disruptive.org.uk :: The other Roger Whittaker (3)

The other Roger Whittaker (3)

Wednesday 14th November 2007

On the first night at the restaurant in the Hotel near Duesseldorf, the young waiter asked me "shouldn't I know you?". I said "No, I don't think so", but when he had put my room number into the till at the end of dinner, my full name had come up and was on the slip that I had to sign for dinner.

I asked him: "Do you think I'm the singer?" and he said: "Yes, you look like him". I told him that I definitely wasn't the singer, though I was willing to sing if the hotel would pay...

He looked sceptical. The more I denied that I was Roger Whittaker the singer, the more he seemed to think that I was.

The next day, he served me again, remembered my name, and fussed over me rather.

Last night, though he was not waiting at my table, at the end of the meal he came along with a piece of paper and a pen and asked me to sign an autograph for him. He said that it was not for him: it was for his boss. This seemed to be true, because an older waiter was hanging around looking on with a serious expression on his face.

I'm almost certain this wasn't a joke or a wind-up and these people actually thought I was the man himself.