If it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all

By Graham Hatton-Downward

Through my life I've been plagued by the most ridiculous bad luck you can imagine. This is a short book detailing those events making for a very funny read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graham Hatton-Downward
• Release date: Jan 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466053717

Graham Hatton-Downward

This is me, Graham, the hero... the author... the victim! and this is my book. A collection of tales that you wouldn’t believe could happen to one person

Book preview

If it wasn’t for bad luck,

I’d have no luck at all

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By Graham Hatton-Downward

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Published by

Graham Hatton-Downward

at Smashwords

Introduction

Please excuse the vernacular but we have all seen the bumper sticker – Shit Happens! But the truth is, it does and I can guarantee you one thing, if it’s going to happen to anyone, then it’s going to happen to me and/or my wife!

I suppose in a way, that the ‘bigger boys’ have picked on us from day one. If we were still at school it would be simple. All we would have to do is to go and tell the teacher and Miss or Sir would make everything fine. But, when you are in your fifties and you left school longer ago than you care to remember, you left that luxury in your satchel along with your school cap and your homework book (assuming that the dog didn’t actually eat it!)

In my humble opinion, tenacity isn’t something that you are particularly born with but it is something that you can (and should strive to) develop if you want to stop the bigger boys from picking on you and you need to develop it quickly and effectively if you want to save yourself a whole lot of heartache. I am lucky that my wife (Lorraine) is just as, if not more, tenacious than I am. This comes in real handy when you are drawing up your ‘battle plans’ for the upcoming fight.

Throughout this book you will find that I continually refer to certain people, so I suppose that I should make the introductions now. Firstly there is the great love of my life, my beautiful wife Lorraine. We have both been married before and Lorraine has a son, Nathan from her previous marriage. I also have a son, Ian, from my first marriage. Ian is also married to a beautiful girl, Vicky and they recently presented us with the greatest gift of all, our first grandchild. His name is Kaiden and I know that I am biased but he is the most handsome, well behaved and contented baby that I have ever known.

I don’t know who or what I upset very early on in life’s great plan but it seems like I have spent my whole life either paying for it in some way or in fighting to get back only what I have been entitled to. A good friend of mine tells me that I must have ‘Killed a Nun’ in a previous life. I wish! I think I pillaged a whole convent! I know the old saying What goes around, comes around but come on, even Hitler was given a few breaks!

This book contains just a few selected examples of what I mean.

Chapter 1: We’re Getting Married in the Morning

I have never been one of those ‘macho men’ who is too afraid to show his true feelings. I love my wife very much and I have always said that getting married was the best day’s work that I have ever done. When you feel that way about someone, then getting married should come naturally. But, why do things always have to come so hard?

Like I say, my wife and I had both been married before and were divorced from our respective partners. We had been living together for a couple of years and I suppose we both felt that re-marrying was the inevitable next step. Besides living together, my wife and I work together and run our own training company. As I have said, we both have a son each by our previous marriages and we had planned to take the boys on vacation to Disney World in Florida during the Christmas break. It was the day that we had closed the company for the Christmas break. All the staff had left but my wife and I were still in the office tying up loose ends before we departed for our holiday. We shared an office and our desks faced each other. We had just about wrapped everything up when I had an inspirational idea. I looked up from my desk and said to Lorraine, Do you fancy getting married while we are in Florida? Alright, I accept that this wasn’t exactly the most romantic of proposals but I had everything figured out and this was going to be the most romantic wedding ever. My wife was going to look beautiful in her wedding dress and our sons and I would look great in matching tuxedos. Lorraine’s son was only three years old and would be the ring bearer and my son who was sixteen would be my best man – now you tell me if that’s not romantic!

In true ‘girly’ fashion, Lorraine was swept away with the idea, so I set about putting my plans into action. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. If you have ever been to Disney World, you will have seen the beautiful little white wedding chapel set on an island on a lake with its own romantic white sandy beach. I telephoned Disney and asked to be put through to the wedding chapel. I explained to them that we were going to be arriving in three days and that we would be staying in one of their hotels. I acknowledged the inescapable fact that it was extremely short notice but asked if we could possibly get married while we were there? Even if you have never been there, you will know that at Disney World everything is possible and the young lady on the other end of the telephone typically went out of her way to be as helpful as possible. Sure, what day were you thinking of? came the reply. Well, I don’t believe anyone is used to that kind of efficiency and the reply had me completely floored. I looked over at the blushing bride-to-be and asked. What day do you want to get married? Equally floored, Lorraine offered up the suggestion, How about January 6th?… January 6th? I asked the Disney representative. Sure, what time? she came back with.

This was getting creepy now. I just wasn’t ready for this type of efficiency. Err, what time love? I asked Lorraine. Equally thrown, Lorraine held her hands up in a questioning motion, 12 o’clock? Lorraine offered. I relayed the message to the lady on the other end of the ‘phone, 12 o’clock?. Sure, no problem, do you have a fax machine? Wanting to try and go some way to matching the young lady’s efficiency, I replied that I had and she said that she would fax me a questionnaire relating to our personal requirements for the wedding and asked that we fax it back to her as soon as possible. I assured her that she would have it within the hour and was told okay, so everything is booked; Lynne McKittrick will be your wedding co-ordinator. Just ask for her when you get here and she will confirm all the arrangements and take care of any further questions or requests you have".

Wow! How good is that? I asked myself. I just couldn’t believe how easy it had gone. Lorraine was over the moon and suggested that it might be an idea just to let the travel agent know what our plans were. I called them up and commented to Lorraine that they were bound to be blown away by the whole romanticism of our plans – Wrong!

Guess what, we are getting married while we are in Florida, I excitedly told the travel agent. At the same time, Lorraine got on another phone line to start giving our families the news. No you’re not came the reply. Yes we are. I have arranged everything I said. That’s the problem, we didn’t organise it, I was told. Basically, the travel agents get a nice little commission for making the same phone call that I had made to Disney and for graciously passing on the paper questionnaire.

I broke the news to Lorraine, you can stop getting excited, we’re not getting married. Why came the question from Lorraine and not unreasonably I thought. Because they told me we can’t I said. It had happened again; someone or something always had to rain on our parade. Lorraine snatched the ‘phone off me and demanded an explanation. Eventually, we had to agree to pay the travel agent the thousands of pounds commission that they would have got for arranging the wedding so that we could have the wedding that we had actually organised.

You would be forgiven for thinking that that would be an end to the bad luck for the wedding but you couldn’t be more wrong. The next day we headed to the nearest big city to buy two wedding rings. You would think that would be pretty easy wouldn’t you. Wrong again. Can you believe that there wasn’t a jeweller in the city who could sell us a wedding ring? It didn’t have to be anything fancy, we were prepared to settle. A plain gold band would do. We would even settle for just one. As long as Lorraine had a ring everything would be fine – no can do! We tried everything from the major retail jewellers to jewellers who made their own rings; no-one had a gold ring to sell us.

A sign of the times I suppose and I don’t know if it’s still the same these days, but apparently at that time, all of the wedding rings on display were brass. The customer chooses the ring they like from the brass selection, the jeweller then establishes the correct size and then you can have your ring – in a couple of months!

We were left with no choice; we had to travel to Florida without the rings. We met up with our wedding co-ordinator Lynne McKittrick, and told her the ‘slight problem’ of not having a wedding ring. Oh no problem she said. Lynne gave us the name and address of a jeweller not too far from where we were staying. We went along and chose his and hers wedding rings, both gold and both with diamonds. The jeweller