Sunday, 6 May 2012

An amusing case of mistaken identiy

This story has been brought to you through "Story-telling Sunday" invented by Sian Fromhighinthesky  Why not pop over there after you have read my story and see all the other stories






Well many moons ago when Mobile Phones had only just peeped over the communications horizon, I was living in a little lancashire town called Rochdale, famous for Gracie Fields and Lisa Stansfield,  Oh yeah and being the Home of the CO-op  or as the bridge into Rochdale declared with pride Rochdale Home of the COOP, (apparently not enough space for the -  ).


Anyway while I was living in this grand Metropolis I met a gentleman, called Mike, he was an electronics engineer with a passion for Public Address systems (the way you hear bands and groups when they play live at venues fondly know as PA systems)  and he as a hobby ran a pretty successful PA system hire company in his spare time, so naturally when we got together I too discovered a Passion for PA's and became rather good a engineering and soldering,  well this tale involves the end of a long gig and the drive home with the NEW mobile phone.


Obviously two people are not enough to set up a whole sound system for a gig, so we there was some qudos to being with the Crew, we would enlist help from the youth of Rochdale and the surrounding areas, one of which being Heywood, where the Infamous "Day Release" lived, (you see no-one gets referred to by their real names in PA, it much cooler to have a nick name, so we had OgrI, Baby Dave, and Day Release).


The REAL Justin Hayward
Usually there were 3 people on a gig, but this particular gig had been all weekend and we needed all hands on deck, so it was a car and the truck with the gear to transport the crew, and at home time, I took the car with the furthest away member of the crew and Mike took the truck with the other two who he could drop off on his way home, with Day Release in Heywood, being his last stop.  Now he was in a truck full of gear and I was in my car so naturally I got home first, and five minutes after I walked in the door the phone rang, (it is important to remember here the mobile phones of yesteryear) it was mike, on his new mobile from the truck, - Obviously I was initially concerned that something might be wrong, however he soon put me right with a cheery, "hi babe, I'm JUST IN HEYWOOD"  well for those of you who know me well know, will know I have a sarcastic and sometimes to sharp sense of humour, so i responded thus, "NO DARLING, YOUR MIKE DAVIES,"  he however was not as smart as his profession would have you believe and he did not see that I was being sarcastic and pretending that I thought he was the POP Star JUSTIN HAYWard, of the MOODY BLUES, so he simply repeated "Its Me babe. I'm JUST IN HEYWOOD, saying it much slower this time,  I simply couldn't resist and kept repeating to him that he really wasn't and that he was MIKE DAVIES, this as you can imagine went on for several more repeats, then he announced it must be this stupid phone and she can't hear me properly, and the shouted one more time for good measure I'M JUSTIN HEYWOOD, I hung up the phone and collapsed in fits of laughter.


When Mike got home, he walked in and said "could you not hear me" so i explained my little joke, and in fairness he took it well, but then decided to tell all our mates, not seeing that it made him look stupid, which I have to admit makes the whole thing for me MUCH MUCH funnier.  


As a result my family now play the JUSTIN HAYWARD game, so that when ever we hear a Justin Hayward track on the radio, we immediately text the others and try to be the first with the statement "I'M JUSTIN HEYWOOD"  and over the years on receiving these texts and having to explain my laughter to those around me, several of my friends and work colleagues  
now play the Justin Heywood game.  Please feel free to pass this story on and play yourself you would be amazed how knowledgeable you become on the back catalogue of said band and singer :)

My Family  Looking for Justin!