Only Fools and Horses Convention By DJ Chris Plant

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The 3rd October2004 saw the Only Fools & Horses Convention road show arrive in Milton Keynes at the biggest venue to date, at the Bletchley Leisure Centre. My friend Alex and I set off at 7:30am to make sure that we got a good queue position.

When we arrived in Milton Keynes, we searched for The Bletchley Leisure Centre, which took us about 30 minutes. We finally found the point of our destination and saw the queue (it was enormous). It's amazing how far people travel, one man had come all the way over from Florida just to meet his idols, flying back the next morning (the journey from Hull and Back didn't seem so far now).

12 o'clock and the doors opened. As always, I was very excited to meet my TV idols. Especially Damien Derek Trotter played by actor Ben Smith. Just for fact that he is Del Boy's son in the very popular comedy show. The 7th Only Fools and Horses Convention saw the biggest line up of actors , first on stage came Roy Heather (Sid), followed by Paul Barber (Denzil), Ben Smith (Damien), Patrick Murray (Mickey Pearce), then finally John Challis (Boycie) and Sue Holderness (Marlene).

As each member of the cast came on stage they were interviewed. Sue Holderness told us all a lovely tale about when they were filming one of the last three episodes, a little girl had gone up to Nick Lyndhurst and asked what they were all doing, he said We're filming a TV programme called Only Fools and Horses, as it was chucking it down with rain the g irl looked around and inquisitively asked where are the horses?

She could already see the fools, I suppose. After the actors left the stage they got into position for autograph signing, a place they would not leave for 9 hours.

Alex and I waited in a queue for over 4 hours, just to get the autographs of the stars. But it was well worth it, Alex (wasn't it ?)! The items that I had signed were Strangers On The Shore DVD, If They Could See Us Now Box Set (with Trotter Van), A Limited Edition Photo

The actors that signed Limited Edition photo were, Roy Heather (Sid), Paul Barber (Denzil), Ben Smith (Damien), Patrick Murray (Mickey Pearce), John Challis (Boycie) and Sue Holderness (Marlene). The organisers had so many things lined up to make the day great this year, they had UKTV there who were filming for UK Gold, they wanted fans for links when they broadcast a day of Only Fools over Christmas.

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Photographs courtsey and Copyright © DJ Chris Plant

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