The Dismemberer of Didcot

Back in April I attended a weekend writing retreat with my writing group, and on the way home my friend Lorna and I got lost on the winding roads leading out of the little village we’d been staying in. On our way we came across an abandoned golf cart on the edge of the woods, and Lorna suggested we each write a short piece about the golf cart and compare later. This is mine… 

"Come on nana, tell uuuuuuuusssss one!" Riley asked as his nan tucked him and his brothers into bed on Halloween night. It might be 2082 but scary stories on Halloween were still a must. 

She thought for a moment, her memory wasn't what it once was. "Did I ever tell you about the abandoned golf cart in the woods?"

The boys eyes widened at hearing a new story. Nana was the best at those.

"No? Okay here goes.

One day when I was about your age I was visiting my nana in the countryside."

"Was it Halloween?" Interrupted Alexander, the youngest of the three boys.

"It was!" She lied. It had actually been in April. "It was a beautifully crisp Halloween morning. Frost on the ground but the sun was high in the sky."

"My nana wasn't very well so I'd gone into the fields to pick her some flowers, and some berries to make jam. It's what we always used to do."

"Like how you always bake with us when we come visit you?" Suggested Ethan, the oldest of the boys.

"Exactly. Anyway, I was merrily making my way along the narrow pavement on my way back to Nana, when I noticed an abandoned golf cart on the edge of the woods."

The boys shared a look of excitement and intrigue.

"What did it look like?" Asked Riley.

"It was rather strange. I remember it looked rather battered, like it had seen better days. And that there was a toy bat pinned to the back, and a fluorescent jacket on the seat. 

I called out 'hello' to see who it belonged to, but no-one replied."

"Then what did you do?" Ethan prompted her to continue.

"I went to investigate!"

They shared a look of shock. 

"But it might have belonged to a serial killer!" Said Riley, already a little scared for his nan.

"It might. But I had to know!

I walked down the slight slope into the woods. The thicker into the trees I got, the darker it became as they started to block out the sun. 

I was looking for any signs of movement. At one point I was concentrating so hard that a squirrel managed to frighten me by rustling some leaves behind me.

I told myself I needed to be a lot braver if I was going to solve this mystery."

The boys were all huddled together, holding their breath. 

"I carried on towards the small stream that I could hear, but when I got there I couldn't see or hear anyone. 

I was really disappointed so I decided to follow the stream until it opened up into the nearby lake. That wasn't far from my nana's house so I could just cut back up through the field and be home by midday."

The boys had started to relax, realising that their Nan wasn't in immediate danger.

"However, as I got closer to the lake I could hear a sound. The best way to describe it would be a kind of plopping of something being dropped into the water. I thought maybe someone was playing pooh sticks so I hurried along the rest of the way."

The boys started to look concerned again.

"As I reached the edge of the trees I stumbled on a fallen branch hidden by the leaves on the ground. 

And there, right in front of my face when I fell, was a finger."

The boys all took in a puff of breath and a chorus of "ugh" followed.

"A finger? On it's own?" Asked Alexander, suitably horrified.

"Yep. Now obviously when I saw it I screamed. But then I saw in the distance there was a man with a sword tipping a bag of bloody body parts into the water!"

The boys shrieked in unison.

"What did you do?" Asked Riley.

"I ran! Through the woods back to the road, I hoped I could outrun him, or at least have some trees to hide behind if he got near. I wasn't even sure if he was following me. All I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears of my heart pounding, and my frantic breath as I ran."

"You must have made it home?" Offered Ethan, in an attempt to make the younger boys less scared.

"I did."

"What did the man look like Nana?" Asked Riley?

"He was wearing waders, do you know what they are?"

Ethan nodded, the other two boys shook their heads.

"They are what fishermen wear to stay dry, they're a bit like dungarees but you wear them to go in the water."

The boys nodded, enthralled.

"And he had long straggly grey hair and a beard."

"So you ran back to the road." Asked Ethan.

"Yep. And I kept running all the way back to Nana's house. When I got there I was covered in mud and I'd dropped all of my flowers and berries. My mother was furious that I'd ruined my nice dress, and worried my nana, but when I told them what I'd seen they were even more cross with me."

"Why?" Asked Alexander.

"Because they thought I'd made it up to excuse my appearance."

"But you didn't!" Shouted Riley, defending the honour of 7 year old me. 

"That's right, I didn't."

"So what happened to the man?" Asked Ethan.

"It turns out he was a local fisherman who used to fish by throwing left overs into the lake. He used off-cuts of meat, fat, carcass, whatever he had, to get the fish to come into the shallows and then he'd spear them."

"With a sword?" Asked Riley. Both confused and impressed. 

"It was a spear. I think my scared brain saw a shiny blade and assumed it was a sword."

"But what about the finger?" Asked Ethan.

"It was never found. So either it was something else, and again my scared brain saw what it wanted to see, or..." I left them hanging. 

"Or?" Asked Riley.

"Or the dismemberer of Didcot is still out there!"

"Ooooooh." Said Ethan to scare the younger boys.

"Off to bed now you three." She said as she tucked them in. She turned off the bedside light and pulled the door to. Lingering outside to listen.

Riley moved his pillow to get comfy and felt something icky on the mattress. When he pulled it out he saw that it was a gummy finger. 

"Naaaan!" He said feigning being unimpressed, but she could tell she'd got him for a second there.

What It Really Means To Meet Your Heroes

I've written before about meeting my various crushes and how it was simultaneously amazing and terrifying, and in some instances a little disappointing, but after this weekend I felt the need to put my thoughts in order again.

I have also written previously about one of my first loves, River Phoenix, and about my friend Miranda who killed herself in 2008.

Somehow this blog post is going to squeeze all of those things in... and more besides.

This weekend I went to my third London Film Comic Con. The first year I attended was the 30th Anniversary of Back to the Future so I of course went dressed in cosplay as Marty McFly.

The second year I attended I got to meet my current crush Jeremy Renner and went dressed as Black Widow. 

This year I made a fairly last minute decision to attend the con, and an even more last minute decision to buy a photoshoot with Alyson Hannigan.

Now to explain the backstory.

If you've read my post Valentines Day you will know that Miranda and I met through an ad she placed in Film Review Magazine asking for a penpal. We started writing to each other around 1997 I believe but it may have been a little earlier as my memory is shockingly bad. 

Anyway, shortly after we became friends Buffy The Vampire Slayer was announced as a new TV show that would be coming to our screens. Knowing I was a huge fan of anything vampire related Miranda assumed I would be thrilled. But as a massive fan of the Buffy movie, I was less than impressed. Mortified I think would be closer to the truth. 

Miranda made the decision to watch the show anyway as she thought it looked good. This would have been fine if she hasn't insisted on constantly telling me how good it was. It soon began to put a strain on our phone calls and letters because she LOVED it so much. I honestly can't put it in big enough caps how much she raved about Buffy. "Just watch one episode, it's REALLY good, YOU'LL REALLY LOVE IT!!!" she kept telling me.

I wanted to throttle her. "It's nothing like the film, they've changed everything, I am not watching that rubbish!" I told her in return.

This went on for two seasons. Until one day I caught the tiniest bit of the episode Innocence. God dammit Miranda. I had to admit that it was brilliant. 

Miranda was one to gloat. So my grovelling apology was well received, but boy did she not let me live that down. I bought the first season and caught up with what I'd missed, and shortly after Miranda decided I should meet her friend Gem who was also a Buffy fan. Gem quickly became one of my most treasured friends and so I now owe Miranda another debt of thanks that I can never repay.

Then in June 2000 Miranda heard that Alyson Hannigan, one of our favourite stars of the show (Willow) would be signing box sets of Buffy in the Virgin Megastore in London. All you had to do was buy your box set there on the day and join the queue of goodness knows how many people.

It was only the second or third time we'd met, and again only the second or third time I'd been to London. I remember missing my train and calling Miranda in a flood of tears and telling her I wouldn't get there in time, but somehow I made it to London and joined the queue.

We sat outside the store for hours just talking about various things, but mostly Buffy. We took turns going in and buying the box set and then relieving the other person in the queue. Eventually the queue started moving and we made our way through the store and down some stairs and then suddenly, there she was. Our first glimpse of someone we absolutely idolised, who we watched on TV every week, and then here she was in front of us, we could see her with our own eyes. Miranda being Miranda she said very loudly about Alyson being tiny and I remember her shouting "look at her tiny butt". 

We were shaking with nerves and had brought along a gift for her. A Marge Simpson Pez. The episode Lovers Walk had just aired in the UK where Oz gives Willow a witch Pez, but we couldn't find a Pez witch so we had to make do with a Marge Simpson Pez and just hope she would understand.

Finally it was our turn to get our boxes signed. We went up together and gave her the gift and she exclaimed "I love The Simpsons!" so we never told her the real reason for the strange present. Then a picture was snapped by Miranda's dad of us with Alyson. I foolishly presumed that he would take one of Miranda and Alyson and then one of me and Alyson so I tried to make myself invisible in her picture by hiding behind her. Then when it was my turn he'd disappeared, so my only photographic memory of meeting her was a picture you can't really see me in.

Aly was lovely enough to sign a second item for both of us even though "it wasn't really allowed", and it always stayed with me as the best first meeting of one of my heroes that I could have had. They say don't meet your heroes, and I can see why. We all have off days, and tired days, and grumpy days, and if you meet someone you have idolised forever when they are having one of those days, it's not going to leave you with a very good impression. But I say if you can lower your expectations and remember that they are human too, you definitely should meet your heroes because sometimes they will be so lovely that it stays with you for 17 years.

Fast forward those 17 years and you get to yesterday. I took along the photo from 12th June 2000 and I asked Aly if she would mind holding it in our new photo. One where you can actually see me. She of course obliged and I still have the overwhelming impression that she is just the loveliest. 

 
I also got to meet Wil Wheaton yesterday who if you have read this blog post, you will know was one of my first ever crushes alongside his friend and co-star River Phoenix. I've never met anyone who worked with River so I was glad that I got the chance to tell Wil that I was a big fan back to his Stand By Me days, which he thanked me for and said I was sweet. I got his signature on one of his books, and a bonus fist bump. So yesterday was definitely a good day.

Today I have been packing up my things in order to move house again. As I put my signed Buffy box, my newly signed Wil Wheaton book Just A Geek, and my photo albums of memories into various boxes, I reflect on the life that I have lead that has brought me all of these wonderful adventures, and it makes me so grateful to my friends who have been with me when I have had meltdowns, or have jumped excitedly with me when I have met my heroes. Really they are the true heroes of this story. So thank you for being there. Here's to many more.