Best Day of My Life: True stories to inspire, move and entertain - Told by a cross-section of the UK's celebrities and courageous everyday people. Giles Vickers Jones
can’t be, I thought. Then I remembered the rumours. Is it really him? Any more dithering, I thought, and he’d be in the lift … although his pace wasn’t quite what it used to be … but then again it was 40 years since he last kicked a ball in anger.
‘Pele?’ I enquired hopefully.
The man turned around. There he was, the Brazilian icon.
He smiled. ‘Yes.’ After casting his eyes on me, he simply said, ‘Aah, London Dorchester.’
I couldn’t believe it. He remembered our meeting a few weeks ago when I interviewed him about his autobiography. Instead of the expected handshake, he gave me one of his famous Pele hugs. I was pretty staggered. Not only was the man living opposite me but he also greeted me like an old friend. We spoke for about 15 minutes before going our own ways.
A couple of hours later, my wife Anushka arrived from the UK to sample the atmosphere of the tournament and update me on our wedding plans (which, incidentally, was a week after the Final). Understandably, she was a little sceptical when I told her about my rather illustrious neighbour – until we met again in the corridor. After a brief chat, Pele obliged to have a photo taken with us. In fact, he was keen to have his son in the photo too. It made our day. But it was to get even better.
The rest of the afternoon I spent preparing and presenting a highlights programme from the nearby studios. Usually, the evenings would end with a group of presenters and pundits digesting the day’s results with a drink or two in the hotel bar. When I walked in, there was a quiet buzz. Pele was sitting by himself as if waiting for someone. In one corner, among others, were Messrs Lineker and Shearer. As I arrived, the pair were debating whether or not to welcome the footballing great and to ask him to join them for a drink (thinking about it now, what a lethal strike force that would’ve been if the three of them were still playing). I left them to it and sat with some of the production team. After a few minutes, Pele got up. The whole room seemed to take note of his every move. He casually looked around and, after seeing me, he walked across, put his hand on my shoulder and departed with a ‘Goodnight my friend’, blissfully unaware of the two former England captains standing a few yards away.
Alan looked at me with raised eyebrows. ‘Look at you … Mr Big Time, eh?’ he joked.
I laughed it off, looking a little embarrassed. Inside, I was pretty chuffed.
TV Presenter
When you first begin to consider the greatest day of your life, you are instinctively drawn towards the landmark occasions in your life that stand out in the memory. The birth of both my boys, Bobby and Freddy, nine months of wondering what sex they were and not even checking for a good minute after, due to the miracle of childbirth reducing my legs to jelly, what would be any parent’s first thought. There are also career achievements certain to rank highly; we work most of our lives with different incentives, to climb proverbial ladders, get promoted, win the contract or take over the world so any steps towards our targets make great memories. Signing my first professional footballer contract with Leyton Orient, now that was a feeling I’ll never forget; and getting released two years later, that’s something I can’t forget either!
My first presenting job on C4’s Dirty Laundry, the auditioning, the agonising wait for any feedback and the pride I felt in watching my first show on a Saturday morning. The excitement when I received the phone call from my agent to tell me to pack my bags for Australia to present I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here with Kelly Osbourne, the joy at winning The Farm and being instantly met by my son Bobby after not seeing him for three weeks was like heaven, and getting to present on The X Factor grand final twice was monumental for me; being in front of 13 million viewers was a buzz I will never forget. I am very fortunate to have played at Newcastle United’s stadium in front of 52,000 supporters against my boyhood footballing heroes with my family watching, what a mixture of emotions that was! (I don’t like to mention the result!)
Come to think of it, I’ve done a lot of things that I can be very proud of but memories do not make up a day and that begs the question: how can you define one particular day in your life that stands out from the others? A favourite day typically would have to involve a mixture of fun, excitement, adventure and one outstanding moment to finish it all off but I think my favourite day contains so much more than that.
In March 2001, I had been selected from thousands of applicants to appear on the third series of the reality-TV show Shipwrecked filmed in Fiji over a three-month period; it’s within this, the best experience of my life, that all my best days were spent. The audition was a tense and nervy weekend at an outward-bound centre with 100 other hopefuls and the tasks we were put through were designed to test our physical and mental strength of character and to predetermine who would go well with who and also more importantly who would wind everyone up! I don’t think I was part of the latter but I certainly impressed Andi Peters with my party trick, so, after a 48-hour period of massive highs and lows, I was finally told I was going to the island and I have never felt excitement like that before. The prospect of going to Fiji and living on a paradise island for three months was huge – you couldn’t pay for a holiday like that!
I threw a big party at a local bar in Romford and invited all my friends just before leaving for the island. I can remember floating round the room so excited talking about the months ahead with all my friends. I’d had an idea to do something that would help me through the lonely moments when I would be missing friends and family, so I took a Polaroid of my mates and got a big drawing pad to stick them in accompanied by a message of good luck from that individual; to this day, that is still my proudest possession.
Before leaving for the island, I did all the things I loved and knew I would miss; the strangest one I recall was eating tricolore, my favourite dish of avocados, sun-dried tomatoes and mozzarella! I remember meeting everyone at the airport full of anticipation; we arrived at our destination a few days later, a neighbouring island called Dravuni, inhabited by Dravunians, a simple living community untouched by Western influence and seemingly better off for it too. These people taught us a few hunting and camping techniques and the hardest thing to do was shimmying up a tree to fetch coconuts; you needed Dunlop rubber on your feet and shins, not to mention more muscles than I actually had at the time to get higher than halfway.
Our first few days were spent telling the pretty girls in our group to stop sunbathing; unfortunately, some were quicker than others to realise that we had to be self-sufficient, living solely off what grew on the island – in other words, we were in trouble! I hadn’t even camped before, too much football and not enough scouts as a kid. I had a feeling before they even pushed us in the shark-infested waters to swim to shore that we were going to be as close to the true meaning of ‘shipwrecked’ as a production company could legally inflict upon us!
How does a favourite day come out of all of this uncertainty and hardship? Well, the first few weeks of grafting, team-bonding and constant hunger built the rest of the experience into more of a learning curve and enlightening adventure than any of us ‘kids’ could have imagined. The three meals a day of yam and coconut dulled our tastebuds so much in the first seven weeks that, when rice was made available, we mixed it with coconut milk and we thought we were living like kings. The first few weeks of sleeping on the beach in our sleeping bags getting walked all over by crabs made us into near-expert hut builders when the rain came, and the early arguments and petty squabbling caused by the shifting group dynamics and pressure of our self-dependency made us mature very quickly and appreciate the strength of our newfound friendships, seeing as we all relied on each other to get through the tough, lonely and hungry moments we were all experiencing.
In my opinion, for every challenge we face, there is a positive result at the end of it; for everything we lacked, we gained in other ways, and, for everything we take for granted at home and went without, we learned to appreciate at a level I never thought possible; that is why the best day of my life was spent on this island and this is how a typical day was spent on our island, Yakuve levu.
Many times I would instinctively wake