Disney Bar-B-Que

Tuesday 6 July 1993. We had had a relaxing day, visiting Disney's Island of Discovery and spent the afternoon in the hotel, playing cards and watching the day's thunderstorm send lightning down to hit the lamp post opposite our room...

Outside the hotel around 5:30, waiting to be picked up by a bus. We had booked to go to a bar-b-que for a meal that night and I'm not sure why we were amazed at being taken back to the same spot and the marquee that we had seen earlier - but we were... We were told that there would be a competition between all the buses going and that they were all named after a Disney character. To our amusement, we found ourselves on a Minnie Bus!

The barbie was served along the front of the marquee with all manner of meats, beans and afforded us probably our first taste of B-B-Q sauce (we were very conservative in our eating habits back then!) Seated at long trestle tables we got into conversations with people seated near to us and it was a good meal.

Then a cabaret - a comedian whose jokes were more to the American type of humour than to our own and then an excellent group. Whilst the group were playing, the room filled with Disney characters.

Once Mickey and Minnie had done the length of all the tables, signing autographs and posing for photos, they went to the space before the stage and danced together, leading to several thousands of feet of video tape whirring through cameras! Out of all of the couriers from the many buses, we saw Jonathan on the way in (remember him from the Silver Springs day?) and were amused that old Charlie who was on the Tigger bus asked his passengers to cheer for "Tiger!" Not a big Disney fan then Charlie...?

The food disappeared, but the drinks were free and plentiful. The band was good and the atmosphere was that of a party. At 11:00pm we were ushered onto the white beach and watched from a distance of a mile and a half, the firework display at the Magic Kingdom. On the horizon lightning was playing, adding to the display.

Then it was back to the buses, where my badge fell off. It was stuck back on unceremoniously... We had bought some sweets which looked exactly like Polo Mints right down to the hole and colouring of the wrapper. They tasted like dentists' mouthwash though and I gave an "Ugh!" of surprise and to my horror it shot out of my mouth and went rolling down the bus aisle!

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Toy Record Player

We had a short run out to Bygone Times, an old mill converted to an antiques centre with three warehouses filled with assorted old stuff of all sizes. Bygone Times, in bygone times, was bigger and probably better.

A lot of the fun stuff, that they knew would never sell but was there to bring people in, has disappeared and it is now just like any other antiques warehouse. If you like antiques though it's still a great place to go but I used to enjoy all the huge model aircraft, the old pinball machines totally beyond any attempts at restoration and the old architectural antiques - bar fittings, dentist chairs and so on, that used to litter the place to great effect!

We were walking around and Fran said "Oh there's a record player for you there!" It was a "toy" 78rpm record player and whilst I resisted purchasing it did make me reflect that ever since CD players came out there has been no such thing as a toy record player or any other sort of music playing equipment. There were toy cassette players that were aimed at children but these days with iPods and MP3 players which are so small anyway, there's no point in producing them just for kids.

I think there was a Barbie recently with an MP3 player built in but all kids have a mobile phone these days and they can play music now. It's not the same is it? What's the last kid's song you can remember? They are few and far between now aren't they? Vic Reeve's Shaun the Sheep theme tune may have been the latest but before that? Where's Max Bygraves when you need him?

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