Fifteen minutes of fame and one final zebra

28 September 2016

A couple of weeks ago I had an email from Chris Hitchings, a journalist working for Radio Solent. He’d seen my post about finding the boundary stone in Lord’s Wood and wanted to know more. We had an email conversation about the stones and how I’d been searching for them and he said he’d like to interview me. This sounded a little disconcerting as I’ve never been one to crave the spotlight and at first I was inclined to decline. When Chris said he thought someone out in radio land might know where the two missing stones were though, I decided a touch of public humiliation was worth it.

After some discussion it was decided to do two interviews, one for the Radio Solent Facebook page and another live one in the studio. As if it wasn’t bad enough having my voice recorded, the first would include some video footage. When he mentioned filming me the words ‘a great face for radio’ popped into my head and I very nearly changed my mind. In the end though, the possibility of finding out exactly where those last stones were won out.

Yesterday was filming day. We’d agreed to meet at the car park on Weston Shore and film near the first stone I found. Originally I planned to walk down there but the weather had other ideas. It was damp, grey and windy. As Commando had a day off work, he drove me  there and waited with me until Chris arrived. He spent the time productively skimming stones while I crunched along the shore picking up pretty shells and stones and looking at the lichen on the rotting fence posts.

There was drizzle in the air and, across the water, Fawley was barely visible. Any thoughts I might have had of looking sophisticated and well groomed had been swiftly dealt with by the wind. When Chris arrived I was windswept, wet and decidedly bedraggled. With a wave goodbye to Commando we set off along the shore path. Even knowing exactly where it was, we managed to walk right past the stone and had to turn back, which at least demonstrated the difficulty of the task at hand.

With the drizzle laden wind buffeting us Chris asked me to tell him a little about what the stones were and how I found out about them. While I did, he filmed me on his iPad. Despite my nerves, he did a great job, especially with the editing. The whole thing was posted on the Facebook page by the afternoon and Commando insisted on playing it over and over while I stuck my fingers in my ears.

Today I had to be in town early for the live radio interview. The one consolation to having to leave the house at a time when I’d normally be sipping hot chocolate in my PJs was that I wouldn’t have to hear myself on the radio. Hopefully most of the people I knew probably wouldn’t either. Surprisingly, CJ got up early too and decided to come with me. He probably didn’t want to miss his mum making an idiot of herself.

It was cold and damp as we made our way along the embankment. The berries on the white beam, in autumnal shades of orange, were still dripping with dew. The tide was very low. We stopped for a moment to look across the water. A series of little boats have begun to appear beside the embankment recently. Sadly, a massive pile of rubbish has built up beside them and, while I don’t really blame the owners for trying to avoid mooring costs, I can’t help feeling angry that they’re making a mess of the riverside.

The zebras have gone from town now and, as we walked up through the parks, it was sad to see the empty plinths and to know they were gone for good.
“I wonder why they took the zebras and left the plinths?” CJ said.
That was a question I didn’t have the answer to. Puzzling about it we carried on to the BBC studio on Havelock Road. This is where the radio broadcasts and local television programmes come from.

Over the years I’ve walked past these studios countless times but I’ve never been inside. Feeling a mixture of curiosity and fear I pressed the buzzer. Chris answered and, within a few moments he was at the door letting us inside. CJ sat in reception quite happily when he spotted the fancy coffee machine and I was led through to an empty studio, along with a young lady dressed in a military uniform carrying a guitar case. After a brief chat Chris left us to go back to the studio the programme was currently being recorded in. We could see him through the glass between the two studios and hear the programme unfolding.

The young lady was singer songwriter Louise Jordan who was there to sing a song from her new album No Petticoats Here, inspired by the women of World War One. It was interesting watching her tune her guitar and chatting to her about her research and the sacrifices women made back then. Then Louise went through the curtain into the other studio and I was alone. Of course I could hear her interview with Julian Clegg and her beautiful singing. Suddenly my story about the boundary stones seemed rather boring by comparison.

Eventually it was my turn to go into the live studio. As Chris led me down the corridor I began to worry that my mind would go blank when Julian started asking me about the stones, or I’d make a complete idiot of myself. Julian was lovely though and immediately put me at my ease. He seemed genuinely interested in my hunt for the boundary stones and, hopefully, I didn’t sound too much like a mad woman.

Back outside again it all seemed like a strange surreal dream. CJ and I walked along Havelock Road towards Marlands as if this was just another day. Even though CJ had already had coffee in the BBC studio waiting room, we decided to head for Costa before we walked home. The first thing we noticed as we went through the doors was the lack of zebras. As we made for the stairs though we got a bit of a surprise. There in the window of the Zany Zebras shop was Ticket To Ride, the zebra we had not managed to tick off our list before the trail ended.

The shop was shut, the metal shutters down, but we could see other zebras inside.
“I wonder why they didn’t take these ones with the rest?” CJ said.
“I have no idea but I’m glad they didn’t or we wouldn’t have seen Ticket To Ride,” I replied.
We were both glad to see he seemed fully recovered from being unceremoniously ripped from his plinth and his swim in the Itchen but, with the shop shut, we could only get photographs through the glass.
“It’s still early,” CJ said, “maybe it’ll be open once we’ve had our coffee?”
A look at my watch told me it was still before nine o’clock. After such an eventful morning it felt far later. Now the zebra trail had officially finished I doubted the shop would open at all but we were going for coffee anyway so it was certainly worth popping back afterwards to check.

Ticket To Ride was sponsored by the bus company First Bus and painted by Cara Sandys. His stripes are roads with big red City Buses running along them. It seems a terrible shame so few people got to see him in all his glory.

After a brief interlude where we enjoyed a skinny latte and some gingerbread animals that reminded us of Marwell, we walked back to the balcony to see if the shop had opened. Sadly, it hadn’t.
“Never mind,” I told CJ, “we have one more chance to see him and the miniature zebras we missed next month at the Ageas Bowl.”

By the time we left Marlands the chilly morning had turned into a glorious sunny day. We strolled down through the precinct towards Bargate looking sadly at all the empty zebra plinths as we did. All through the summer we’ve had some fun walks searching out these colourful creatures in much the same way we’ve been searching out the boundary stones. A little treasure hunt of one kind or another certainly makes for some interesting walks but now even the boundary stone hunt is coming towards an end.

We walked through the Bargate arch talking about what else we could search for to keep us amused through the winter.
“Maybe we should create our own trail,” I said. “Hide things for other people to find.”
“Like Geocaching,” CJ said, “but what would we hide and, if we did, we wouldn’t have the fun of finding it.”
“Maybe we should just take up Geocaching instead then. I wonder how hard it is?”

It was lovely to be able to walk through the Bargate arch again after months of it being closed for repairs. Half way through CJ spotted a piece of rusted iron  sticking out from the stone wall.
“It looks like something a gate might have hung on,” he said.
“Well there would have been gates here, so perhaps it is,” I agreed.
Below it was an old, rusted pipe. We looked at it wondering what it was for.

We passed the side rooms, peering through the bars and wishing we could go inside for a closer look. Then we spotted two pieces of ancient graffiti on the stones themselves. We couldn’t make out what either said or how long they’d been there.
“Perhaps there are enough treasures to find when you look closely, without a treasure hunt,” I said.

Reluctant to go straight home now the day had turned out so nice we wandered down to Holyrood. A peek through the door of the bombed out church showed someone had decorated one of the memorial plaques with flowers. Of course I went for a closer look. It was the stone marking the Merchant Navy men of the Falklands War and I couldn’t help wondering who put the flowers there?

By the time we walked back through the parks on our way to the bridge and home my fifteen minutes of fame had more or less been forgotten. Later, when I walked up to the village to buy milk I was surprised when the chirpy checkout lady called me by name. Although I’ve been shopping in the same shop chatting to that lady for years now I didn’t think she knew may name.
“I saw you on the Radio Solent Facebook page,” she chuckled when she saw my puzzled look. “I thought, ‘I know that lady.’ You were brilliant. I hope you find all those stones.”
Andy Warhol once said ‘in the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,’ obviously today it was my turn. It was an interesting day but I’m glad it was only fifteen minutes.

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