Run-in with Sir Ran

Georgie pitched a random question.  “Are you and Mary free down our way on 18 July or 31 July?”  Last year about this time, she and Gav had thoughtfully (and generously) arranged a day out at Blenheim Palace.  This time, I suspected a family evening meal invitation, probably courtesy of some coupon offer.  It happened that Mary and I were due to pick up new flat keys locally, and we could well be free.  Georgie didn’t elaborate.  Ten days or so later she texted a photo of some Derngate Theatre tickets for An evening with Ranulph Fiennes. 

There’s something of a history behind this.  I met the great man at a Heating and Plumbing trade exhibition in London’s Olympia, quite a few years ago.  In an effort to boost attendances, the event organisers arrange celebrities to drop in at some point, and they promote accordingly.  I’d got fed up with manning our Atmos stand, and repeatedly explaining why we offered 28kw and 32kw units but and not 35kw ones.  I sneaked off round the back of the exhibition displays, and found Sir Ran in the sparsely-attended seminar area.  He supplied entertaining anecdotes and we had a chat afterwards.

Then Jack bought me a copy of his (to my mind overpriced) Beyond the Limits book for a birthday present.  Soon after, Danny – who met Sir Ran in a similarly serendipitous way to my own – kindly bought me a second copy.  Finally, Dave bought me a CD set of after-dinner talks for Christmas.  

My 70^th birthday was looming (2015).  Lizzie wished to get me something ‘a bit different’.  She’d already offered to sponsor me to climb Kilimanjaro.  It happened that I was due to be in Kenya with Multiply that year.  I was very tempted.  She sent a pair of Crucible Theatre tickets for An evening with...  After much umming and ahhing about other commitments, I passed them to Viv and Kat.  They had a great time.  Having mentioned Kilimanjaro at the merchandise table, they presented me with a third – autographed – copy of Beyond.

 Years have passed since our last visit to Derngate.  We had to park some distance away because of the roof-box fitted on the car.

Knowing some of the blokish references in the CDs, I wondered if the evening would leave Mary blushing.  But she enjoyed every minute of it.  Best was the, “Then he began to whinge,” story.  With slow deliberate movements across the stage, Sir Ran looked as though age was catching up with him.  Maybe it was the sum of skin grafts on his feet.  His achievements have been monumental.  He remains a remarkable once-in-a-generation figure.

Later, we had our own little adventure on the way to spend the night in Coventry.  I took the Nissan Leaf on from work, while Mary kept our Zafira.  The electric car charging point at Kings was inaccessibly blocked in by wheelie bins.  We all have our challenges. Thank you for the treat, Georgie.

Rukundo visits

The UK Multiply conference finished back in May.  But Rukundo, over from Rwanda, has been taking the long way home.  He went to the States to check out a Christian community group there.  He had also booked more appointments in the UK.  So, Wednesday evening found Len and me heading for Gatwick to collect him, en route for his weekend in London.  “He got this ridiculously cheap ticket, via Iceland,” Len explains, “On an airline I’d never heard of.”  Rukundo borrowed another passenger’s phone to make contact.  Eventually, Len found him wandering around Arrivals.  I remained in the pick-up car-park: £8 for the privilege of 40 minutes.  “I changed at this airport,” Rukundo narrated, “I can’t remember its name - and they told me the country has a population of only 400,000.  Before, I didn’t even know it exists!”  Okay smart guys, try reciting the names of the 50-odd countries in Africa to match Rukundo’s knowledge of Europe.

The admirable Stanmer Park Tea Rooms

Mary and I see a welcome opportunity to take him to Stanmer Park.  Here we can visit the garden centre and treat ourselves to some lunch at the tea rooms.  Rukundo lost nearly a hundred of his family in the Genocide.  I'm like a big uncle to him, and feel the responsibility.  I bump into him, cereal bowl in his hand, as I head off for my morning jog.  “Thought you’d be in bed a bit longer than this?” I propose.  “I woke up and didn’t know what time it was.  My phone needs charging, and I left Cincinnati at four-o-clock on Tuesday, so have no idea…”  He smiles, and waves a continental two-pin plug.  I surrender my phone charger to him.  The main purpose of his return to Brighton is to catch up with Jane.  She has been over to Kigali already, and is planning another visit.  She’s coming round to cook the evening meal, and they’ll have time to talk.

We head off for Stanmer Park, and make the garden centre the first destination.  But we find it’s now all closed up, and only the large tropical glass house has any plants.  Over the past year, Len has been doing a horticultural course at the extension college on the site.  Later, he explains that the whole facility is being redeveloped, including reinstating a large water catchment feature.  

Outside the Tea Rooms we find an empty table with a welcome umbrella (I guess more correctly, parasol).  After ordering, we’re able to spend an uninterrupted couple of hours.  First off, we try to frame how overseas visits to keep in touch may look, now that the National Leadership Team has closed down Multiply.  “There’s talk of getting together in Nairobi,” Rukundo explains.  “If you guys are going to arrange local Network events anyway, without us paying for everything, it shouldn’t be too difficult to just come and be with you,” I offer.  I ask how the newly-recognised group in Goma, DRC, is getting on.  “They just need to meet up as pastors, under One Heart and Soul.  They don’t really need the kind of vision I want to share.” Rukundo reflects, with mixed feeling.  

I feel awkward about all this.  I’d like to take Mary on any future trip, and she’ll need special consideration.  There are plenty of other Jesus Fellowship folks involved with Rukundo’s ministry, whereas I’d planned that Ghana would be the next visit I’d make.  We moved on to other uncertainties of the future.  Rukundo has picked up on the loss of confidence in our community foundations, and it affects him.  I joke that it’s biblical for apostolic figures to end their days ‘in chains’ writing letters.  I figure that’s little consolation for either of us.

Len arrived later, after yet another hospital visit to his Mum

Driving home, we pick up some mango juice and fiery ginger beer – two of his favourites.  Tim has arrived from Birmingham.  Malcolm has gone to the Darvell Bruderhof for a few days, it’s all change.  We realise it’s probably better (and cheaper) for Rukundo to travel by coach to London, because of a second day of rail disruption at Victoria.  In the morning, I try to sort out his mobile phone.  It's a twin-sim Techno, using a vodaNL sim; but he had a Lycamobile top-up card, and nothing would connect.  Perhaps letters are the way forward, after all.  We drop him off at the National Express terminal, behind the Albion Hotel.  You’d never find if you didn’t know it was there.

Mary calls me down for lunch, determined to feed me up on dark green leaves for the sake of my blood condition.  I’m feeling withdrawn - quite tearful – I just may never see Rukundo again.  And his parting words, “God has a future for you”, I find difficult to process.