Minor Famous People Spotting

[scarby]

I saw James McCartney, son of Paul, at a gig in London recently. I wouldn't have recognised him but a friend pointed him out.

 

[aftv]

I saw Keir Starmer and his entourage at Wakefield Westgate Station once and before that I saw him in Crawley Town Centre with my local Councillor. Both before he became Prime Minister.

 

[OhNoAPacer]

If we go for minor politicians we have met then of course my maternal grandmother was Mayor of Whitehaven.

 

[Jan Mayen]

I used to work as an usher with a former Mayor of Wandsworth.....

 

[Leyland Bus]

Is this the chap?
View attachment 181421

Beat me too it...

 

[Sun Chariot]

I read the thread title and I thought it meant slightly famous people we've seen trainspotting


Back in 1994, I managed a Woolies store in Stoke Newington (London N16). Actor Paul Bradley (Nigel in Eastenders) was a regular shopper and often dressed as downtrodden as his TV character did!

A slightly more famous shoulder-rub: 1998, at my local pub. The Hobgoblin (around the corner from Marylebone station), some work colleagues and I sat chatting with two chaps on the adjacent pub table: Liam Gallagher and Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs. They told us they drank at "our" pub, to avoid being seen and hounded by press and public alike. The guys were actually really genial and nothing like their media personas.

 

[Jan Mayen]

I read the thread title and I thought it meant slightly famous people we've seen trainspotting

I've meet (in my capacity as an usher - see also post 34) Michael Palin who once did a TV Programme called Confessions of A Train Spotter. Does that count?

 

[Sun Chariot]

I have presented on Top Gear Live at the NEC, with Clarkson, Wilson and Needell, in 1996.
Before you try guessing who I am, it was an opportunity for members of the public to go on stage and try a "TG worthy" entertaining pitch to the crowd, about the cars on show. For reasons I've never fathomed, I actually won!

 

[Trackman]

I am not sure where the boundary between "minor fame" and "genuine fame" comes exactly, but I did come face to face with Martin Clunes in a farm shop a couple of years ago. The problem is that your brain starts to respond as though you are meeting someone you are on nodding terms with.

I did that with a weather girl in a pub (whose name escapes me), who was with her boyfriend.
The conversation went .. which school did you to? etc..
Eventually she said 'I'll stop you there, I do the weather on the telly'
This was at the bar, my mates sat behind thought it was hilarious!

 

[johntea]

I once saw Christa Ackroyd from BBC Look North stood outside Leeds Train Station filming some sort of report

Her face made it clear she was absolutely delighted to be stood there in the freezing cold

 

[Mikw]

Some years ago i was walking through Covent Garden reading the London Evening Standard not really looking where i was going. After a few moments i almost fell over a rope barrier. I looked up and noticed i was the only man amongst a group of young girls all wearing costumes.

Then Anjelina Jolie shook my hand....

Turned out i'd blundered into the winners enclosure of the "Lara Croft" lookalike contest at a Tomb Raider film premier...

I almost repeated the trick last year whilst not looking where i was going when i was stopped by a burly security guy just feet away from Lady Gaga at the Joker 2 premier.

 

[Amos]

Quite some years ago I encountered the people who played Malcolm and Brenda in the tv series watching on Wigan north western station. I was on the way home from the rugby with a fair few others and they really did endure quite a bit of banter.Took it in good jest though.

 

[baz962]

Years ago when I was on a late turn I stood behind Leo Sayer in the queue for the till at Boots in Leeds station.

Once I had the pleasure of chatting with the late Peter Baldwin and Thelma Barlow - Derek and Mavis in Coronation Street - on the platform at Skipton station and helped them with information for their connection back to London. A lovely couple....although 'just good friends' in real life.

While undertaking practical handling training on 332s back in June 2000 - in readiness for the introduction of 333s on the Leeds NW triangles - I spotted the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie getting into the rear (first class) carriage of my train while changing ends at Heathrow.

Nearly fifty years ago, as a young relief clerk in the Woking area I sold a ticket to the late Arthur Lowe - Captain Mainwaring in Dad's Army - at Guildford booking office.

Over the years I have seen many famous faces in and around Hebden Bridge, either filming (e.g. Sarah Lancashire, Suranne Jones, Siobhán Finneran) or local residents Chris Chittell and Dominic Brunt (Eric Pollard and Paddy the vet in Emmerdale), Ursula Holden-Gill (Alice Dingle in Emmerdale, before the character was killed-off), Kevin Doyle, Welsh opera baritone David Lloyd-Owen, amongst others.

Of course and depending what you do for work can really affect it. The op asked about minor celebrities and non significant encounters and so i tempered my list. I have many others and when I used to do security work I used to do security for big breakfast , during the school holidays and it was the bigger breakfast and met Denise Van Outen a few times. I was just off camera at her side in a couple shows. I used to install high end audio visual equipment for Bang and Olufsen and I was sat in Martin Kemps front room and also met his wife Shirley ( Pepsi and Shirley) and his children , before his son was famous. I installed equipment at hotels before that. I did stuff for the Liverpool team at st Albans for the 96 fa Cup. Staying in the same hotel were the Dutch team who i met . Also did a hotel in Borehamwood and met the Spain team. Did stuff for tv too. So so many. Should edit to add as a railway forum. Had Suella Braverman on my train after visiting Nottingham after the horrors there. Ronnie o sullivan got off my train and I keep seeing Simon Calder in pret at St Pancras .

 

[dangie]

Once in the old YHA Shop in Birmingham when the singer Sting was in there buying clothing for an upcoming trip to save the Amazon Rain Forest.

 

[Trackman]

Once in the old YHA Shop in Birmingham when the singer Sting was in there buying clothing for an upcoming trip to save the Amazon Rain Forest.

I wouldn't say a 'minor celeb' !

 

[Acfb]

I saw Liz Hurley with her son in January in one of the restaurants below the Oberoi Trident Hotel in Mumbai (she was presumably visiting her ex husband but not necessarily staying at either of the Oberoi hotels). That probably counts as major though. I had a bit of a double take but didn't go up to her though and thought I should better respect her privacy.

 

[Benters]

When I was a sixth-former I had a part-time weekend job behind the counter of a local petrol station. I met the late John Peel on one occasion, and rock legend Ritchie Blackmore on another. The former was headed back to London, whilst the latter was on his way to Stafford Bingley Hall where he was playing with his band Rainbow that night.I got their autographs on both occasions.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Also on a music theme: in 1983, in my final year of middle school (9-13), my geography lesson was interrupted by the unexpected visit of Kajagoogoo's group members.
Nick Beggs and Stuart Neale were students at my school a decade earlier; taught by Mrs Wilkunson (long passed) - my geography teacher and my form teacher.
A classroom melee ensued: squealing girls, pouting "too cool to care" boys - who then, secretly, asked the band to sign the backs of our shirts.

Those members of the forum too young to be too shy shy. The attached stock photo, shows the group, the hair, the clothes...

 

[D365]

Spotted the TV producer/presenter Jon Bentley at a STEM event in Birmingham ~12 years ago.

Shook hands with Adrian Shooter once.

 

[DIW]

I would occasionally see Peter White (BBC Radio 4 presenter) waiting for a London Train at Winchester Railway Station, back in the days of South West Trains.

 

[Bald Rick]

Baroness Grey-Thompson very nearly ran me over in her electric wheelchair on the pavement of Southwark St once. She was motoring along let me tell you.

She later denied it when I met her a few years later in a professional capacity.

 

[OLJR]

Apollo from Gladiators was on the LNER service arriving KGX at 1538 on Wed-14-May. He was in 1ST in one of those window-aisle pairs and got on at Darlington. He is so tall his head seemed near the roof of the carriage!

 

[Jimini]

I walked past Christopher Biggins on Charing X Road around 7pm tonight.

 

[High Dyke]

Many years ago me and a mate were on holiday in Scotland. As we were walking along the main street in Callander, then tennis player Steffi Graf and her dad were walking across the road.

A few years ago me and the Memsahib were in the Proper Tea shop near Manchester cathedral. In walked Yvette Fielding, the owner (also known for tv)

 

[calopez]

I've seen Tony Benn on a Sheffield - St Pancras train (he boarded at Chesterfield, obviously), Leon Brittain on another train somewhere. Gilbert & George on the Central line. Edwina Currie at Lille Europe. And once, while dining on a train from the West Country to Paddington, people kept approaching the bloke on the table across from me and asking for his autograph.

I haven't the faintest idea who he was.

 

[Jan Mayen]

I gave up my seat for Edwina Currie and A.N.Other on a Southern train many years ago.

 

[GusB]

I gave up my seat for Edwina Currie and A.N.Other on a Southern train many years ago.

I'd never give up my seat for that old trout.

 

[Harpo]

Been on trains with quite a few well known faces but my favourite celeb moment was last year.

Queueing at a London comedy club to see Rosie Jones doing standup, she very cheerily walked past us all chatting, and got to the locked door - ‘Let - me - f….. - in’. Audience in stitches before it even got inside!

 

[D6130]

Some further examples of mine have now come to mind:

When commuting from Wimbledon home to Petersfield in the late 1970s,Terry Scott plastered in the buffet car of the 16 50 or 17 20 Waterloo-Portsmouth Harbour.

Andrew Cruikshank - Doctor Cameron in Doctor Finlay's Casebook - on the concourse at Glasgow Queen Street in about 1979.

Bill Simpson - Doctor Finlay in the eponymous TV series - in a restaurant in the West End of Glasgow about a year later.

When I was a guard at Brighton, numerous regular 'celebrity' passengers, including Dora Bryan, Annie Nightingale, Oliver Reed, Christopher Timothy and Carol Barnes.

When I was a guard on the Isle of Wight, David Icke....more times than I would have liked!

Travelling between Burley-in-Wharfedale and Leeds on numerous occasions - and always complaining about everything under the sun - Richard Whiteley and his partner, Kathryn Apanowicz.

Travelling from Leeds to Kings Cross in a GNER restaurant car, Sir Ian McKellen and his partner....both of home had amazing senses of humour

Travelling from Waterloo to Paris in Eurostar Standard Premier about 20 years ago, I found myself sitting opposite Björk....who was absolutely lovely

In the Eurostar first class departure lounge at Gare du Nord in April 2019, Sahid Javed and his retinue of heavies returning from Brexit-related negotiations.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Aren't quite a few of the names being mentioned in several posts this thread more than just "minor" celebrities? Where do we draw the line?