A Quite Amazing Experience - The Start

Picture taken by Craig Holyoake.
Hmmm, am I tall?

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I would go and travel to Cardiff and London, to attend two concerts by Hayley Westenra as part of her worldwide ‘Pure’ tour. After I had completed all my bookings (concert tickets, travel and hotel accomodation), I got the idea of getting in touch with the Holyoake family and let them know I was visiting Cardiff. They live in Newport, which is in close proximity to Cardiff. I had been having a few contacts on and off with Trixie, Holly’s mother and I myself liked the idea of not just meeting Hayley, but also Holly, one of the Young Performers featured here. They liked the idea, and not just that, but they mentioned they were also attending Hayley’s concert. So we made arrangements that they would meet me at the reception of the hotel where I was staying. The fact that they were attending the concert as well gave me the idea of trying to arrange for Hayley and Holly to meet after the concert. As I didn’t have the necessary contacts, I got in touch with my friend Keith of Hayley Westenra International. He promised that he would try and get this organised, so that Holly and her parents would also join the party of those set to meet Hayley after the show. March 28 arrived and I got myself ready to meet the Holyoake family. I was a touch apprehensive, as I had only had a bit of E-mail contact with them and never met them. And while in those E-mails we got on well, meeting each other while you are relative strangers is quite different. I needn’t have worried though. From the moment we met, there was on both sides a feeling of being completely at ease with each other, and they made me feel really welcome. We started out with a game of tenpin bowling. As they indicated to me, they knew I was about to turn 50, so they were presenting it to me as a birthday gift. Well I really must thank Trixie, Craig (Holly’s dad) and Holly for a most generous birthday gift to someone they had never met before! We went bowling at a rather aptly named venue, as the photo above indicates. After that we went for a lunch – and I hadn’t come with entirely empty hands – I had a little present for Holly. For that, I have to thank Keith once more. Last year, he sent me a video tape of Daniel Rodriguez appearing on the Des and Mel show – an interview I converted to digital movie format. It was the main video on a CD-ROM I had put together for Holly. Holly has met Daniel a few times at the Mario Lanza Ball in Philadelphia (see the page MarioLanzaBall) and her involvement with Daniel is also highlighted in the Interview I had with Holly last year.

Holly singing O mio babbino caro

Then I was treated to something very special indeed – I was invited to attend one of Holly’s singing lessons. It was a real privilege, and it felt like she was giving a private concert to an invited audience of just one person …In the evening, I met the Holyoake family again at Hayley’s concert. I will not provide a review of the concert here, you can find a report about it at Cardiff_London, a page at the Russell Watson - Hayley Westenra group. A small group of people, including Holly, Trixie and Craig gathered at the backstage entrance of the St. David’s Hall, to wait for a meeting with Hayley. We had to wait for about an hour, and during that hour Holly treated us to a beautiful a-capella rendition of ‘O mio babbino caro’. This in the pitch dark of the night against a backdrop of containers of audio equipment being loaded on a truck, for transportation to The Palladium in London. Then we were fortunate to meet Hayley for about 20 minutes, for a photo session and to get some autographs – even though the setting wasn’t really all that convenient for autograph signing. So here you have the background story to the first meeting between Hayley and Holly, and my involvement in. For me too, this day was special as it was my first meeting with both as well.

Below: Two photos of Holly and Hayley, taken almost simultaneously, from different angles. The one on the left was taken by Keith.

The story doesn’t quite end there though. On Monday 29th, I attended Hayley’s concert at The Palladium. And I was hoping that I would have a chance at meeting her again. As I mentioned in Cardiff_London, I was able to present Hayley with a copy of a promotional mini-CD which she herself hadn’t seen before. I still had a couple of them left, and was hoping I could get them autographed to share with some of my friends. And any rate, if I couldn’t get them all autographed, I would at least get one of them done. I did meet Hayley again, with a small group of others. Then, suddenly, just on midnight, Hayley said she really had to go – and I hadn’t yet achieved my objective of getting one autographed. In fact, I had been holding off because I was hoping to be the last one to talk to Hayley. I tried to persuade Hayley to do one more autograph. As the picture shows, I succeeded. Dear Holly, this one is for you – it is my public thank you for your company and your special gift to me. Now – Hayley will have autographed quite a few copies of her CD ‘Pure’. But right now, this would have to be the only mini-CD bearing her autograph. At any rate, it will be the first one! I left the Palladium in a happy state, having achieved my objectives of getting one item autographed and being the last one to talk to Hayley there. The fact that in doing so, I also happened to be talking to her as I was turning 50 – well that wasn’t calculated – but it was a nice touch …Gareth

4th April 2004