Every day there were gizzits and treats for the Gamesmakers.  Cadburys chocolate in industrial quantities (of great interest to both of us), a journal to write and stick all your Gamesmaker memories into (er, not of particular interest to either of us but a nice thought nonetheless), stickers (mmm, not really our thing) and pins (not at all our thing but, who would have known, stick pins are a huge ‘thing’.  There was even a special tented area for the general public to meet and swap pins.  The Gamesmaker pins, coloured, bronze, silver and gold, were massively sought after).  After your final shift you were given a relay baton which really was rather nice.  Made to the exact specifications of an Olympic baton, engraved and boxed.  Here is Mike after his last shift symbolically handing over the baton to Carol ready for her to carry forward to the paralympics…….  sorry, all the symbolism got to you in the end……..  nice picture though……..

I worked in Event Services at Greenwich Park, the Equestrian Venue.  This was general stewarding of the smiling a lot, being nice, being helpful and generally pointing people in the right direction kind.  Having not felt particularly thrilled with this role or location I had a blast from beginning to end.  We worked in different areas of the park including quite a lot of time in the stands so got close to the action.  For someone not particularly interested in Dressage I was well into it by the end of day one and was lucky to see a lot of the competition over all five days. 

One of the many hoys was watching people’s faces and hearing the gasp as they emerged from the staircases onto the stands and saw the view for the first time………

There were a lot of us but we got to know each other surprisingly quickly and I had a thoroughly good time working alongside a BT project manager, vet student, medical student, geologist with BP, retired teacher, something complicated in The City, newly qualified accountant from Chester with two dressage horses of her own, young lady from Columbia working to improve her already superb English so that she could train as a teacher and not have to tell her baby daughter that she was a cleaner and a retired lady who had represented GB at the high jump in 1958. 

And tear about an empty venue with the Navy helping to put the mobility scooters to bed overnight……

We stayed with Robert on the Isle of Dogs and walked through the Greenwich foot tunnel and past the Cutty Sark into ‘work’ each day.  Only took about 25 minutes and was a real pleasure.  Leaving the venue on my last day I passed the French team in one of the pubs.  One caught sight of me, stood up, raised his glass and said ‘Thank you’.