This post brought back to mind;
In 1971 when (Sir) Jackie Stewart was the world champion Grand Prix driver, one evening I noticed in the local evening paper, that he was appearing at a Goodyear tyre depot some 20 miles away from where I lived.
John Burt and I hastily decided that our school was in need of a cycling club so next morning when we reached the crossroad of the A5 and the A34, a left turn towards Telford was taken instead of straight on to Cannock.
I remember now how exciting it was collecting lots of stickers and the great man's autograph. We were even more excited to discover that the event was being replicated later that day in Dudley, of course this was too good an opportunity to miss. Somewhat naively we thought that we had either beaten them to Dudley with our pace, or we knew the best route, when we arrived before the star man and his entourage.
Having bidden farewell to my comrade, it was home for a well earned meal. Didn't quite turn out that way! School had thought it somewhat odd that JB and myself were absent on the same day and phoned to see where we were, 10 minutes of comprehensively incriminating myself followed and what was possibly a deserved clout from Father (It was allowed then).
Quite soon after that we moved and I considered that the slate had been wiped clean, lesson learnt, never play truant on the same day as your best mate.
I also worked out why they wouldn't let us have one of the calendars at the tyre depots.