Selfridges, a week later
Our community member ropplerobert has just posted on our forum his Selfridges experience.
“I can’t believe how quickly this week has gone, everything since leaving that room on the afternoon of thursday 11th has just been like walking through a dream, I really have been trying to adjust back to reality…and it’s a slow process. Well anyway, in as best a way I can, here is my story….
I arrived at King’s Cross at half 11 on Weds 10th of Nov, and knowing that there were many stories flying around about the book signing the next day I wanted to get over to Selfridges and find out for myself.
When I arrived I walked past the poster outside about three times and then went inside, trying to familiarise myself with the place (especially if i would have to take part in the Selfridges run around the store like a headless chicken madonna-thon that was originally planned!) and I looked for someone I could ask for more information.
After wandering round for a lifetime I eventually bottled it and left, I didn’t have the guts to say a thing, being in London alone obviously made me lose my bottle… anyway I wandered around the shops for the rest of the day… I’m sure I spent more than appropriate amounts of time in each, as at this point the last I’d heard was that most fans were coming in the morning and considering I had no money for a hotel I was sleeping out either way, so I set about getting warmth where I could!
Later in the evening I settled down and spent a few hours on one of the benches round the front of the store, completely oblivious to the new announcement that had been put up. Eventually someone turned up, at about 11pm, an Italian fan named Maurizio. He was very friendly and we walked around the store together in our quest to find more fans… and sure enough round the back was a small group of survivors, in fact just four people at this point… I knuckled down and got comfy for the night, though thanks to my extreme caffeine intake or more likely madonna excitement, I didn’t close my eyes once… so sorry to all those who tried to sleep whislt I babbled on Anyways, fast forward to the morning and the queue has steadily grown, I feel like I’ve known the guys I’ve spent the night with for days, and we all feel like shit… but adreniline is driving is, we all know why we’re there, though numerous conversations about how none of us believe it, can believe it, will believe it, ensue…
Sure enough the queue tickets come out and after nogotiation about who wants to go in with who and in what order somehow myself and one of my all nighter buddies Dan end up being number 1 and 2 in the queue, scary! However, this is just a queue ticket we’re told, everything could still change!
Anyway 1pm comes along and we’re bustled inside to buy our receipts, again we’re still in order, and the number is starting to become more intimidating… then again when we get upstairs and Selfridges finally allow us to form the queue, we get ourselves in ticket order and I’m surprised by how easy it is, but we’ve all got such respect for each other after surviving all night, we know the only fair way to do this is on a first come first served basis, even if selfridges security were just trying to get us in any order at this point. Anyway then there’s more waiting, though ther’es hardly any talking this time, those of us at the front of the queue are trying to comprehend what’s about to happen and it’s not sinking in easily, plus i was starting to feel the burden of being number one… it was at this point that we were joined by a fan named Emma and her very friendly husband. Emma is in a wheel chair and was so overwhelmed to be there at all after she had originally been told she wasn’t allowed to queue because she would get crushed, so those of us at the front welcomed her in. As time grew closer we could just about hear the telling of the story through the curtains, Liz Rosenberg walked past and said Hi to us all, and the surreal experience was starting to become real… Throughout the day we’d had so many discussions about what we would say and I had come to the descision that I wanted her to lead the conversation, I didn’t want to pre plan anything. Just as we are about to go in Emma started to worry about this and I looked at her and said just say what you’re feeling, she’ll understand, I then turned to the others I had spent the night with and said enjoy it… I was truely thankful that I had been able to share this experience with them! and then it was through the black curtain!
Selfridges were busy taking my ticket off me, I couldn’t here a word they said to be honest, I was just watching, I saw her ask Emma her name, finish talking to her and then turned to me and smile… I had been summoned, I walked over and was shaking so much, I think she knew that I needed some help so she started chatting to me, about her books, which I was glad about as I got to show some genuine appreciation for the reason we were there, she asked if I REALLY read the books, which I assured her I did and told her I particularly liked Mr Peabody’s apples, to which she thanked me and then asked me my name as she started to leaf through the first pages of a copy of abdi. I said Rob and she looked down to start signing the book for me, at which point I just thought say what you’re thinking Rob, say what you’re thinking… and to my surprise the words that came out weren’t I love you, or you mean so much to me, or any of the million things I could say, but instead, simply, ‘You look stunning by the way‘ comes out of my mouth… she stops writing, looks up at me and confidently, but somehow coyly, thanks me for saying that, I then thank her for doing this (the event) and she thanks me right back again and then we say our goodbyes and I turn to leave, I try to turn and look back but am bustled out and I literally feel like I burst back into the real world a little… it is obvious that I am first back out, and I just want someone to hold on to and shake my self to sleep or something, I can’t compose myself properly and everyone wants to know what happened and is shouting me over, all I can say is she signs your name, she signs your name, and I really couldn’t get over it, we had been told no dedications after all. Eventually other start to come back out and I hold onto Gemma, one of the amazing people I had spent the night with, and we just shake and cry a bit and then shake somemore… afterwards she didn’t even remember this had happened… we were in that much of a daze. So I try to say bye to everyone, which didn’t really work, but all of us shared something special and I’m grateful for that, especially because I had travelled alone, and I didn’t get one second of hostility because of it, instead I feel like I met some very special people and made some great friends. When I finally come back into the real world and am alone again it was very strange, I found myself bursting into tears in shops and shaking my way all the way back to the train station, even though I’m two hours early, there’s no way I can properly function whilst walking around anymore. I want someone to talk to, to scream at, to cry at, to hold, but I am alone, so instead I clung tightly to my Selfridges bag, knowing what is inside will stay with me forever, and remembering for the second she wrote it Madonna knew my name, I truly was touched by an angel! Since then I have been in contact with some of the others from the queue, though I did lose some people so get in contact if you know who you are… the one thing that all of us can say that makes sense to those who were there is about those eyes, those eyes will haunt us forever. And we are so glad about that! Thank you for the opportunity and the experience, sorry to go on for so long…
Words really can’t explain….
love to all,
Rob“