My one shot at fame had been cruelly stopped short, but somehow I knew that such matters were superficial on a weekend when 25, 000 people gather in a spirit of generosity and goodhumour - even in the face of an English summer.
People who took their place opposite him one by one, clutching a scrap of paper bearing the address of an overseas relative or else the business card of some European traveller, unwittingly exchanged in a moment of goodhumour for a lifetime of another person's hopes.