This is not ever so boat related, but nevertheless, a story worth telling since it might stop you getting killed – if you happen to be as stupid as me that is.

Tuesday night at the Little Ships Club

Tuesday night is club night, and on this particular night a friend from the marina came along. He’s similar to me in that we both are quite talented at turning pretty much any occasion in to a party, and this night was certainly no different. We set about drinking pints of beer and having a chat with everybody in there.

When the club went for dinner, we decided to stay in the bar and drink more. I’ve since decided that this was the pivotal decision of the night, the fulcrum that sent us spiraling out of control.

Now, when I’m drunk I never, ever, get violent or offensive, but I will do almost anything people suggest. To give you an idea of our state as we left the club, myself, Joe, and another mate Richard piled on top of each other and started scrapping – all very good natured mind you, nothing aggressive, just dead arms and being thrown into walls etc.

This sort of carry on continued most of the way home, until Richard and the other (more sober) guy that was with us wondered off as myself and Joe carried on along the north bank of the Thames, beating each other and laughing about it. 

I don’t really remember too much about the journey from there on until we got to the Tower of London. Now, pay attention, because this is were it went wrong.

We both decided it was too much effort to walk all the way around the Tower, so decided to take a short cut through it, along the river bank. This is actually a route that you can freely walk during the day time (it’s packed full of tourists), but at night the rather large gates are closed.

No problem, I thought, and scaled over it with little effort. Years of rock climbing probably helped me there since Joe was a bit less hasty in his ascent.

Now over the gates, we set about walking to the other side with the intention of climbing over the gates there, on onward, home.

Before I continue, I want to just stress how innocent we thought this was. We genuinely, no doubt as a result of copious amounts of beer, thought there was no problem with doing this beyond being a bit cheeky. The fact that the city is on high terror alert, or that we were entering the complex where they keep the crown jewels just did not register with either of us. This was simply a shortcut.

So there we were, staring at the east gates which are impossible to climb, contemplating which option were were going to take.. climb down into the moat and walk around, or swim down the river. No comments on that please, I am well aware of everything you can say to me. Anyway, I digress, we were stood there making this choice when out of the blue we heard..

“GET DOWN!

GET ON THE FLOOR!!

GET ON THE FLOOR NOW!!!!”

Joe hit the deck instantly, and I in my drunken state stayed aloft wondering who these clowns were. I promptly followed Joe to the deck when I realised they weren’t clowns, but soldiers with sub machine guns.

So, lying on the floor with five blokes pointing guns at us, I turned to Joe and said “I think we made a mistake coming this way mate”

“This is not funny, this is serious” barked one of the soldiers.

“I’m well aware this is serious mate, you have an SA80 pointed at my face” came my reply.

We were then taken into the guard house and quizzed for a couple of hours… which included a phone call to my dad to confirm who I was.

All ended well as we were later released and carried on home, having to actually walk around afterall.

In hindsight, that was absolutely one of (but not the) most stupid things I have ever done, and if anybody from that night reads this, I am quite sorry for causing a fuss.

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