Wow it was hard to get up – the alarm went off at 4.15am and I think I must have only made it home at around 11.30pm from the evening session on the Sunday, and by the time I got to sleep it must have been about an hour later. It was starting to get light outside which made dragging myself up, donning my pink uniform and getting to QEOP much easier.
I got the N1 from my house to Woolwich Arsenal in order to get the DLR – the last time I had got the N1 (N standing for nightbus) was when I was coming home from somewhere! It was around 5am that I was on that bus and heading to the DLR, and I was surprised how many people there were about and I found the same on the DLR. I was SO thankful of the massive hood on my zip up hoodie that was my favourite part of the uniform. I pulled it right up over my head, and slumped down into the seat on the DLR so as not to make eye contact with anyone as I couldn’t be arsed to even smile to someone at that time of the morning.
The DLR trundled along towards Stratford International, and eventually I arrived and walked over towards the stairs that are between Westfield and the Car Park – past the hotel on the corner which was on of the team hotels – and as I got to the top of the steps I saw one of my favourite sights in London – the London Stadium in full athletics mode, decked out with pink, yellow, orange and purple for the games. Sadly, once the games finished, huge amounts of building works have been going on in the Park, and that view has been obscured so you can no longer see the Stadium when you reach the top of those steps. I miss that view. I always looked forward to seeing it.
I could walk with confidence on that Monday as I knew exactly where I was going, knew the routine of what happend at Workforce and knew pretty much what I needed to do. As always, we were all hoping for a good location for the day, but I was eventually given North Park Lawn.
North Park Lawn – NPL – was situated towards the North of the Park, where Here East is. I had my training at Here East as well, but that was way over the other side of the building. It was the shuttle bus stop for athletes going to the long throw warmup area. I had heard from the WhatsApp group that it was fairly quiet and we didn’t have the chaos (and excitement!) of Bridge 4 and Car Park 1.
It confused me as to why we needed to be at NPL at around 7am, as the shuttle busses didn’t start running until much later, and many of the athletes didn’t really do the walk. As the busses weren’t running yet, we had to do the walk and it was LONG. It was already blistering hot so we took our time to get there. I had been partnered up with Luke, and it was his first shift so I was able to give him some advice about the role and things I had picked up over the two shifts I had already done.
We walked along with the group who had been given Car Park 2 as well, and thankfully one of them had done NPL already so he was able to let us know what we needed to do. He also said that there is an official Traffic Marshall who will be there on the main road in order to chaperone the athletes and team members to the NPL warm up area safely. He had the power to stop traffic.
The Marshall was also there to stop vehicles coming the wrong way down the road as the games had put in a temporary one way system to allow smooth use of the shuttle busses. No traffic was allowed to turn into the road from the main road where we were based, where the bus stop was, which is usually a disabled parking area for Here East. We had cones and signs and it was here that our high vis tabbards really came into their own as people really needed to notice us.
We got to NPL – our home until 3.30pm – and checked out supplies. We had some water, we also had cereal bars and a parasol, along with a couple of chairs. We also had a great view of the Velodrome as we were on that side of the Park. It was so exposed, with virtually no shade and we were there to greet athletes and to ensure that the pink shuttle bus would be coming to collect them to take them back to the Stadium. We didn’t need to do any counting really, just meeting, greeting and chasing for the now elusive pink shuttles.
I had packed my sun block and ensured that I put that on straight away, and offered some to Luke as well as it was going to be a very hot day with no shade. I found a nice slab of concrete to lay down on, and as there was virtually nobody about and there and we weren’t expecting athletes for at least an hour, and had a look through the blue folder which was the Bible at each loadzone.
The blue folder at Bridge 4 was brimming with bits of paper, where we had to keep a count of athletes. NPL on the other hand had instructions on how to use the radio, schedule of events, and the call signs of our bosses. Nowhere to make a list of numbers which was great but it did make me wonder what we would be doing all day.
The traffic marshall eventually showed up, and just sat on his chair and slept rather than
actually doing his job. We had his card marked pretty early on, and knew he wasn’t moving for anyone. When the traffic started flowing, it was myself and Luke that had to step up to stop cars and lorries coming down the closed road, and to stop cars to help athletes across the road. At least it gave us something to do, but that was a job for paid staff. It did feel quite exciting to have the power to stop traffic to help the Superhumans get over the road to their area.
The shuttle busses eventually started running, and we had the lady that had been dubbed “Posh” first up. She decided to tell me all about her amazing breakfast and then about her husband who was also working the event on one of the coaches for the athletes to and from the hotels. She was also killing time and decided to stop and chat each time she came to NPL when she didn’t have anyone to take back to the stadium or South Park Lawn. She was nice enough, and it was nice to have a girl to talk to up there as my only other companions were the sleeping traffic man and Luke.
Luke did have some great stories – he works for Cisco and had just come back from a weekend at the British Grand Prix where he was working on the networking. Being an IT nerd myself, I was able to enjoy the conversation to some degree. He also said that he had had issues with his uniform shoes being too small, but managed to exchange them in a John Lewis for a larger size, which was naughty but he got away with it!
The sun kept on beating down – it was HOT. If you went to the end of the road, there was a bit of breeze coming down, and we had a flimsy parasol and the big black stone thing (where a map of the area was) to stand behind. We worked out to move the parasol next to the black thing to ensure we had a bigger area of shade, and we put the two chairs that we had into the shade for the athletes when they needed to wait for the shuttle. We did keep needing to shift the parasol around though when the sun moved around. We didn’t have too many athletes to deal with, but the ones that did come were really lovely – I was even given a banana by one of the coaches while he waited for the shuttle to take them back to the stadium (and no, that is not a euphamism!)
NPL was a load zone for everyone to have a break really, as it wasn’t particularly busy. It really was an area I think they assigned two people to just so you didn’t get bored out there alone, as it really was a place for one. The shuttle would usually stop for a rest there and it was a place where we were able to speak to the drivers and get to know them. On this particular NPL shift, I also had some lengthy conversations with Wayne who drove the pink shuttle.
Wayne was from Bristol, and I recognised him from Bridge 4 when I was down there on the Thursday before. He was a welcome distraction from NPL, plus going to talk to him meant I could stand in the shade of the bus. He said that the pink busses were all from Bristol, and were already pink, even though I thought they would have made them pink especially for the event. I liked the chats that we had, and it seemed like he managed to complete the entire loop in 5 minutes flat because just as he left it seemed he was back again. This became a running joke for the rest of the games – he was able to finish in 5 minutes!
Luke decided to leave an hour early as he hadn’t taken lunch (I don’t actually remember anyone coming to cover us either) and I said I would be fine for an hour on my own there as it really was dead. All we really needed to do was chase up if we hadn’t seen a shuttle in a while, but with three doing the rounds it really wasn’t an issue.
I think I laid on the slab while I didn’t have any athletes to entertain, and of course had a nice chat with the ones that could speak English and did some pointing to the ones that didn’t. Eventually, my replacement arrived at NPL so I was able to head off. It was Wayne that had dropped the vollies off, so I got onto that bus to take me back to the stadium. I decided to get off at Bridge 4 so I could catch up on the day’s gossip with Gavin, and see what was going on. I think I was there for another hour after I had finished gassing with the lovelies at Bridge 4, and so I finally started to make my way over to Stratford International.
I left the island, and spied someone familiar speeding away from me in his wheelchair – it was David Weir! I had waited for years to meet him, and here he was and I decided to chase him down. This wasn’t a good idea seeing as he is a wheelchair racer and I am but a mere normal human (rather than a superhuman) and I soon realised that running after him wasn’t good. Thankfully someone coming the other way recognised him as well, and stopped to speak to him so I was able to catch him up.
I was a bit shakey when I did speak to him – he is literally a legend and I had been a fan since 2012. I had seen him race at the London Stadium many times, and I was so sad to hear about how he had been treated by British Athletics during the summer before in Rio. He was at the Stadium now to commentate on the sport, so had a Media accreditation on. He was very sweet indeed, said it was fine to get a photo with him and actually thanked ME for all the hard work that I was doing as a volunteer. I was taken aback with that, it was such an honor. I did almost stack it when I leaned on his wheel to stand up again, but managed not to cause any damage.
It had been a cracker of a day at the games and I was so ready for more!
Once again, it has been a while since I have posted – sorry about that, life got in the way! I don’t have any more volunteering for a while so I have time to relive last summer again with you, and my experiences at London 2017. I will also fill you in on the ITTF Table Tennis World Cup, and Yonex All England Badminton Championships that took place in February and March and how I got on there.
Meet Me, Usain! 