-23

i remember star wars.
i remember being excited about going to see the film, i was giddy.
i remember being happy as larry when i got tickets to see it the first evening it opened in london. i was going to see star wars and i was going to see it at the odeon west end. i was going to be among the first people in the country to see it.
my dad had a tenuous link to the movie. when he worked in a pub, called the tithe farm, he served several of the technicians who worked on the film. from that i got a crew t-shirt (i was so so so so so proud to have that shirt, when i wore it i was puffed out - it was also unforgiving of the podgy pat status i had back then), i got some special promo stickers and i got a couple of pages of shooting script.
so with those special items and being a geeky science fiction fan i was desperate to see the film.
the day came and off we set: john hanley (monty to everyone) and myself.

we got there.
we saw the movie.
we bought the programme, we bought the poster. and we bounced all the way home so thrilled, so excited, so thrilled.
with the posters we played lightsaber duels, we quoted lines. we were in sf heaven.

as if that was not enough it was also the day a legend was born.
it was the night monty unleashed a catch phrase that has stayed with some of us since that night and will be on our lips until the day we all day.
it was the night of “it was a brainblast!”

now i have no idea why adam didn’t come along to see the film with us. but over the summer adam and i saw star wars several times. adam counted the different types of droids and ships that appeared. i quoted endless chunks of dialogue. we discussed the forced. we talked about plot points. adam drew droids and spaceships (and good they were too).
we were hooked.
we loved star wars and we didn’t care who knew it.

you want to know something? i am still a star wars fan, just not as fanatical as i used to be.