The Red Anorak Story

I was living in Leeds, the year was ‘95 or ‘96, not sure which, and I had a friend staying with me for a few days, nickname of Pele, it was summertime and the weather was lovely. I had friends in Leeds called Crazy Tony and his equally nutty girlfriend Debbie who was charity shop grunge before the term grunge had ever been invented and she was a pretty wacky dresser. The Chapeltown festival was on at that day so Pele and I decided to go and ring Tony to see if he and Debbie want to come with, no Tony doesn’t but Debbie and her friend do. So we stop off at their house to meet them and we all get the bus to Chapeltown. Now Debbie is wearing one of the least attractive red anoraks that either Pele or I have ever seen and we all joke together how we’ll certainly not lose each other while she’s wearing that. When we arrive we have a wander round seeing what’s going on round the circumference of the main area where people will see the bands from. The area where the festival takes place is a pretty big piece of land which has a sort of one-sided bowl shape and sitting on the incline of the rise on one side is a good place to sit and watch over the rest of the crowd which I’d reckon to number about 3,000. On the far, flat side of the land are all the stalls where we can get food and drink. Anyway, after we’d all had a wander the day is getting hotter and Debbie asks me and Pele if we’ll take care of the red anorak while she and her friend go find a toilet and we agree at that point that if we get parted the incline of the bowl is a good place to find each other. Pele and I realised after not too long that we were being lumbered with the red anorak and that the girls were clearly not coming back in a hurry and we had itchy legs to go for a wander ourselves. Anyway we’re seeing the sights on the run up to the bands coming on and we ourselves have gone to look at the stalls and get a Cockspur rum and coke and by now we are cursing the damned red anorak, it’s become an issue and we start joking about losing the thing but hoping that we’d bump into Debbie to get rid of it, but, of course, we don’t. Eventually, Pele and I decide to settle on the flat grass area to wait for the bands to come on, this is quite some way from the incline (I’m pretty poor at judging distance/size so I can’t really give an impression of how big this area of land is). Before anything is happening on stage Pele says he’s off for a pee and do we want another drink so away he goes, leaving me sitting on the ground with the pesky red anorak. He’s not been gone more than 10 minutes when a bunch of steamers cut through past me. I’m referring to the name steamers as in these kids who steal by running fast through crowds nicking what they can en route. Of course, I didn’t quite get that was what they were until I looked and saw, bloody hell they’ve taken the red anorak. It was a real double-take moment, I can’t quite believe it’s gone. Pele then turns up shortly after and immediately sees what’s not there (such a horrible colour I’m not surprised) I’ve got to say we were not heartbroken, I said to Pel not to worry Debbie clearly has her purse with her but knowing her her house keys were probably in the pocket. Actually, truth be known, we were both relieved to be rid of it and it’s not as if it wasn’t a charity shop jobbie, I’d get her another one but god knows I probably (happily) would never find a colour like it. Some hours later it’s time for us to go, we’ve occasionally wandered over to the incline but hadn’t seen Debbie or her friend since we got there so went there one last time but still couldn’t see her at all but we decide we must get the bus and we’ll go to her house, see Tony and explain about the anorak which we were now feeling guilty about, not least as we had joked about it being stolen before it was. So we’re sitting on the top of the bus fretting about what Debbie’s reaction would be and when the bus stops at the next stop and who should get on the bus and come up to the top deck but Debbie – wearing the red anorak. Pele and I are open-mouthed. Debbie says “well, you didn’t take very good care of my coat did you?” It turns out that she and friend were sitting on the slope wondering where we were and these kids steam past her dropping the red anorak in her lap, and, yes, her house keys were in the pocket. So I don’t know what the odds are on this happening, I guess you’d have to know the piece of land we were on plus the size of the crowd but we were a long, long way from the slope and there were a lot of people there. So not only did the red anorak get delivered to it’s owner but also Debbie & friend could have got on any bus as they came through frequently. I hope you’ve enjoyed my coincidence.