The “Now 30% Bigger” article, published in the “Ringing World” told the full story of the Extension Project. I had no idea what was about to happen. One evening I had a phone call from a Mr Edd Baker, a news reporter from Bournemouth. The Ringing World was just one of many specialist magazines delivered to his office for Edd and his colleagues to browse through looking for stories.
Edd was a bit of a specialist in “all things small” and thought that the lightest ring of 8 was newsworthy. The idea was to sell the story to a national paper like The Mail or The Express.
After an interview over the phone he sent round a photographer. The photographer took many pictures, and seemed impressed by what he saw.
For all that work I only saw a one inch square in The Sun; it would appear that no-one was that interested and all their work was for nothing.
But someone at BBC South Today had seen the few words in The Sun and were keen on coming round to film us. They originally wanted to do a LIVE broadcast, but I managed to convince them that it wouldn’t work. On 16 September 2004 a cameraman and Amanda Hussain (interviewer) spent a couple of hours with us filming their report, making it look like a live outside broadcast. To our surprise the interview went out that evening, so there was little time to pass the word around. Since then I have been stopped by many people who say they saw it, and how calm I looked. That couldn’t have been further from the truth!
Then The News (Portsmouth) did an article which was published on 2 October 2004. The same article was also published in The Journal (a local free paper).
I was then referred by The News to Tango, who were running an Award that they thought would be right up my street.
I checked out the Tango Website, http://www.gu-orange.com/tangoawards/index.html> (take a look yourself!)
“So if you’ve got a mad hobby, an oddball obsession, a crazy-ass collection, we’d like to hear from you, you could win £500”
“Are you odd? Fanatical? Obsessive? Cheeky? Good. That’s what we like. We want to award you. You deserve it. It’s people like you that make this country great”.
After checking out the previous winners, I knew without being too presumptuous that I was in with a chance. I sent off my application and within a week I had a phone call from Tango telling me that I had won!
On Sunday 7 November 2004 I was presented with my Trophy and a cheque for £500 and the promise of a year’s supply of Tango. I was also photographed, filmed and interviewed again for television. The outright winner of the Awards has the special prize of a day out with Vic Reeves and a visit to a video shoot of one of Tangos wacky television ads. Fingers Crossed!!
“Forget the Oscars. Flush the BAFTA’s down the bog. The only awards that count are the tangos-fruit flavoured trophies given out for those who excel in good British quirkiness.”