My 21st Birthday Party . . . The Untold Story!
Everyone has a milestone birthday, and my 21st party was one I will never forget. I had a ‘Hollywood Theme’ and dressed up as Richard Gere in the film ‘ Officer and a Gentleman’. The venue was the Goodwood Baseball Club and no expense was spared.
The filmstrip style invitations were amazing and Mum gets full credit for these. She also lashed out on my white Naval uniform costume which was hand sewn by a local tailor, complete with brass navy embossed buttons and Officer’s hat. The uniform was matched exactly to Richard Gere’s in the movie, complete with rented white patent leather shoes. I actually started to believe I was “Richard Gere” whenever I had the suit on, the only thing missing was his beady, ‘too close together’ eyes:-).
We hired Geoff’s Gourmecues to cook a lamb on a spit and bought kegs of beer direct from West End brewery. We hired barmen and waitresses, as well as the best DJ around town at the time. Unfortunately the DJ was in demand and double booked me and never turned up, but did send a replacement at the eleventh hour. This was a major stress for me and was the first time I ever “went off” at someone for letting me down so badly, especially on the biggest night of my life.
My friends looked amazing that night and totally got into the theme and we almost had 100% of the people dressed up. We had plenty of gangsters and glamorous ladies, plus a family friend in a wheelchair came as ‘Ironside’, his son Peter came as a Hare Krishna. Little did we know he actually was one, and ended up designing one of the biggest Hare Krishna temples in the world over in India. My friend John came as the Texas Chainsaw massacre, complete with mask, fake blood and a real chainsaw that he had roaring when he entered the building…it certainly set the tone for the party.
We partied for hours until the DJ played one of his favourite obscure tunes, and single-handedly cleared the dance floor. During the speeches John removed his costume to reveal a tuxedo underneath and proceeded to rattle off as many embarrassing stories as he could. Happy Birthday was then sung and I decided to cut my birthday cake with the roaring chainsaw which sent smoke everywhere and was a great laugh. People still tell me today it was their favourite way of cutting a cake ever.
The night flew by and it seemed I had only just finished greeting everyone, when people started to leave and say goodbye. I was really anxious because I felt I had missed my own party and forgot to enjoy myself, and worse still ….forgot to drink anything!. John and my mate Steve said ” We can fix that” ….they grabbed a full bottle of champagne took me to a back room and I nailed the whole bottle, so I could catch up to everyone else. Unfortunately I never drink champagne and the fact that I ‘skulled’ it did not help matters. The next thing I remember was getting in the front passenger seat of Dad’s brand new white Mercedes Benz 280E. I remember Mum saying to me “Are you feeling alright Dear?”. I dismissed her by saying ” Yeah, Yeah of course Mum, I’m fine!”. Less than 30 seconds later… I was not fine. Things started to spin and I was ready to vomit. Mum yelled at me “Don’t be sick in the car, open the window!” I followed her instructions, but this car had electric windows and they didn’t go down as quick as I needed, and what occurred next was simply horrifying. I then proceeded to violently vomit all over the inside of the car window, the white lambswool seat cover, and all over my brand new white sailor suit.
I remember waving goodbye to the last of my friends, as my head was spinning and the vomit was running down the half open window. Unfortunately the vomit also travelled down into the door cavity and made quite a job for my Dad who had to get the hose out at 2am to try and remove the mess and disgusting smell out of the car. Classy!
Once again a memorable event, and for so many different reasons.
