Weekend Feature: A meeting in the jungle

Last Saturday's article by Geoff Farr, 'No More Cruises', has proved so well read that we think a regular weekend tale from a holiday may be of interest.

In the meantime, Bob Cartwright keeps the ball rolling with this tale from 1998:

Most of our long-haul trips have been to join our children as they have enjoyed gap year trips around the world or decided to get married in far-off locations – Asian, Australian, American and South African trips have been the result.

In 1998, one of our four, Mark, was travelling around the world and Helen and I decided to join him for a couple of weeks in Thailand on the island of Kho Samui. We had heard that he had met a Finnish girl – although Swedish speaking – and they were travelling together.

As we flew into the small airport on the island, I was furiously practising some Swedish but for some reason greeted her at the steps of the plane with a terrible joke, possibly distracted by the fact that she looked like a cross between Brigitte Bardot and Britt Ekland at their peak.

We soon found she was quite a character and a very talented cartoonist too. One day, having rented a Suzuki jeep, we all decided to take a trip to a waterfall in the hills in the centre of the island, said to be a pleasant excursion. It involved a shortish trek through the jungle from where you parked, so I donned my very best tropical gear, while the rest of the party were clearly planning a swim.

After a not very difficult walk – no need for machetes! – we arrived at the falls, a beautiful spot with some pools that were ideal for a dip, a very tempting prospect in the sticky tropical heat.

There were just two people there before us, a strangely dressed man in a conical hat seated near where we settled ourselves and a blond woman who was sitting on a rock about thirty metres away.

Our party, apart from me, stripped off and were soon in the water which attracted a comment from the man in the conical hat:
"It looks good in there," he said.
Helen shouted: "Why not join us?"
"I've got my best jeans on!" the conical hat replied.
"Take 'em off then" was the response.
"I'm too shy," responded the conical hat.
"Too shy," shouted Mark, who had clearly recognised the man in question, "last time I saw you on TV all you were wearing was a sock on your dick!"

Now this failed to entice him into the water, but is the type of comment that obviously calls for clarification. It was immediately established for those of us that hadn't recognised him, that the man in the conical hat was Jay Kay, famous as the singer and leader of Jamiroquai, over thirty million albums sold, hundreds of weeks on the UK singles chart since 1992 and whose personal wealth was said to be around £40 million.*

As the relationship was well-known at the time, the blonde sitting away on the rocks was obviously Denise van Outen, actress and presenter, and years later star of Strictly Come Dancing.

Yet, despite Denise's obvious attractions, Jay Kay had clearly taken note of our party's two bathing blonde bombshells, Erika and Helen.

The result was we got to chatting both at the falls and later near our cars – fortunately, we had both hired similar Suzuki jeeps so I didn't feel too outgunned by a man who famously owns a large fleet of luxury cars – and we introduced him and Denise to the delights of fresh coconut milk at a nearby stall.

A couple of nights later, Mark and Karen met up with Jay and Denise again at a New Moon Party on a nearby island where the youngsters there went wild finding they had such celebrities amongst them. Meanwhile, I had tracked down a Jamiroquai CD on the local market – fake, of course, we were in Thailand – to familiarise myself with his music.

Our final meeting was a week later in the departure lounge at the airport. I had been asked to take my hat off as we went through security, causing him to waltz up to us shouting "They let me keep my hat on!" They greeted Helen and I (the youngsters had gone off by ferry on their way to Malaysia by this time) like old friends. All the British in the lounge must have thought we were his agents, or similar.

I told him there were fake Jamiroquai albums galore on the island and he said he knew and had bought a stack of them – nearly all with Jamiroquai spelt wrongly – and had had great fun telling the stall holders he was the man on the CD covers, something most of them refused to believe.

Those on the local flight who thought we were bosom buddies were soon disabused as our new found friends headed off to the First Class lounge at Bangkok while we checked in for our seats in Economy.

We soon had a reminder of this chance encounter in the jungle. A cartoon arrived when we were back in Audlem from Erika. It showed Helen and I in our tropical hats wandering down from the waterfalls with Jay Kay and Denise still sitting on the rocks in the background. The speech balloon from my mouth said: "Who were they, by the way? I can't believe they didn't know who I was!" She could capture a personality instantly!

*We didn't know the last bit at the time as Google was only just being invented. Indeed, the domain google.com was registered a year earlier in 1997. The founders formally incorporated their company, Google, on September 4, 1998, three weeks after this encounter in the jungle.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.