The Geordies came down wearing oriental-style straw hats in the shape of flattened cones, each of a different colour. This was a fairly minimal amount of fancy dress, but seeing all six of them together the effect was striking. When they saw Darren in his make-up, wearing his silk shirt, they could not resist the urge to touch him and he had to slip behind Tom and me to escape.
The first party guests came shortly after eight, and at around ten o'clock they were arriving in numbers. While Tom and I cooked the hot food, the Geordies, wanting to help, volunteered to answer the front door bell. Unfortunately they had not previously met most of the people on our list of guests and let everyone in. Tom and I tackled several little groups neither of us recognised who were helping themselves to food from the dining room, but the first lot claimed to be friends of Darren and Cheung from the club and the others said they had been invited by someone they knew at the Beckford Arms. The impression seemed to have gone around both places that everyone who turned up would be welcome.
A quick head count revealed that about seventy people were there, and more were arriving. To try to get the intruders to leave would probably have caused mayhem, and a lot of people had brought food or drink with them; rather than get into arguments about who had a valid invitation and who did not, we decided to do our best to cope with all comers.
The dining room, kitchen and lounge were soon congested and the din grew louder and louder as everyone competed to be heard over the voices of those around them. People standing in the hall were constantly being jostled this way and that by others who were passing through. We encouraged them to go downstairs where there was more space. By half past twelve more than a hundred people must have been present. Fortunately no more were arriving, and one or two who planned to be up the next morning had left. The food had all gone, and the manager of the garden centre volunteered to go to an all-night supermarket to buy more. Tom and I raided the hotel's stocks of bacon and sausages, and when the bread, crisps and cheese from the supermarket arrived we put everything out on trays and were mobbed when we carried them through to the dining room.
On the ground floor the air had become heavy with a complex and suffocating odour, a mixture of cooking smells, sweat, deodorants, cigarette smoke and a hint of cannabis. Going into the lounge to open a window I saw that a couple of dancers had lowered two of the big imitation Chinese pots from the hall over their heads and shoulders. My guess was that a couple of Cheung and Darren's friends from the club were playing this prank. Unable to see where they were going they were inevitably bumping into one another and into others on the dance floor. The decorative surface of the pots was almost certain to be scratched, but even if I had to pay for them the sight of two enormous rose-on-white pots dancing together was probably worth the money.