or: An Evening with Sean Bean...
(...and Steve and Paul and Gareth and Natalie and a few others)

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Part Five

Evi:
We stopped in our hotel bar (open 24 hours), and decided on a glass of champagne to celebrate the event.

Renate:
Bubbling from what lay behind us and from the champagne, we couldn't stop talking.

Evi:
We thoroughly chewed everything seen, talked and all things Sean. He hadn't left the room as often as I thought for smoking. And another remarkable thing: People didn't approach him while he was sitting at the table, so he had time to enjoy his dinner undisturbed. I doubt that it would have worked this way in Germany.

Renate:
Interestingly, after a short time, Bavarian actor Maxi Brückner found his way into our conversation - perhaps not so surprising, after all. We agreed, that Brückner, with his intense ways, physical presence and especially with his usage of the Bavarian langu... I mean - dialect is, actor wise, perhaps nearer to Sean Bean than to the majority of the German actors with their elaborate use of high-German - that, in its purity can be as sharp as a scalpel and has its own cold beauty, but beware! If you aren't careful, you can hurt yourself at the edges.

And yes, you have guessed right, Bavarian is much warmer and when hearing the soft cadences of the Yorkshire dialect all around us it was a little bit like being "at home" but as if this was a strange home - known and unknown at the same time.

With the strong dialects, that form our real (Bavarian) mother tongue, we, in fact, grow up bilingual - and we know and understand the infinitesimal small differences between expressing yourself in the language that comes "natural" to you - or the one, that you have learned to use - you might be perfect in it, but there will always be that one barrier between you and the language...

Sean Bean, the actor, is aware of this difference. He chose, for example, to speak the Shakespearian lines in Macbeth with a Yorkshirish colour. I have never seen something so intense. Where other great actors play Macbeth and you find them remarkable - he is him - and you find this Macbeth unforgettable.

So, is it perhaps, only natural, that Sean Bean, with this sense, or instinct, knows what makes him feel "at home" with a character - and brings him so to life? And so, is it a wonder that he knows also, where he is at home? And prefers to return every so often?...

Evi:
When we finally decided to go upstairs, Paul and Gareth, the security guys arrived telling us that Steve would also come by and that it would be nice if we would stay. We decided to bring our coats and the photos upstairs, ...

Renate:
...and do some refreshing of make up...

Evi:
...and return then.

It turned out that Steve is a long time friend of Sean, and Sean only did this because of that. According to Steve, this evening will be a one-kind-event; the next fund raiser will eventually be with SU people and players.

The three guys and Natalie, the Raffles sales girl tried to remember that the thick Yorkshire accent isn't easy to understand for outsiders, but it worked for one sentence and then it came back. So we had to pay very close attention because now we got to hear the good stories from back home.

For the locals, Sean is still the lad from Handsworth who loves his football team and a good match, and who made his luck out of town, but definitely not a movie star. And I couldn't agree more.

Renate:
For us, the evening had been pleasure, for the guys and Natalie it had been work. So, actually, this was now their "time off" and a chance also to wind down. So, out of their formal clothes, our stern security guys, Paul and Gareth, became now Yorkshire-Buam and Natalie a Yorkshire-Madl (and pardon my Bavarian). It turned out, they were friends of Steve, and they did show quite the same polite lively curiosity in us strangers, we had met before at our table.

After establishing, that we are fans, yes, but that we are only in a not out of the ordinary way crazy, and also able to speak about other topics but Sean Bean, a lot of voices and a lot of laughter could be heard from our corner in the bar. Steve showed quite a dry sense of humour, Paul, it turned out, speaks a good German, and even used it at the end of the night, and Gareth became quite daring and did go so far as to use the naughty "p"-word on me! Hey! Please! I am proud of my working class roots! On the other hand, he claims that he is able to make a good Yorkshire pudding - soooo. You just wait, when the time comes, I will ask for compensation :-)

Evi:
It was almost 5 am when we two finally said good night, being heavily kissed and squeezed.

Renate:
The time had gone by like nothing - and we, in the end, got our embraces and kisses from our "stars" from the second part of the night - and so I can say now, I have shook hands, embraced and kissed with a fine part of the male Sheffield-population. :-)

Evi:
Renate only fell into bed almost not being able to get out of her dress. I managed to get a shower, but when in bed didn't move till she opened the curtains round 10 am to blazing sunshine. We had to speed out to get some breakfast, with Renate almost still falling over - like "I can't believe it - is it true that we saw Sean?"

Renate:
Hey! I was just wondering if this whole fantastic night could have been true. And is this a wonder, I ask?

Evi:
Checking out, taxi to Sheffield railway station, train to Manchester Airport.

Renate:
Yes, we still had to get home - our home. On the train, we counted - for the statistics - a few more football fields, 4 tunnels and lots of tiredness.

We still had to get then through Airport securities in Manchester, but as the experienced travellers that we are, both of us had an extra bag for the hand luggage - in Evi's were the two big signed Sean Bean pictures, and in mine (my Salamanca shopping bag) an assortment of this and that, and also the few items, I had bought as souvenirs in the Sheffield United Fanshop - all practical thingies, like pencils with the SU logo - and such.

And when it came to my turn to walking through the metal detector, I did this quite confidently - having even parted with my belt - and only realising in the second I was under the arc, that - Kruzitürken - I had forgotten to remove my mobile!!! Too late - my whole person beeped already, and now I was checked really careful - and the mobile even more. After we both got reunited, I was sent to my hand luggage, that in the meantime had also gone through the detectors, and was now in the care of another security person - who asked me in the politest way possible, to open the big shopping bag.

Well, when asked such, you do. And why not? I never put bottles or knives in my hand luggage... whaaah! And what was that? Shocked, I looked at the item, that had come out of the SU-Fanshop-plastic-bag - A...no. not really...longish, with a striped red and white label that read "Henderson's Relish"...and no matter how you looked at it - this was a bottle, and not a small one, and that was a liquid in it...

Airport-regulations regarding liquids being what they are, for a minute, I really didn't know what to do. For the record, I even asked, if I - perhaps - could just take it with me? Because it was only a souvenir? From Sheffield? (No.) Well. I had heard enough about the stern regulations and got resigned to part with my souvenir here and now. Only that the people here "oop north" are really really very nice.

The security lady suggested then, that I could just check in my complete shopping bag with the regular luggage. After repeating that twice, I slowly understood - Ah! And did I have something in that bag that I would really need during the flight? Also repeated twice, and with a now very big-sisterly benevolent and solicitous touch she even helped me to look it through and led me back to the entrance to the luggage counter.

Ah well, I swear, before that journey, I had been that cool and organized German. And what was I now? (No, don't answer!)

The rest then was rather uneventful...

On the train ride into the city we decided that whoever gets home first would only post one sentence about the events...

Renate:
...which turned out, in the end, to become a few more...

An Dank.

Renate and Evi, 22. December 2009

the dress, the rucksack, the Boromir, the shopping bag - and the bottle!