For me this triggered fond memories of our time in London during the early 1980's.
The introduction is a bit of a long story that I won't bore you with but connects back to our time in Canada. Anyway, after one, never to be repeated, night in the youth hostel in Earls Court we found our way out to Kilburn (which just happens to have strong Irish connections) and a fabulous squat which was mostly populated with English artists and students with one Ozzie. The artists were part of a sub-culture in London at the time that existed off the dole while practicing and developing their art
We ended up living there and met a beautiful and quirky artist called Annie who quickly became a close friend.
One wet, grey Sunday afternoon Annie invited us to help her fold and stuff Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) flyers into envelopes for a campaign that was coming up. With nothing else to do that day we agreed.
We followed her around to her friend, David Guinness's flat in Hampstead where we spent a very pleasant afternoon folding, stuffing and chatting to Annie and David.
When Annie introduced us to David she explained that he was one of The Guinness grandchildren. I didn't take much notice at the time as he seemed like an ordinary (if a bit eccentric) guy and the flat didn't seem much.
David was ex Guards and he regaled us with tales of his exploits in the army and of his travels in Eastern Europe which in those days was difficult to access for solo travel.
At the end of our task, David said that he would like to thank us for helping him with the pamphlets and said that we could use his Box at one of the West End theatres.
To be honest, I didn't really believe him at the time and we wandered off home, back to the squat. A couple of days later we had a letter in the mail, the very first one at that address.
When we opened it we found that it was a letter from a lawyer instructing the theatre management to give us access to the private box on a night of our choice.
We looked the theatre up in the papers (The Strand Theatre on Aldwych, now called the Novello Theatre) and found that the show was The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard and it was staring Felicity Kendal. We phoned the theatre and chose a night to attend.
When we attended we were delighted to find that the Box was almost within touching distance of the stage and came with included dinner and champagne!
We showed suitable appreciation of the play during the show and, as a result, were invited backstage afterwards to meet the cast.
We later learned that the theatre was one of David's London investments. As you might imagine, David Guinness went way up in my estimations after that and we became friends and shared many a chat while we lived in London.
And that is how I am connected with this part of Dublin.