The Only Way Is Ely - 1984

All this reminiscing about Ely shops of old has made think about the past. From 1983 to 1986 I had the dubious pleasure of living at 25B Broad Street; the flat (bedsit) above the Hairdressers. It is now a swanky little development called 'Missin Gate'. Anyhow, the big window that looked out over Broad Street had a great view of Cherry Hill Park and the Cathedral (if I stood on a chair and leaned dangerously to one side) and in 1984 I had good reason to have a gander in the Park.

There, on horseback, were Al Pacino and Donald Sutherland. They were, as you would expect, surrounded by scores of film crew as they were making 'Revolution'. This is going to be fantastic, I thought. So, I got dressed, nipped across the road and stood at the edge of the set. And nothing happened. A horse neighed. Al and Donald disappeared while they messed around with cameras and stuff. People kept walking across the top of the hill and they got shouted at. Still not much happened. After about 3 hours I went to do something more interesting and made the decision to abandon my acting career.

I never went to see the film. Was it any good? It's probably most famous now as the film they show on 'Before They Were Famous' so that they can shout 'Look! Sid Owen off of Eastenders!'

Thanks for listening...er...also, if you were bought a Kindle for Christmas and have £1.53 to spend, why not type 'Cauliflower Drove' into Amazon and you can be delighted by 270kb's of typing that I bashed out a few years ago. It's a murder mystery comedy type thing which The Guardian described as '...the finest on-line Soap by far'.