Apologies to those who're read this before, but I've been asked to post this story again! Warning: This story contains bad language, please don't read if easily offended. It's long, but true. Please bear with me, it's worth it! The story begins at work in February 1993. As head of a small company in Platts Common, we had a request from a distributor in Turkey to send an engineer for training. The engineer was to stay 2 weeks – 1 week training with us, and 1 week in Birkenhead with friends. As usual it was normal to entertain visitors in the evenings by taking them for meals etc. However, people are always reluctant to play their part as it can be hard work, often in broken English, trying to entertain someone from overseas. I was struggling to get volunteers, so in the end I had to pull rank and insist on the relevant people sharing the task. The engineer was to stay at Ardsley House hotel, so most evenings would be spent there. On the Monday morning our Sales Manager set off to Manchester airport to fetch the engineer, and he arrived back about 11am. Our collective faces dropped! Out of the car stepped a 21 year old blonde engineer called Nuray. She was stunning. Simply stunning. I immediately reminded the staff how reluctant they were to get involved in the entertainment, and pulled rank again. I would now be taking on the task for the entire week myself, with the utmost enthusiasm. The first day's training went well and Nuray checked into her hotel. I was due to meet her at 7 for dinner but got there at 6 after the closest shave ever, including my ear drums and sinuses, and a severe overdose of aftershave. We had a lovely dinner in the (now sadly defunct) restaurant there, and chatted in very broken English, as predicted. Nuray's English was very poor, but she wanted to learn and I patiently tried to help her. This was to backfire spectacularly later. It transpired that Nuray had 4 personal objectives during her trip to England – she wanted to go to a night club, she wanted to drive on the “wrong” side of the road, she wanted to get drunk, and she wanted to go to an English football match. When I informed her I could arrange all those things, she fluttered her eyelashes and.........errr.......well, anyway, we set off to Japanese Whispers in my car with Nuray driving. In Whispers she then proceeded to get drunk, but I obviously couldn't, having the car with me. She started to sing the song “No Limits” over and over again, and then asked me to get drunk with her. I tried to explain that I couldn't drink and drive, but her answer to that was to come back to the hotel and get drunk in her room. This is all true, honest! So back to her room we went, bottle of wine in hand, and at this stage I'll miss out a couple of days and nights in the interests of brevity......... So, by now it was about Wednesday, Nuray had checked out of her hotel and moved into my house, temporarily. Yes, honest! Very unprofessional I suppose, but we were both single adults. There remained one final objective for her – the English football match. A quick glance at the fixtures revealed we were playing Luton Town away at Kenilworth Road, so on Saturday morning we set off to Luton. The plan was to go to the match, then afterwards drive to Birkenhead to drop Nuray at her friends’ there. Fast forward again, we were standing behind the goal and Nuray was fascinated by the language, which although it was English she couldn't understand. For example, “Ian, what does ‘Gerrim in‘t wall bottom’ mean?” There were 10 minutes to go, and we were leading 2 – 1. @JLWBigLil will confirm this in due course, purely from memory. Then Neil Redfearn tripped one of their players in our box. Penalty! In his frustration, the bloke in front cried out “Tha f***ing shĭt Redfearn”. Nuray immediately asked what this outburst meant. Not wanting to translate exactly, I toned it down by explaining that what Redfearn did wasn’t very good, not very nice. She accepted this, they smashed home the pen, the match ended 2 – 2, and we set off from Luton to Liverpool. On the way in the car she repeated the phrase, “Tha f***ing shĭt Redfearn” now and again, seemingly quite proud that she’d improved her English a bit more. We arrived at Birkenhead at her friends’ house, but Nuray wanted to go out with me for one last meal. A sort of “farewell” meal, as we’d not see each other again. After thinking it over for a few nanoseconds, I agreed. We went to a lovely little place on the banks of the River Dee near Thurstaston. The restaurant was crowded and intimate, with tables crammed in, and the food was delicious, although Nuray wasn’t used to it and didn’t seem that impressed. Eventually the young waitress, about 17, came over and asked Nuray if her meal was OK. And then it happened. “No” she said in a loud voice, smiling sweetly, “it’s f***ing shĭt”. The place went silent, my head went into my hands, the waitress started crying, and all eyes were on us. The poor little waitress ran off in tears, and a well dressed man appeared out of the kitchen and approached our table. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you both to leave” he said, with some justification. I looked up and said, “We’ll gladly leave, and I’ll gladly pay the bill, but will you give me the chance to explain?”. “Ok then, but it’d had better be good” was the response. The other diners by this time were transfixed by the conversation. They’d all stopped eating, and were staring at the two of us. Poor Nuray still didn’t understand what it was all about. I then proceeded to relate the entire story as above (but missing out the bit about Nuray moving into my house). The place was in uproar. The mascaraly-challenged waitress was now reduced to tears of laughter, along with the well-dressed head waiter and most of the other intrigued guests. The waiter then agreed that we could stay, and disappeared, only to return with a bottle of Moet and a request for the story to appear in their local paper, which it did a few days later. Having had some champagne, I could no longer drive, so one of his staff drove us home in my car and got a taxi back. What a day! I know it’s a f***ing shĭt story, but it’s a funny one nevertheless.
That will take some finding, no mobiles back then so it was one of those film thingies. If I find it I'll post it!
