Opportunity Knocks

You probably don't remember Hughie Green's 1960s/70s TV show 'Opportunity Knocks'. It was a bit like a black and white version of 'Britain's Got Talent', with a clapometer deciding who wins based on live audience clap volume. I never knew if the clapometer was a sophisticated bit of electronics or just some chap twiddling a knob behind a board. And I would naively clap infront of the telly hoping to influence the result. There was a 5-year old drummer called Steven Smith who kept winning every week. (Winners would be invited back to play again on the following week's show.)

It reminded me of drummer Kate Broadbent who was supposed be playing in a gig on Saturday night, but an opportunity knocked. A driver broke his leg in the run up to the Buckmore 12-hour endurance race and an urgent call went out for a replacement driver. Some quick calls to the band organiser to check if their new but now regular drummer could cope without Kate. He could. Phew. So Kate seized the knocking opportunity, and we're now sat in Buckmore's club house at 7 o'clock in the morning waiting for sign on. Let's hope Kate performs well enough to get that clapometer going and she gets asked back in the future. And as Hughie Green used to say, I mean that most sincerely.