Huw Edwards

My wife and I, whilst in Sydney, Australia a few years ago, decided to visit The Barrier Reef. I managed to get flights to Cairns. Being Welsh and naturally a romantic, I tried to book a passage to an Inner reef on a sailing boat and sail back romantically in the moonlight! Unfortunately, they were booked up so we had to travel on a motorized catamaran. We decided to go snorkelling and as it was very hot I suggested that my wife wore a golf shirt of mine for protection. I obtained the snorkelling gear and went back to fit it all on. We then walked to the platform to enter the water. As we were proceeding I heard a voice shouting in Welsh " Mae'n uffern di beth rwyt ti'n gwnaed yma?" which translated means "What the Hell are you doing here?" The questioner, a Mr. Roy Jones, was standing on a gantry above us, and was a retired retail pharmacist friend of mine whose shop was about 2 miles from where we lived but which he'd sold about four years earlier. I had not seen him since the sale of his shop. It transpired that he and his wife had visited Alice Springs and, instead of leaving when they were due to, had decided to spend an extra day there sightseeing before going to the Barrier Reef. They too couldn't get on the boat they wanted so settled for this one. The other strange coincidence was that I had played, by invitation, in a sponsored golf tournament with the new owner of his shop, one of the sponsors, who had kitted his team out with golf shirts with the name of the shop on the breast pocket i.e. "Sarn Pharmacy" and my wife was wearing that shirt. The old owner was astonished, not only at seeing me, but to see the shirt with the name of his old shop emblazened thereon. Fortunately, I was with my wife and not someone else's!!