Just About Me 36

 In January 2003, a lady came into Raffles and put £1,000 behind the bar, this was to ensure that her daughter and her guests had a great time at the young ladies 21st birthday after party drinks gathering, the next night a group of about twenty young people came in, all of them were incredibly polite and either shook my hand or inthe girls case kissed my cheek, at the back of the group were 3 forty something year old men. I thought it a bit strange that these 3 were hanging out with the youngsters but hey this was Raffles and I had seen funnier things. My receptionist was quite excited about one of the young men, I thought she fancied him and was making fun of her, She told me that it was Prince William, I said not to be silly, I would have noticed him. So off I marched into the main bar area, as I opened the door the 3 older guys all stood up as one and gave me the once over, and there at the bar talking to an oriental "lady" was indeed Prince William, the party was for his now wife Kate Middleton, He was a really nice young bloke, he came and sat at the door for a few minutes and we had a chat, he supports Aston Villa so we shared a bit of banter, at the end of the evening the group wanted to walk along the Kings Road, this really pissed the 3 older guys off as they followed in there Range Rovers, a memorable evening by any standard.

So now we lived in Carshalton, Surrey. It was 2003 and things were looking good for us, I was still earning extremely good money, so I spent another £10,000 on improvements to the house, so in about a year I had laid out approx £30,000 in cash, this was fine until April 2004, I was called to a meeting with the owner of Raffles and another guy, they told me that they were going to renovate Raffles and that it would reopen in a different way, they said I would no longer be the doorman and that I was to be a greeter, in hindsight I should have refused and told them that I was happy with my terms and conditions and that I would remain in my doormans role, but I sat there and thought that as a 41 year old man this maybe the future for me. So I accepted, I was told to have a holiday and come back in June for the reopening. I then hired an enormous villa in Portugal for a week and the 3 of us escaped to the sun. We had a great time, our own pool, electric gates, orange and lemon trees in our own garden, Laura even got her own job in the local pub, she was only 4 but every night she would pick Lemons and go behind the bar to serve the locals. And then came the grand reopening of Raffles, they had given my job to two very flash young yuppie girls with clipboards, about 6 miserable looking eastern european security men complete with ear pieces, and me standing there in my dinner suit and black bow tie. People were turning up who came there on a regular basis and these 2 silly girls were refusing them entry, I stood there in disbelief and was told to mind my own buissnes by the guy in charge, we had quite a row but I was by now a bit concerned, then something happened that made up my mind, a young bloke in ripped jeans and trainers tapped me on the shoulder "Hello Paul mate" he says, he was a bloke who I had known since he was about 12 from the estate I had lived on, nice enough fella but this was Raffles the home of Lords, Ladies and Millionaires. If this was the future then I was most definatly the past. I came home at 2am and I am not ashamed to say that I sat in my front room and cried my eyes out. After about 17 years and doing the door single handedly with only a handful of troublesome incidents, I would not allow any, I was a washed up old has been. I never went back to Raffles and I never will, I am just not interested and truly believe that my time was the best time.