FAB1 in Caithness - A Noble Cause

As I start writing this it is 9:34 in the morning.  Normally I would still be waking up, or on Tuesdays and Thursdays I would just be starting work…  Today I have been up hours and six hours ago I was just leaving the house.  The reason for this insanity was, of course, the FAB1 trek of 4 celebrities travelling from Land’s End to John O’Groats.

Judith, Clemency and I journeyed off to be there at the end of the road when Chris Evans, Gary Barlow, Brian Cox and James May made it over the finish line.  And we weren’t alone…  We weren’t even the first people there, despite arriving almost and hour and a half before the pink Rolls Royce!  There were all sorts of people there: men and women; elderly people and young children; and there was a real sense of eager excitement for the 90 minutes that we stood waiting.

It is true that the temperature was just a little bit above freezing and that after the first 15 minutes my fingers refused to acknowledge their own existence, but a few stomping dances and cheek-to-cheek hugs kept us warm enough to stay standing out there!  There were pleasant exchanges and greetings as people met friends there.  John O’Groats was busier than I have ever seen it!  One friend commented on how crazy it was that she had seen more cars on the road at 4:00 in the morning than she normally sees six hours later.

And everybody was there for a common purpose.  To meet the celebrities, of course, but also to be inspired.  To see their role models, these figureheads of society in their own rather separate fields, stand up for something that they believe in.  We discussed - we are people who discuss everything - why driving from Land’s End to John O’Groats was a worthwhile thing for these people to do; whether it would not have been better for them to have just donated a portion of their salary to Breast Cancer Care.  But charity is not solely about money.  Without such ventures as this, such fun outings, many people do not even know that charities exist.  Awareness and events are crucial to the work of any charity as much as one off donations.  They are two sides of the same coin.

When at last they did arrive, after some very contradictory timekeeping announcements, there was much excitement and lots of cheers from the crowd.  It was about 5:30, the gulls were circling wondering what on earth was going on and the numbness was beginning to seep through our whole bodies!  Here we realised, as Gary Barlow did the rounds of the barriers autographing papers and pictures, that we were ill prepared and so paper was hastily found.  We didn’t get an autograph…  We didn’t really mind too much, but for one little girl who had been there with paper in her hands for longer than us, it was too much and she burst into tears there and then!  I don’t know whether I felt more sorry for her or poor Gary Barlow who was trying to sign as many things as possible.  He didn’t get much help from James May, or Brian Cox who had unashamedly announced that he was going back to the car to keep warm… Meanwhile the rest of us shivered to the point of almost spasming.  Still, one must respect honesty, and he was clearly just not cut out for Caithness weather!  Chris Evans, it must be said, had already greeted the crowd, rushing round shaking hands before he had to jet off to Inverness to present his Breakfast Show on Radio 2.

Excitingly I did get part of a firework hitting me on the head.  Knocked some sense in?  Possibly, but you got the distinct impression that John O’Groats, with its weather and early dawning, was not what had been expected.  We travelled back with a confused mix of excitement and anti-climax.  But the bottom line was not whether or not we got an autograph on a piece of paper, had a picture taken of or with one of these celebrities, but what they managed to produce from their fan base for the very worthwhile cause they were there to represent.  They set off to raise 1 Million over the year but they have raised at least a million in regards to awareness for this charity, something so many people are affected by, either directly or indirectly.

And for that, I take my hat off to them…  Even in the numbing cold Caithness weather!!!  Well done, lads!