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#405 Tom Lofty the Giraffe

I called the charity Lofty. Lofty was a giraffe. Lofty stood for Leeds, offering fun for the young.

Tom

I set up a charity of my own, because the Lord Mayor can have charities, so I set up my own charity. I called the charity Lofty. Lofty was a giraffe. Lofty stood for Leeds, offering fun for the young. We were raising money to take kids on holiday, to the theatre, to get them into doing various things.

And I asked a group of cyclists if they would fundraise for us because at the time, Leeds was getting into the Tour de France and cycling was getting to become popular, it was all being marketed. So these guys said yes they’d do a trail for us, and they set themselves a target and their target was to get to Dortmund in Germany because it’s our twin city. But Dortmund is 500 miles away, and they wanted to do it in a day. It took them 24 hours to get there, but five days to come back! And they raised 15,000 pounds.

So that stands out, you know, that these guys were incredibly fit, dedicated to raising the funds and did it all with a little bit of flair. Wonderful.

Precis

The beauty of being in a company of older performers is the kaleidoscopic range of real-life experiences that they bring to the table. These experiences cover everything from the vivid and strange world of childhood, to the unexpected late awakenings of old age. Take our newest batch of anecdotes, for example. These new stories are delightfully diverse: from the earthly, sensual joy of baking bread, to the cosmic dreams of outer space; from an unnerving encounter with a poltergeist, to the risqué glories of adult pleasure products and burlesque. Running as a rich theme throughout, is the possibility of love, and the simple wonder of human connection. As one writer tells us, in her story of funeral rites and flirting, “Amidst death, life goes on”, and indeed it does, delightfully so.

Edited by Barney Bardsley