An evening out July 1994

Created by Paul 2 years ago
My older sister Jasmine was a young Conservative & for her birthday we all went to a short lived restaurant called "Billy Ray's". I got to meet her friends for the first time which included James & Cathy & despite the fact I was only thirteen at the time nobody acted like I was cramping their style & I was very welcomed by all of them especially James. I remember when we showed up & said we had a table for ten people booked they said they had no record of our booking & they were a little pissy about it as if they were going to kick us out. It then turned out they had written down the wrong name which was similar to the name of my sister's boyfriend. When James arrived he was told what went down & he shook & hit his fist against his hand in a joking way. It was a very enjoyable evening, I ordered something called "the rack" which was a rack of ribs & it was so big that when it came to the table James said "it's a brotisauroyse". Generally there was alot of food left over & some people on the table started throwing onion rings at the deer head on the wall trying to hook themaround the antlers. The main thing that I remember from that evening was how warm & welcoming James was. He made a real effort to talk to me & made me feel included in every conversation. While I only met him the once, it was no surprise to that he had a successful career in politics & i was very sad hearing to news of his passing especially as we lost our dad in the same way a few years ago. Sadly I have no photos of Billy Ray's as it closed down pretty soon after that & is now a mcdonald's.