I arrived home from work at about 3.40am on June 25th 1999, to be greeted by the site of my pregnant wife in a kneeling position and clinging on to the bed head, she was obviously in pain, so I sat down and had a bowl of cornflakes and a cuppa, not really, but I bet your now laughing, She got ready and off we drove to
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. She was examined and hooked up to a heart monitor and we waited, about 8.50am I popped out to buy a paper and have a crafty cigarette, I got in the lift to go back and guess what, yes the lift got stuck, it was only stuck for five minutes or so but a bit panicky.
On Friday 25th June 1999, Our daughter arrived by Caesarean section, Laura Chelsea Elizabeth Allen, she was born at 9.35am and weighed more than my turkey did at Christmas, a whopping 8lb 12oz. I was in the delivery room, and if I am honest I only really remember Mandy laying there shivering, and this small bundle being carried across the room. I was like a lost sheep just standing there and Mandy had to tell me to go and have a look at my daughter, she was so small to me and wrapped up in a shawl with a woolen bobble hat on, it was luckily multicolored and not red and white with United written on it. In no time at all we were all transferred to a ward, a nurse was busy assisting Mandy and Laura so I did what any right minded man would, I buggered off home for a kip, I vividly remember going to the underground car park to retrieve the car and stopping stock still in my tracks as the realisation set in that, this small baby was totally reliant on this big lump and her mum, we would have to teach her so much and become totally responsible adults, easy for Mandy but for this then 42 year old man it would be a challenge.
We were really lucky and received some outstanding baby gifts, in fact we received at least one gift a day for the first 38 days of Laura's life, from places as far away as the USA and Australia via Family, Friends and a lot of Raffles regulars, we also received some money that we have put away for when Laura is older.
Also in 1999, a friend of mine from Raffles, Lara Levy, when I first knew her she was Lara Matthews, anyway Lara was working for a lady from an advertising agency, they were in the process of making a TV advert for Nicorrette, these are stick on patches to help you give up smoking. Lara asked me if I fancied taking part, the company provided a full course of patches and a video camera to keep a video diary of yourself giving up smoking, they would then feature you in a TV advert for the product. I jumped at the chance and duly collected my supply and the camera, I was smoking up to 50 cigarettes a day, I used the patches for a couple of days, on the Saturday I was going to Leicester to watch Chelsea play, I slightly overslept and had to run to Stamford Bridge to get on the coach, Chelsea drew 2-2, it was not until I got home from a non smoking day, that I realised that I had forgotten to apply the patch. That was that I never used the patches again, now to get around the problem of the video. I basically grew a very large amount of stubble, filmed myself talking about the patches and the effects of them, then I changed my shirt and did the same, then changed it again, had a shave, took the shirt of etc, at he end I got Mandy to video a blank wall whilst I talked about not smoking, at a given signal she swung the camera around and videoed me with patches all over my face saying "Giving up smoking was easy, but how do you give the patches up", they never used my tape, but as I write 12 years on I have never had another cigarette. A big thank you to you Lara Levy.
