‘ALL NIGHT LONG’ could have been the song of choice for a surprised Moray fundraiser when she had a chance meeting with an international music superstar early on Sunday morning.
Karen Cox, the Chair of Team RAFBF Lossiemouth, was ‘Running with the Night’ at the gates of RAF Lossiemouth just before 1am awaiting the arrival of fundraisers Stephen Taylor, Daz Streatham and Eric Grant, who were completing a cycling challenge that raised over £1000 for the RAF charity.
Karen had to take something of a double-take when security activity at the main gate appeared to be a little more than she and husband Rob had expected for their intrepid fundraisers – before it was explained that a ‘VIP’ was expected to arrive at any time.
The fundraising chief was soon ‘Dancing on the Ceiling’ when the VIP duly arrived – none other than Lionel Richie, who has just completed a European tour and had arranged to fly out through the RAF base in his private aircraft.
Acting like someone who was very much ‘Stuck on You’, an almost speechless Karen managed to say ‘Hello’ all the same! Karen explained: “I was pretty dumfounded, he was very nice though and asked what we were doing at the camp gate at that time of night.
“When we explained about the boys being due to return from their charity cycle run on behalf of the RAFBF he was pretty impressed – and asked me to pass on my congratulations to the boys.”
A ‘Truly’ stunned Karen duly passed on those good wishes as Lionel slipped onto the base and out of the country ahead of the next leg of a world tour.