Let me transport you back a couple of decades. More, in fact. Let’s go back 25 years. A young Gav is living in Stevenage, a town about 30 miles north of London. Not a lot happens in Stevenage. In fact barely anything happens at all. It does have a hobby store in the indoor market, where young Gav will purchase his first Citadel miniatures, but that’s another story. In addition to toy soldiers, Stevenage has satellite cable TV. More importantly, the Thorpe household has satellite cable TV.
Amongst the incomprehensible German soap operas and French dramas, there is Super Channel. Super Channel will be responsible for creating two loves in the young Gav’s mind that will last for the rest of his life.
I remember well getting up early on Saturday mornings for one thing and one thing only. At 7am every Saturday, while less TV-endowed youths were raised on shite cartoons like Gobots, young Gav could watch Robotech. Thus was created my interest in anime, and in particular mecha and anything involving giant robots smashing each other to pieces.
Saturday evenings were just as important. Young Gav would leave the rest of the family in the living room and watch Super Channel in his parents’ room on the second TV in the house (and a pretty crappy TV it was too). What so enthralled the young Thorpe? Pro-wrestling! Watching the likes of Hulk Hogan and Andre the Gant whilst practising my elbow drops on my parents’ bed… Amongst all these heroes and villains in spandex and tights, there was one particular ’stable’ that fascinated me: The Hart Foundation. Though they dressed in pink, they were still very cool. Jimmy ‘Mouth of the South’ Hart as their manager, the incomparable Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart and Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart kept me engrossed and entertained in those formative years.
Hit the fast-forward button and we find a much older and world-wearier Gav standing with his friend Adam in a queue outside Waterstones bookshop in Birmingham city centre. He has a ticket numbered 266. That means just 265 people stand between Gav and the legendary Bret Hart.
The Hitman was signing his autobigoraphy. For three hours we waited. It passed quickly, as we were stood next to a gang of entertaining guys and we happily chatted away about the Hitman, the current wrestling storylines and live shows we’d attended. Kudos to the chap who had brought his warp-around shades that Hitman had given him at Earl’s Court sixteen years earlier! It was wrestling nerdville, and it was great.
Adam, not complaining about the cold for once
Then we were at the front of the queue and the great man was there, signing away and posing for photos. I took him my book, shook his hand and simply said, “Thanks for everything, Bret.”
Look! It's the Hitman's autograph!
Unfortunately, Adam’s camera work is even more shonky than mine.
Hitman and Gav, honest...
After some incidents involving Birmingham’s one-way system, a trip up the M1 to drop off Adam at home (during which I nearly ran out of petrol), I got back 7 1/2 hours after I’d set out. 7 1/2 hours to spend twenty seconds with the Hitman? Worth every second. Awesome!
The best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.
Reminder: I’m running a competition to give away signed novels and anthologies – see my post here.
I never realised you were such a fanboy ;-P
I was more of an Ultimate Warrior fan myself – although I didn’t watch it often. I’ve never seen Robotech – I guess that means my geekometer rating must measure much lower than my peers.
I don’t care for anime, but I love Robotech. In fact, I just finished a tie-in novel, Zentraedi Rebellion, yesterday. I wouldn’t recommend it.
fun peek into young gav’s life
I was there too!
I was tickled pink – no pun intended – when Bret chose his match with the Undertaker at the Birmingham NIA for his DVD.