A rainy night in Walton on Thames
It’s the year 2001.
Nikki and I have been a couple for only a few months, and the Unilever PeopleSoft project has moved from Blackfriars in London down to Walton on Thames, the home of Walls Ice Cream (aka Ola).
The team of Unilever employees and consulants decide to have a night out for team bonding. It’s absolutely hammering down, cats and dogs.
The team have assembled and there is one missing, one of the newer team members – Michael Carvey. At interview, when asked if he prefers Michael, Mike or Mick he replies “call me what you like as long as I get the job”. We should have known.
The door of the pub opens, the howling wind blows in the rain, and there he is.
I turn around “F*!$k me, it’s Uncle Fester”
🎵
“Da-da-da-DUM (snap snap)
Da-da-da-DUM (snap snap)
Da-da-da-DUM, da-da-da-DUM, da-da-da-DUM (snap snap)”
If ever a nickname stuck, this was it .......
F
A friendship forms
Mike joined our Global Payroll project having travelled the world deploying payroll software.
He even spent quite a bit of time working in Australia, away from family, but from the stories he tells we are not sure it was too much of a struggle.
I think it would be fair to say that if it paid well, Mike would go there. I am sure that travelling down from Dudley (Wolverhampton) to leafy Surrey to work with “the Izatts” was probably the highlight.
By 2004, we had worked together so much that we formed a company with another Mike (Hayward) to service work we were winning in the UN system.
Further travels to New York, Copenhagen and Geneva were all part of our newly found collective journey.
25 years later
The only thing that has changed since that rainy night is that his name has been shortened, it’s now just Fester. That’s even how he signs his Christmas Cards, sometimes now just ‘F’. Does that mark the progression of an evolving friendship?
We have formed a close friendship with Fester over the years and we have worked on numerous projects together.
I have never been quite sure if it was mainly because it was useful to know someone with less hair. One of my favourite pastimes is slapping him on the head.
Fester has the unusual habit of taking 15 minutes to drink 5% of his pint, then when you ask “another” he drinks the remaining 95% with a tap and 5 seconds later it is gone. Maybe a trick of never having an empty glass so that he is “in the chair”. You can take the boy out of Dudley……
Weekends at our home watching the Six Nations or Autumn internationals became a standard in our social diary. Always followed by a proper Sunday lunch!
With us all in retirement now, we see Fester more frequently and this year he has joined us on some of our trips.
If you need a fat, ugly, bald bloke in your life, Fester is as good as they go. He certainly makes me feel skinny, handsome and hairy.
Here’s to next 25 brother!
