"Come on Eileen" or My Brush with Fame

You know when you tell a story enough times you sometimes can't remember what is really true and what you have just told so many times over that it might as well be? Years ago, decades actually, when I was 16 I spent a couple of weeks staying with friends of my parents at their country place just outside of London. I was horse crazy and the chance to stay in real "pony club" country was overwhelming. I was in heaven, a place with fox hunting, roundabouts, pubs where I could get served and members of Dexy's Midnight Runners.

That's right - the One Hit Wonders who rose to the top of the charts with "Come On Eileen." At least I think it was them. I remember hanging out with the kids who worked in the stable and they introduced me to to a motley-looking group of guys who were painting the house. We hung around flirting until they had finished for the day and then all went down to the pub for a pint. Ironically, I was old enough to drink in the UK but not to drive, which, when you think about it, is the probably not a bad way to handle teenagers. Let them drink their faces off and get it out of their systems before they can legally get behind the wheel.

But back to the Runners, the guys introduced themselves as members of the band and I thought for sure they were teasing me, the innocent girl from the colonies. They proceeded to sing a bit of "Come On Eileen" so I believed them. But to this day, despite the number of times of I have entertained friends with this story I am still not sure if it really was them.

Of course, on that same visit, I also took a couple pictures of Prince Charles foxhunting and those photos were the only cloudy ones in the negatives. Coincidence? I think not.