“I’ll take the gig but I have to be home on the 16th” I told my agent Cindy when I was offered a few days on the Island Princess. The end date was important as I was picking up Lucy, my beautiful twelve year old daughter, on June seventeenth as we were due in East Anglia to see Madness on the eighteenth.
Lucy is always the DJ on any journey we make and for every three tunes she picks I get one. Once I picked Springsteen’s Born To Run. Lucy listened patiently for almost a whole verse until she exclaimed
“Why does he always have to scream?” A question she never repeated after I stopped the car on this occasion and made her walk home.
Fed up with her consistent disdain for my choices by The Boss I mixed things up and played Our House by Madness. A hit with Lucy who played their Apple Music Essentials album straight after, a dedicated fan now with It Must Be Love her favourite song.
I have been a fan of Madness since I was a teenager and was so happy that a band I loved was now being enjoyed by my girl.
Ooohhh, it’s not a spoiler but at the concert Suggs not only showed his prowess as a front man but had the crowd in stitches with his intros to each song.
“I was in a pub in Newcastle the other day and I bumped into that Johnny Depp fella, he was down in the dumps and I asked him what was up, he said ‘Oh Suggs, my girl’s mad at me…’ ” The band started playing right on cue. It’s why I love these guys. They are simply entertaining. Are there better singers than Suggs? Yes, plenty, but are there many with more charisma? No. When you go to a Madness concert Suggs makes you believe he is your best friend. For me that is charm personified.
I had been trying to see Madness live for years. My inconsistent schedule makes planning difficult and often tickets are not available last minute. I finally got lucky in 2019 when I secured two tickets for the band, who were playing The Roundhouse in Camden. A top band in a fabulous venue and I had two tickets for December the 16th. On the second of December I drop Lucy off for her ballet class and as I walk back to the car Lucy’s dance teacher Charlie tells me “Paul, you can come to the class next week, if you’re in the country.” I tell Charlie that I will be in the UK and I’ll be there. As I reach my car she calls after me
“Sorry Paul, not next week, the following week!”
“The 16th?” I ask in a tone that can only be described as resigned.
“Yep! Are you away?”
“No! I have tickets for Madness at The Roundhouse!” I tell her as I hold back the tears.
“Oh that’ll be fab, enjoy!” says Charlie, beaming.
I did what any dad would do and I gave away my tickets to that gig and drove down the M20 to watch my daughter fall over. A lot. I jest, of course, but the bitterness at missing that show is still there.
Now you know why I had to be home on the sixteenth of June.
I’ve never been nervous about getting home before; a lot of the issues that could arise between leaving my cabin and walking through my front door are way beyond my control. However this trip was different. I was terribly excited that I was going to see Madness, finally! I was going to see Madness with Lucy. My daughter was going to see her very first concert, a first she would experience with me – and firsts as a dad who is separated from his kids are few and far between. I was excited. We were excited. I think if you’d have asked Suggs, he would have said the whole band were excited.
Lucy is 12 and not like any twelve year old I have ever encountered. Last time I picked her and her big brother Thomas up for dinner she was in combat trousers paired with Doc Martin boots and a Led Zeppelin T shirt. She has the biggest heart of anyone I know and gave up ballet classes to become a St John Ambulance cadet. I could not be more proud of her.
I have headphones on as I write this in the Baristas coffee bar onboard Oceania’s Nautica cruise ship. I should come clean and tell you it’s December 3rd. 169 days after the concert. In my defence, as I was driving to the second airport of my journey home for the ultimate Daddy/Daughter day I made a bunch of notes. As I waited in a hotel before flight number three I wrote four pages, in longhand, some of which I can even decipher.
Summer Madness the EP is playing in my ears and the memories are brought flooding back.
Thetford Forest, me and my girl, adorned with newly acquired Madness merchandise, doughnuts and sushi in the backpack and a prime spot on the yet to be sodden grass. Stage is maybe twenty feet away and a huge screen just to our left. Surrounded by happy Madness fans we too are grinning from ear to ear but sixty odd hours earlier that wasn’t the case.
I was on the Island Princess and I had two flights ahead of me. A few days before I joined the ship I was told that getting home on the sixteenth wasn’t going to happen and after some “negotiating” it looked like I would get back at around eleven a.m. on the 17th. Believe me I came close to cancelling this contract through fear of letting Lucy down but after the recent gap year, money was imperative. And Lucy had recently acquired a taste for sushi.
The journey was long, frustrating, enlightening! It was full of revelations, some beautiful views, wonderful people. A ship, a tender, three taxis, a car ferry, three flights, a hotel shuttle, an airport express, a tube and a train. I actually jumped on my bike to cycle around the block to collect as many modes of transport as I could over a few hours. Thinking back now can I include the travelator?
The ship is docked in Olden and the nearest airport is a mere two and a half hours away. But we need to get to immigration first followed by a car ferry.
The views are immense, the taxi driver full of info and I’m sitting in a wonderfully comfortable Mercedes. I love Norway. I always have. It’s stunning, friendly, so flipping clean and expensive.
Many years ago I was overnight in Oslo waiting to join another ship. Having plenty of time I opted for the train to the city instead of a mortgage type fee for a cab. As I boarded the immaculate train I asked a gentleman sitting in the carriage where economy was.
“This is Norway, everything is first class.”
“Madness, madness, madness I call it gladness” Suggs sings cheerfully into my ears now as I sit in the Baristas and I can picture the video I shot with Lucy and I bobbing along to the song live. I am smiling. Broadly.
So many points of my journey deserve to be read about and it’s now I wish I could write as descriptively as Steinbeck but you know me, my writing style is more meandering than pictorial.
After a couple of hours in the car we arrive at a small town and smaller immigration office to be greeted by a Viking type giant of an immigration officer who takes my passport, glances at the blue cover and while smiling widely looks at me and says
“Aaahhh Brexitman!”
A hero the world never even knew it needed!
Immigration was a success, as was the car ferry journey across to airport number one. Sandane Lufthavnveien airport is tiny and abandoned. After waiting a couple of hours on my own the check in desk opens and from nowhere thirty seven passengers appear and I find myself at the back of the line. I don’t care, I am heading home!
I start to care when I show my passport and the check in lady disappears and returns to tell me I can’t board. It turns out my second connecting flight to Oslo has been cancelled but I shouldn’t worry there is another flight that leaves in three hours. But it’s a two and a half hour drive away. Patience tested I take a breath, during that breath I am informed they have booked a taxi for me and another passenger and, best of all, they’re paying. Norway! I love it.
On the way to Forde airport I grab so many pictures that the driver and Olav, my fellow passenger, openly laugh at me. They see this view all the time, they’re lucky to live where they live. My enthusiasm for their country reignites their own affection for it.
Using his phone, Olav keeps me up to date with the next flight and happily we find out it’s delayed. We both relax. The important flight in my head is the one from Oslo to Gatwick the next day. It’s looking good.
As the mist falls the pictures available to me are stunning. As you can see here.
Checked in and sitting with my book at the gate an announcement is made, in Norwegian. I have no idea what is being said so I glance at the faces of the others and see nothing in them that should concern me. That is until I see Olav turn and catch my eye with an expression that fills me with dread.
“The incoming flight can’t land because of fog!” he reluctantly tells me.
AM I EVER GOING TO SEE MADNESS?
Yep, you’ve seen the pictures I took as we drove to Forde. You had probably predicted the situation I would find myself in before I even reached the airport.
I love Norway and I love Norwegians. In the UK had that announcement come over the PA there’d have been uproar.
The next thirty minutes are a mix of nerves and laughs as announcements are made and translated to me by my new buddy. Until…
“Let’s go!” Olav cries.
And we are off. Bags in hand, running across to a tiny plane that has just landed. Just behind it lies thick fog. Giggling while I follow the crowd I take my seat, next to Olav, put on the seat belt and we start moving. The safety demo is the shortest I’ve known but we all pay attention and then we are airborne, flying through fog then mist before landing in Oslo forty six minutes later.
The rush Olav tells me was because of a brief gap in the fog. The plane landed and emptied itself of passengers, loaded the new guests’ luggage, the passengers and fresh snacks and took off again. All inside fifteen minutes.
I LOVE Norway.
Arriving in Oslo I am relaxed – enjoying fish and chips for a measly thirty seven quid, a complimentary Coke Zero and a £5 chocolate bar that looked interesting but turns out to be the most expensive KitKat ever. I’m reading – Len Deighton’s Horse Under Water – I am content. After a great sleep I am checked in and waiting for a BA flight to Gatwick. I don’t bother with the lounge access my Silver status permits me as I am acutely aware how long and arduous the immigration formalities are for us non-Europeans. Brexitman. Not a superhero.
We land at London’s Gatwick Airport right on time, the eGate works flawlessly and my case is the second one to hit the carousel – thank you Silver status. I head for the train, grab a ticket and board. It’s like it is all set up for me. I haven’t even had time for a coffee yet. One doesn’t bother with coffee in Norway, it is traditionally horrid; good coffee is available but it’s hard to find and it’s not even worth searching for at airports or in hotels.
Earphones are back in and Radio X selected; I am halfway into my train journey to London Bridge when I remember an interview Chris did with Suggs, who is always a fun guest. For ten minutes after the chat Chris just plays intros from various Madness tracks. All stunning. He gives out nothing but love for this band. They’re the archetypal British band, they’re fun, but now Chris is focussed on the musicianship and he is right to do so. Check out Our House. It just builds, starting with piano and drums before the bass kicks in followed by the horn section then – you know what, GET A GOOD VERSION AND LISTEN TO IT YOURSELF!
A choice is offered me when I get to London Bridge, a train to Strood leaves in eight minutes or there’s one that leaves in forty four minutes and affords me the chance of a first coffee.
It’s 11.02 on Friday the 17th of June and I find myself at my desk drinking a perfect Flat White that I made for myself. From landing at Gatwick at 8.38 to this spot in my favourite chair took two hours and 24 minutes.
I dismissed that first coffee, I took the first train. I am very excited to pick Lucy up in a few hours and begin our Daddy/Daughter weekend which will end with Suggs and the boys. They say a picture paints a thousand words so I’ll write no more and just let you see how much fun we had, see why I was so excited about seeing Madness but so much more excited to spend time with My Girl.