hustler called Justin de Villeneuve (I think he made the name up) who lived in the flat below hers with the Twiglet. Another resident was a famous murderer who lived there with his wife, an equally famous barrister and later judge. When the landlord proposed changes that the residents didn't like, they always chose the famous murderer as their spokesman.
Worked very well I believe.
:o}
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Once at Forton Services (M6) as i was filling up (at the breakfast counter, not pumps!) there was a wildish looking character stood behind me in the queue, I didn`t realise who it was at first, until the Till-lass laughingly announced "Gwapefruit instead ? having a change Mr Bellamy?"
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>>Quentin Willson at a Shell garage in Stratford on Avon, absolutley genuine guy.
He lives in Stratford and we've seen him (and spoken to him as my wife knows him quite well!) in a certain Indian restaurant in on the outskirts of Stratford. Nice guy IMO, and I like him as a presenter.
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Quentin Tarantino, in Los Angeles.
He was driving a brown, hideous, beaten up old Volvo. Somehow I thought it was quite apt - not a slur on his character, just that he seems to be quite different to the usual hollywood crowd!
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Filled up next to Chris Eubank at a station in Hooley just north of M23 - in his Range Rover ..... dressed like a country gent of course.
Don't suppose he can afford petrol now....
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Jodie Kidd in a Sussex petrol station, after she had her R75 serviced on a queit weeken where I used to work. Classy in every way.
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Tiger Woods, he was in a dented cadillac with two blondes in the back and a golf club sticking
out of the back window.
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Charlie Williams at a filling station at Havercroft (West Yorks) about 40 years ago.
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Bumped into Boris Johnson at the Total garage in Kempston - the first petrol station you reach in town having approached from the M1 - he was asking directions to the Masonic Lodge(!) to give a talk there. This was 4 years ago (before mayordom, when his fame was largely due to his appearances on Have I Got News For You) and he was driving a filthy Y-reg black Focus.
I commented on his being a scruffy beggar, then led him to the gates of the Lodge on my way back into town.
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Back in mid 90's "Mark" and "Tricky Dicky" from Eastenders at southbound Hilton Park services M6 Todd Carty (Mark) had a 70,s Rover and I believe he was into classic cars at the time. Thought I saw "CJ" from Eggheads in the gents at Stafford south in September. Sad !
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James Hunt - not next too but a couple of people behind him in the queue to pay at a BP station on the outskirts of Marbella in the late 70's (my age dulls accurate recall.)
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James Hunt
He used to breed Budgerigars.
MD
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>> James Hunt
Didn't he drive a Morris 1000 van? When he was not working of course.I believe his name was rhyming slang for a while,some said he was one.
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I think it was an Austin A 35 van, and on a side note I breed budgies, quails and parakeets, also Mr Lud I didn't look, you cheeky devil.
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...1 believe his name was rhyming slang for a while, some said he was one...
You must mean Hunt the Shunt because of the number of race cars he crashed.
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reminds me of a trip by ferry to ostend...there was missing persons broadcast on the ships tannoy " could snip* please report to the pursers office " then it all went down hill from there ,mr f mercury was also mentioned as lost amongst others...made the trip less nauseous tho
*Use your imagination
Edited by Pugugly on 10/12/2009 at 18:55
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Back in the early 90's I used to spend the occasional Friday or Saturday night hanging about either Membury or Cheively Services (don't ask). In no particular order I met Wayne Sleep, Jimmy Tarbuck, Lesley Chrowther and a handful of other celebrities whose names escape me. The reason for remembering these 3 people in particlar was because they were an absolute hoot to be in the company of. Not so much filling up with fuel next to them, it was more a case of filling up with food at the garage when they came in to pay for their fuel.
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did leslie crowther have the roller? the one he nearlly killed himself in?
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did leslie crowther have the roller? the one he nearlly killed himself in?
He was in a roller, but not sure if it was the one he crashed.
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Tiger Woods he was in a dented cadillac with two blondes in the back and a golf club sticking out of the back window.
That wasn't a Golf club!
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Not a filling station but-
(this might only work if you are Scottish and of a certain age.)
Had a bust tyre and stopped off at a local tyre fitters one winter evening. While they were looking at it, I had a bad cup of coffee and watched the other customers.
A large white Mercedes van came in, middle-aged male driver got out, and there was something familiar about him.
He walked up to the counter and asked the youngish assistant if he could have the exhaust looked at on the van.
"Couldnt you just get Paladin the Magic Lamp to fix it?" came the reply from me laddo, only to be met by a stony, prolonged stare from our potential customer. The assistant disappeared vanwards sharpish.
It was then I placed the face- STV's very own Glen Michael, presenter of kiddie's favourite show "The Glen Michael Cavalcade". Which could never show Casper the Friendly Ghost for some reason.
tt
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Stopped for a coffee at the Little Chef at Tabley while on a day out on the bike. Corrie's Kevin Webster and his family came in for a meal...had a RAV4. ( not to eat !).
Looked a nice family.
Ted
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Sort of a filling up story.... when I lived in Chorlton as a student, the local pub used to have then Corrie actor Kevin Kennedy (Curly Watts) propping up the bar. Didn't matter what night we went as a house of students he was there.
One friend once got an item of post that had the address as our street followed by Chorlton and the Wheelies and it got there. But then Cosgrove Hall was in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Manchester.
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Little Chef - in Kinmel Bay North Wales - Billy Connolly - I was eating with a friend old BC looked on enviously as we had an off the menu array of bacon whilst he was stuck with some sort of breakfast - friend was well connected to the manager....
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I've just remembered - years ago I was at a Taunton filling station when I realised the guy filling the Merc next to me (his wife's family had the dealership IIRC) was England left-hand batsman and the most successful Somerset cricket captain in history, Brian Rose. At the time he was sidelined with a damaged wrist, so I caught his eye and said 'How's the wrist, Brian?' To my amazement he said 'Not too bad now', walked over and took off the bandage to show me!
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Not a fillng station, but in April 2008 I was in a traffic jam on the M1 when a large Range Rover caught my eye in the next lane.
The number plate - which I'm not going to publicise - combined with the privacy glass was rather a give-away.
There were two people in it; the front passenger seat was occupied by HRH Prince William...
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Not me,but a mate of mine worked in a petrol station in Newcastle many years ago.
He claims a slightly 'pimped' looking van (black) pulled up to refuel, the back doors popped open and out spilled Lemmy from Motorhead (the rest of the band remained in the van!)
Lemmy then bought loads of stuff from the shop while the van was refuelled. Must have been their early tour bus!
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Once spotted Mike Rutherford (Genesi/Mike & The Mechanics) sitting in his huge gold coloured Merc coupe in a traffic jam on the road past the Hammersmith Apollo. I was with a group of friends on our way to the Mike & The Mechanics (vague motoring link?) concert.
We spotted him, he spotted us then tried to cover his face in his hand believing we might 'mob' him.
Anyway after stopping for a burger we started to walk back to the Apollo as the doors were about to open and coming towards us in huge strides was Mr Rutherford. He made some comment about having to walk otherwise he'd be late for the concert. We all just stood around with our mouths open and eventually mumbled something along the lines of 'see you later'.
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Nothing to do with filling up, and I've posted it before, but driving through Mayfair at 2 or 3 in the morning back in the sixties in my incredibly gutless Citroen Bijou I pulled up at a red light next to a silver Rolls-Royce V8 Silver Cloud. When the lights changed it gave a very heavy sigh and took off pedal to metal. I puttered up to the next red light and looked at the driver out of the corner of my eye. It was the Welsh singer Tom Jones, then enjoying his early success. When the lights changed it took off again in the same way and I puttered after it. After three or four red lights, it had probably used enough petrol to take my car to Oxford and back. But I couldn't help feeling a tiny bit of envy along with my scorn for the popster's driving technique (and him a former lorry driver too). You had to drive my car like that, but it seemed a bit gratuitous with his car.
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was,nt tom jones the one who admitted on top gear to being banned from driving whilst in his younger carrear days?
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And you'd be surprised how arrogant some stars can be. Still motoring related (hang on)....
My uncle has always had classic cars (still has an XK150) and had a Austin 7. This was then used in a TV drama on BBC I think (That Uncertain Feeling). No major stars etc. But we got to watch all day and eat out of the mobile catering unit. Most stars queued up like anybody else. One in particular felt he could push in the front of the queue. How rude.
Maybe he thought being in a few Star Wars movies (Wedge) made him special?
www.imdb.com/name/nm0493200/bio
Edited by rtj70 on 10/12/2009 at 16:42
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You're right - some of the ones I've met are right ignorant gits - notable exception was Sting - who I met in very drunken event in 1980 - totally down to earth and took over serving after the bar-man keeled over.
Never filled up next to anyone famous - bumped into Bryn Terfel in a Tesco in Wales one day.
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My brother on the other hand has visited Sky Walker Ranch and met George Lucas quite a few times. And been to Star Wars film premiere's too. I gather George Lucas is not so ignorant or rude. Most of the premieres are for charity too.
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and eat out of the mobile catering unit. Most stars queued up like anybody else. One in particular felt he could push in the front of the queue. How rude.
Was an extra in something a couple years ago. We were told that the Talent always got fed first, then the crew, and then the extras got what was left... Perhaps he was just late?
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Mr Jeremy Clarkson. I met JC at Friar's Wash Shell station (near M1 junction 9). He turned up in an AC Cobra with his mate Adrian (A. A.) Gill in a flying helmet and looking other worldly. I said to JC "Left the Ferrari at home today, then?" and he replied with a fey toss of his head "Yes, I wanted to get the wind in my hair". So cute.
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Sort of a filling up story.... when I lived in Chorlton as a student the local pub used to have then Corrie actor Kevin Kennedy (Curly Watts) propping up the bar.
Rob, Curly lived in Chorltonville. My SWMBO worked in a shop in Didsbury. One summer day some one collapsed in the road outside the next door pub.
Panic ensued and the shop door was firmly shut on the incident....someone had said 'It's Curly Watts '...The other girl in the shop had misheard this as ' Killer Wasps ' !
You heard it here...strange but true !
Am acquainted with a few Corrie stars, Deirdre was regular in the shop and my son worked in the theatre where quite a few of the younger ones started. They were round at ours quite a lot. Mostly nice people. Cain Dingle a good pal of the lad's. Not a cyclepath in real life !.........sorry, can't spell psychopath !
Ted
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In the early 1990s at Gretna Services on the old A74 next to me at the pumps was the one and only ace keyboard man Rick Wakeman. Brief chat about Yes and his solo albums top man very chatty and not at all I am a rock star leave me alone.
More recently at Charnock Richard on the M6 stood in the queue and in front of me was rugby legend Bill Beaumont on his way back to Poulton Le Fylde i would guess. Again happy to pass time of day with others in the petrol station.
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Adrian (A. A.) Gill
I used to have a photo (it was my desktop wallpaper for a while) of the three lane queue for a toll both on the Autoroute coming back from Le Mans 2005. From the windscreen of our hired VW Transporter, third in the queue, the eight or so cars in front of us had a combined value of somewhere north of £1 million (Ferraris, Bentley, Spyker, Maserati IIRC) and just off to the right was Mr Gill's brown 1970s Rolls Royce, parked, with the bonnet up. This breakdown made his weekly column, as had the purchase of said R-R.
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never filled up next to anyone fmous or relatively well known (to my knowledge) but i was Steve Davis's (snooker player) driver for a week back in the late 90's.......and yes those rumours of him being less then intresting were not exagerated
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>>rugby legend Bill Beaumont
That's just brought back a long forgotten memory. I once almost ran over Bill Beaumont when he stepped off the kerb without looking as I was turning into a road in Chorley town centre in a Leyland National. As I recall, he used to have a textile business in the town.
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In the 1960s I filled up my stomach with beer at the same table as Alf Francis who at the time was Ferrari's F1 chief mechanic.
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If we go on to spotting famous faces when filling up stomachs with beer....... I have spotted
Richard Harris in the Coal Hole in the Strand.....
Gareth Hunt in the pub next to the Victoria Palace
Kenny Jones ( Drummer with the Who ) seen in the same village pub in Surrey where I was a regular ( André Previn with wife Mia Farrow were visitors to the same pub although I never saw them there) . He said that he never got recognised there until after he appeared on the Morecambe and Wise Show.
Charlie Watts having a quiet drink with other musicians in the bar / restaurant at the Hawth in Crawley where he was playing a gig with the 'ABC of Boogie Woogie.' They appeared recently with Jools Holland . He was quite happy to have his photograph taken and sign autographs when people approached him.
To those of you interested in Boogie Woogie ( Jools Holland style )I would say that it was one of the best gigs I have seen in years ( and I have seen plenty ) - check out their Piano player Ben Waters on You Tube....
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I think I once sat next to a cousin of the wife of a famous actor's window cleaner's milkman.
Can't remember the name of the actor, though !
Ted
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I think I once sat next to a cousin of the wife of a famous actor's window cleaner's milkman. Can't remember the name of the actor though ! Ted
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ok you win.....aint no way any of us can beat that
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"ok you win.....aint no way any of us can beat that"
I'll give it a go shall I.
I bumped into an F1 driver in a brothel in Prague about 10 years ago (no I couldn't possibly say who it was, nor will I give any clues)
Had a pee next to Peter Gabriel and Ken Hom (not at the same time)
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>>I bumped into an F1 driver
That could be quite a clue in itself. ;>)
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Recent sad demise of Edward Woodward brought back a memory from years ago in London when parking was easier. Swmbo and I were blocked in by a Mini and while I was dithering two blokes rolled up and asked the problem. One was Mr Woodward himself who said three of us can bump this Mini away and lo and behold it worked. Real genuine man.
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I danced with a man who danced with a girl who filled up next to the Prince of Wales
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...next to the Prince of Wales...
Was it open at the time?
Which reminds me of the skiving docker who was nicknamed Prince Charles - because he was always in the Queen's Arms.
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Was that like the Liverpool Docker who used be called the Diesel fitter.
He would always be nicking clothes for his wife saying ' Diesel Fitter '........
I'll get me anorak and skis.......
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Not filled up next to but driving west on M4 one night came up behind Mini registration "PAM 1" and said to my wife that it was probably Pam Ayres and it was-got a big smile as we overtook.
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It was in 1972 or 73 and I met Patrick Moore at Killington Lake services on the M6. He was having a meal with a young boy of about 11 or 12. After he left we passed him on the M6 and in his Morris Minor Traveller.
A couple of years later I was in France and stopped to let Richard Attenborough cross the road. He had just left a boulangerie with an armful of cakes.
Edited by Robbie on 22/12/2009 at 15:28
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Met and chatted with David Dimblebore outside an Aberdeen hotel 18 months ago. He asked me for a light for his fat cigar. What a nice bloke he was!!
Oh, and I haven't filled next to anyone famous but I once emptied next to the fat bloke from Hi Di Hi...!!
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Paul Scholes in a Pizza Hut in Oldham a few years back when he was probably one of the most famous footballers in the country. He was there with his wife and child(ren). Everyone respected his privacy whilst he and his family had their meal, then everyone else's children queued for autographs when they'd finished - he happily signed the lot. Down to earth no-fuss bloke was the impression he left on me - it wasn't a scene that you'd imagine certain other footballers being part of.
Motoring link was that I'd clocked the BMW 645i in the car park when I'd arrived - the first one I'd seen as they were new back then. Sure enough, it belonged to him.
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i bumped into Henry Cooper whilst "filling up" my coffee mug in the canteen at work , must of been nearly 25 years ago..i was working at a tesco store that had recently opened and they were always having celeb guests to promote the store...also met...anita dobson, percy thrower, the gladiators, oh and the honey monster !...and not forgetting tom baker, but thats another story
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