I blew our £27,000 life savings on dinner with Neil Diamond (and even though my wife nearly killed me, it was worth every penny)
By RACHEL HALLIWELL
Last updated at 8:09 AM on 09th February 2010

Watching the sun go down over the ocean as they dined with legendary crooner Neil Diamond, Kevin and Julie Fitzpatrick agreed this was the most magical evening of their lives.
Both marvelled at how the rocks on the Malibu beach were covered in snow, despite the balmy temperature.
'Neil had it brought down from the mountains today,' someone explained. 'He wanted to make the setting for your Christmas dinner as festive as possible.'


Beautiful noise: Kevin and Julie Fitzpatrick with their idol Neil Diamond, whose music brought them together

This ordinary couple from Preston in Lancashire had never experienced anything like it. An awning, covered with twinkling fairy lights, sheltered the decking from the gentle sea breeze where they, and 40 fellow guests, sat at a dozen round tables, beautifully laid with deep red cloths, crystal glasses and silver cutlery.
A couple of tables away sat Neil Diamond himself, smiling at Julie every time she caught his eye. 'This is more amazing than anything I could ever have imagined,' Julie told Kevin, squeezing his hand.
Well, thank goodness for that. After all, that roast turkey dinner had cost them their life savings - £27,000 in total.
And it had put their marriage under some strain since, in a moment of madness that still has him breaking out in a cold sweat, 61-year-old Kevin had bid the lot in a charity auction - without consulting Julie.
The chain of events that led to that night started last November when Kevin, a semi-retired chauffeur, was listening to Radio 2 as he waited to take a client to the airport.
Terry Wogan had asked his listeners to bid for the prize of a lifetime to raise money for Children In Need. Certain that he couldn't possibly win, but wanting to be able to tell his wife he'd been a part of it, Kevin phoned up and opened the bidding with £5,000.
'We're not rich people, and that's a lot of money to us,' says Kevin. 'But, whatever happened, I hoped it would at least give us something to giggle about over supper.'
Julie, 70, had gone to church that morning expecting to spend the afternoon catching up with her housework.


Legendary: The Fitzpatricks spent an evening with Neil Diamond at his Malibu beach house

'I'd heard Terry announce this prize just as I was leaving the house,' she says. 'I sighed and thought about the lucky so-and-so who'd get to meet him.'
Meanwhile, Kevin was parked a few miles away, swept up in the drama of bidding rapidly increasing amounts on the live radio auction.
'By the time my client got in the car, I'd been outbid,' he explains. 'I told him what I'd done and he said he wasn't in any rush, so I had time to bid a bit higher.'
Kevin upped his bid to £10,000. Outbid again, he increased it again - this time to £15,000.
'By now I was starting to twitch a bit,' he says. 'I knew that to do this with any honour (ie. to be able to pay up if he did, in fact, win) I couldn't go higher than £29,000. I kept telling myself I was just helping get the money up for kids who desperately needed it.
'Before I knew it, bidding had closed and I'd pledged £27,000. Terry said he would announce the winner straight after the news - I said a few prayers myself then: namely that I hadn't won.'
But then it was announced that Kevin Fitzpatrick, a chauffeur from Preston, had placed the winning bid. 'I started to panic,' he says. 'I knew Julie would be distraught - she's always said how we needed that money for our old age.'
Kevin dropped his client off and then drove to a quiet spot to phone Julie. 'I wanted her to have some time to mull it over before I got home,' he explains.
'It was about 10am,' says Julie. 'I'd just walked in and picked up the phone to Kevin, who said he had a surprise for me. Most people sound giddy when they tell you they've got you something nice, but he sounded like a man about to face a firing squad.
'He said we were going on the trip of a lifetime to meet our hero Neil Diamond - the only problem was it would cost us our life's savings.
'All I could take in was that he had spent our £27,000 savings. I collapsed, sobbing, into a chair. I couldn't believe that Kevin had done something so rash. It's not as though we're young and could earn the money back again. To say I was upset would be to put it mildly.'
At first, Julie pleaded with Kevin to retract the bid, and let someone else take the prize. But he said life was too short to give up such an incredible opportunity.
'I kept telling him we couldn't afford it, but I felt torn. I've idolised Neil all my life,' she says.
'This would be the only chance we would get to meet the man who had provided the soundtrack to our life together,' Kevin adds. 'He helped bring us together, and we danced to him at our wedding.
'We've played him at every barbecue and family get-together we've had. Julie listens to him when she does the housework, and I have him on in the car between jobs. There isn't a day goes by when we don't hear him crooning. He's a part of who we are, and always has been.'


Number one fans: Despite losing their life's savings the couple do not regret having dinner with Diamond

Adds Julie: 'Even as I cried about losing all that money, I kept getting butterflies at the idea that I had the chance to tell Neil just how much he's meant to me all these years.
'Right up to meeting Kevin, I used to write to Neil through his fan club every couple of months. And however upset I was that Kevin had gone behind my back, I couldn't lose sight of the fact that he'd managed to make my dream happen.
'Kevin said he would retract his bid if I insisted, but I decided to put my faith in him. Once I'd agreed to it, I'd never felt more excited about anything in all my life.'
So thank goodness then that from the very start the four-day trip did live up to their expectations, otherwise Kevin would surely never have heard the end of it.
The couple stayed in a luxurious ocean-front hotel, and on the night of the dinner with Neil Diamond, they were driven in a limousine to the star's magnificent Malibu beach house.
As they stepped out of the car, waiters offered them Champagne and hors d'oeuvres from silver trays while Neil Diamond's music played in the background.
The man himself arrived - to a round of applause from the guests. Julie recalls: 'He burst out laughing, and said mischievously: "Who's this singing in my house?"
'My heart was pounding, I'd only ever seen him from the back of a crowded concert hall before.'
The Fitzpatricks were the first guests to have a private audience with their host. Neil had already been told what Kevin had done.
'He said I'd done a good thing in giving so much to charity,' Kevin says. 'That acknowledgement made it feel like every penny had been well spent.
'Julie told Neil that he had brought us together,' says Kevin. 'She only agreed to go out with me when she discovered I was a fan.'
After their chat, the guests were seated for roast turkey with all the trimmings and Neil wandered from table to table spending a few minutes at each.
The other guests were, like Kevin and Julie, competition winners or members of Neil's fan club.
'The best bit for me was when Neil came to our table,' says Julie. 'Kevin asked him why the song Done Too Soon contained so many names. Neil explained that many years ago he had been in a plane flying over America and had been caught in a terrible thunderstorm, when he honestly believed he might die. He said he wrote the song, listing the names of people who he found out had all died too soon.'
By now Julie couldn't thank Kevin enough for what, at the time, had seemed a moment of madness when he'd started bidding in that radio auction.
'I thought it was the most stupid thing he'd ever done,' admits Julie. 'But when we were there it suddenly felt like the bravest thing.'
The rest of the evening was passed with a Neil Diamond quiz - Kevin and Julie were the winners.
'When we got back to the hotel, we sat up talking about it long into the night,' says Julie.
Now back home, Julie admits: 'I try not to think about the money. I tell myself that we'll always have our memories to keep us warm.'
But what about the children whose inheritance Julie and Kevin blew on one dinner?
Julie's three children from her first marriage are Anne, 47, a solicitor, David, 45, a plumber, and Carol, 40, a health and safety inspector.
'The children told Julie to be happy, and forgive me,' says Kevin, 'which was good of them considering it was their inheritance I spent.'
Kevin says that, given the chance, he'd still pay every penny they had to do it again. 'So would I,' smiles Julie. 'And I mean that now.'


Read more: [www.dailymail.co.uk]

Cool. I think you could call them true fans

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Keep On Rolling

I guess everyone has their own ideas about what is valuable and important. Sometimes you see a guy living in a broken down trailer and he's got a mint condition '65 Mustang parked outside.

I say, good on them!

Life is for living and money is for spending, so if meeting Neil Diamond (or anybody else) is something they've always longed for, then whatever they paid will be cheap at half the price.

The memories of that occasion will live with them forever and provide a great deal more happiness than having a big car or some other piece of vacuous, worthless trash.

A fantastic couple, who realise just how important life's experiences are as opposed to material posessions.

...my kind of people.

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Barn Owl
The memories of that occasion will live with them forever and provide a great deal more happiness than having a big car or some other piece of vacuous, worthless trash.

Unless the experience of driving around every day for years and years in a fantastic car gives you more happiness than a few fleeting moments of meaningless chatter with a superficially pleasant famous person who won't remember your name five minutes after you've met him.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-02-13 16:38 by tatters.

whatever floats your boat...i guess. but there are other (less costly) ways to meet your idols.


IORR............but I like it!

I think you could have used that $$$$ for a more worthy cause. I don't know..............Haiti? What a waste.

Good on ‘em – after all, ones life savings have to be spent at some point, don’t they?

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tatters

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Barn Owl
The memories of that occasion will live with them forever and provide a great deal more happiness than having a big car or some other piece of vacuous, worthless trash.

Unless the experience of driving around every day for years and years in a fantastic car gives you more happiness than a few fleeting moments of meaningless chatter with a superficially pleasant famous person who won't remember your name five minutes after you've met him.

Indeed!

Though each to their own, as it were.

All of which reminds me of the Dylan lyric, " 'Take care of all of your memories', said Nick; for you cannot relive them".

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Barn Owl

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tatters

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Barn Owl
The memories of that occasion will live with them forever and provide a great deal more happiness than having a big car or some other piece of vacuous, worthless trash.

Unless the experience of driving around every day for years and years in a fantastic car gives you more happiness than a few fleeting moments of meaningless chatter with a superficially pleasant famous person who won't remember your name five minutes after you've met him.

Indeed!

Though each to their own, as it were.

All of which reminds me of the Dylan lyric, " 'Take care of all of your memories', said Nick; for you cannot relive them".

You don't have to be Charles Foster Kane, with your own private museum full of junk that you bought, stashed away, and never looked at again; and you don't have to be Siddhartha, walking around all day with only your rice bowl and having fantastic experiences. You can strike a balance between the two. You can do both, to whatever extent your budget (and how much free time you have) will allow, of course.

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Unless the experience of driving around every day for years and years in a fantastic car gives you more happiness than a few fleeting moments of meaningless chatter with a superficially pleasant famous person who won't remember your name five minutes after you've met him.

Amen brother. I'm not knocking Neil, from everything I've heard he's a decent guy, and it's not his fault people do these kinds of things with the celebrities they irrationally worship, but tatters is right. The simple fact is, they are f-ucking idiots spending their life savings at their age and in this economy, on something as trivial as dinner with a celebrity, even if it's for charity (and I'm curious how much of their money actually makes it those kids). Where will Neil be when one of them gets sick, or they have some kind of financial emergency? He certainly won't be around to help them, and rightfully so, it won't be his problem. Although if I were in Neil's position, I don't think I'd feel so good about someone blowing their life's savings on something as trivial as dinner and a few minutes of superficial small talk with me, regardless of my talent and impact on their lives.

I like Neil Diamond and his music, but they way people worship what is ultimately useless crap these days makes me think maybe we actually are in the end times.

It's only a matter of time before Michael Cohl makes the Stones available for such engagements!

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clapton71
I think you could have used that $$$$ for a more worthy cause. I don't know..............Haiti? What a waste.

I think Children In Need is a pretty worthy cause. Good for them, I say!

"but there are other (less costly) ways to meet your idols."

becoming a high-class hooker being one of them... plus YOU get the money ><

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Sir Craven of Cottage
It's only a matter of time before Michael Cohl makes the Stones available for such engagements!

I was thinking those very same thoughts.

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Barn Owl

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Sir Craven of Cottage
It's only a matter of time before Michael Cohl makes the Stones available for such engagements!

I was thinking those very same thoughts.

They're not touring anytime soon, and Ron Wood appears to need the money. Hmmmm....

£27,000 the price of a RS ticket on the next Tour.......



Happy to be here....Happy to be anywhere.....

[www.myspace.com]

[www.facebook.com]

The Stones already played a private gig for bank employees and clients. Looking at the video of their gig on the beach in Rio, it looks like they had backstage divided up into several meet-n-greet rooms. I'm sure some were for people who forked up money to be a sponsor. It's part of the new financial reality of touring.

Elvis Costello sells VIP tix for some concerts for $350, which give you a seat in the first 10 rows and a meet-n-greet with Elvis, and a portion of the money goes to charity ($25 or $50 I believe).

But getting back to the article, I have spent money on things others would consider a waste. I try not to judge others and certainly don't want to be judged. I hope they enjoyed it and can be smiling about it for the rest of their lives.

Did they leave a tip? ><

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Fingers
£27,000 the price of a RS ticket on the next Tour.......

£27,000 is the price of the t-shirts for the next tour.

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boogie1969
I were in Neil's position, I don't think I'd feel so good about someone blowing their life's savings on something as trivial as dinner and a few minutes of superficial small talk with me, regardless of my talent and impact on their lives.

There's only two ways Neil can possibly view the situation. Either he thinks these people are idiots and feels embarrassed for them, or, he's so full of himself he thinks that blowing your life's savings of 27,000 pounds in order to enjoy a few minutes of his company is a perfectly REASONABLE thing to do and certainly NOT an act of madness. Having once copyedited an unauthorized biography of Neil Diamond, I'm inclined to think it's the latter.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010-02-13 23:04 by tatters.

Well, they could be run down by a bus tomorrow - so what good would £27,000 be to them then? If it made them happy, then best of British to them (especially since they are from my home town ><).

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Beast
Well, they could be run down by a bus tomorrow - so what good would £27,000 be to them then? If it made them happy, then best of British to them (especially since they are from my home town ><).

Hey Beast, I'm sure Darren Ferguson coulda used that money!

Oh purleeeeze.... Not from me, that's for sure! (FYI, I had to look him up ).

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Beast
Well, they could be run down by a bus tomorrow - so what good would £27,000 be to them then? If it made them happy, then best of British to them (especially since they are from my home town ><).

...so if I hear you've got in to some serious money, you should expect to hear a knock on the door from an owl wishing to meet Keith Richards.

You'll have to get in the queue, though....

Would a 3-DVD RNR HOF HBO Special, sent to your door, out me one place up that queue?

...or did you record it yourself?

Whaaaaaaat?!?! No to the second question, yes to the first (but you'd still be behind me, mind).

...I'll post it out Tuesday!