The organiser of the Star Wars Fan Fun Day annual event at Burnley FC [Neil Livesey] asked the 99th Garrison to support him again at this event. Neil had arranged for the event to have more space at the Turf Moor this year and had celebrity guests such as ALAN HARRIS (BOSSK), CHRIS PARSONS (4-LOM and K3P0), CHRIS MUNCKE (CAPTAIN KHURGEE), PETER ROY (REBEL TECHNICIAN),LAURIE GOODE (STORMTROOPER AND SAURIN), NICK GILLARD (STUNTS), MIKE EDMONDS (LOGRAY), KATIE PURVIS (MATERNAL EWOK), MICHAEL HENBURY (EWOK), PAUL MARKHAM (IMPERIAL OFFICER) booked for the day.
I decided that this event would be my first official outing for my new Memah Roothes costume and so at approximately 09:20 hours I started to get ready. After putting on my make-up and both me and Jim fighting with the lekku [in the ladies] to get it onto my head, I finally made my appearance at about 11:20am! We almost reached the point where it was a case of "sod Memah - get the Biker Scout on" as the lekku really did not want to 1] go on or 2] stay on! But perseverance and bit of swearing paid off in the end.
The effort it took to get the costume on paid off as Memah was very well received, including one little boy who decided to have his face painted blue so that he could be like me and kept telling his family that he wanted to be the blue lady. He had his photo taken with me and would not let go of my hand! Awwww! My first fan!
The lekku was very, very tight though and although the weight of it did not cause me a problem, I did have to have regular breaks every 40 minutes or so, just to take the lekku off and have a 5 minute breather. Fortunately, after the initial struggle to get the lekku on the first time it went on relatively easily every time after that.... it was all about the angle of approach!
There was a lot of the 99th Garrison at this event, including Ian, Marie and Nigel who had travelled down from the North East and Mick and Steve who had travelled up from Milton Keynes. We also had an extra guest as well as Stuart Arnold joined us doing various characters from his vast catalogue. I wish him all the best with his appearance on Britains Got Talent this Saturday 14th May. He deserves a lucky break!
GOOD LUCK STU FROM ALL AT THE 99TH GARRISON!!
