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Your support makes all the difference.Sir Cliff Richard, who led Wimbledon fans in a singalong in 1996 during a rain-break, refrained from doing so this year. Asked if he planned to sing on Centre Court again, he said he didn't think so
I won't say much about it now
except that we got
wet, or rained on and anyway
someone told someone
that they were leaving if
there was any chance
that Cliff would be singing or
doing a spot
running away seemed like a
good idea at the time
a small price to pay when you
say, God no,
it sounds like his voice. So we
went. Like a shot.
And the next thing I knew
was this rush
towards the exit that is: away
to the hills
except that there are no hills
in Wimbledon
and swarming back in - to
avoid the crush
we could not help but hear
old bachelor boy
strutting a medley of his
more popular hits
which boiled down to an all
too familiar mush.
There were other people
there too but they stayed
a coachload of ladies from
Stoke-on-Trent who
arrived that morning with
their hampers, flasks
umbrellas and butterfly-
frame glasses, had paid
and were only too glad of the
entertainment.
Having seen Heathcliff that
Christmas, they sent him
a little Edwardian toilet-roll
cosy that they'd crocheted.
Three years on, we walk
round in circles, to buy one
Independent from the on-site
newsagents - no luck
so we make do with a
Telegraph. You know how it is.
Then slither back to our seats
to read Boris Johnson
the rain still pelleting down
on to our rented cushions
but this year he did not sing,
not a single old song
although we feared that he
might well have done
I mean: as if there weren't
enough things to blight
the summer as it is, the
bloody rain, traffic jams
the price of everything and
the bloody rain
I'm sorry that's twice I've
said that - you're right
We have to live in dry-
mouthed fear that we'll be
exhorted to sing a reluctant
mumbling "Livin' Doll" with
four-hundred rabid blue-
rinses and pop's first knight
*In the style of the Poet Laureate's `Reading the Elephant'
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