Richard Hearn feels lucky

I went to Crawley. (I know what you’re thinking. The answer’s unlucky.) I was pushing Youngest™ in the pushchair, he was asleep (lucky). I was in a shop called Jack & Jones, I’d seen some jeans I liked. Could I justify this purchase? Not really. Then I was approached by a man who looked to be doing a survey (unlucky, I thought).

County Mall was celebrating its anniversary and the man fanned out envelopes saying they had prizes ranging from an iPad to Burger King vouchers (cut to dream sequence: me holding an unappetising burger). But I actually won a £50 voucher, and get this: it was for the shop that I was in! I had my photo taken, sheepishly holding the voucher and then bought the jeans.

My second incident was at the Children’s Parade, which The Boy was taking part in. This was fantastic – the whole atmosphere, sense of community and the imagination going into the puppets and outfits. I walked alongside my son’s school, filming my wife and son taking part.

“By filming new memories I’d thrown away others”

Filming. That’s the key verb. I’d prepared the camcorder earlier, taking out an almost-finished tape, placing it in the pouch of the bag. I thought then: it would be horrible to lose it. And then I lost it. It must have slipped out from the bottom of the pushchair onto the streets of Brighton.

We have a lot less photos and filming of Youngest™ – a case of second-child syndrome – but I knew this would have been a tape with plenty of Youngest™. I felt sick with the sinking realisation of losing it. Irreplaceable. It felt that by filming a new memory (the parade), I’d thrown away others. I didn‘t so much feel unlucky, as stupid. I called the Regency where we’d gone for lunch. I called lost property at the police station. I appealed for it on Twitter, and friends and strangers re-tweeted me. The police even retweeted me. I gave up.

Then Twitter came good. Three days later, I got a message from Same Sky, organisers of the parade, to say my camcorder bag (and most importantly, tape) had been handed in. The massive relief. I was lucky after all. So this is a big, big thank you to all the re-tweeters, but most of all to whoever handed it in, and for Same Sky for contacting me. I’m really grateful. At the time of writing, Same Sky themselves had lost one of their puppets, a 10ft Regency gentleman called Percy. (See their website for pictures). Contact them with any info, and help them to be as lucky as me.