Learning Curve by Joyce Shaw

You never stop learning.

I was at the Sage in Gateshead (now called The Glasshouse International Centre for Music) at a music conference when I learned more about the way our police force works, and the awful one-way system in Gateshead, than I did about music.

It was a gorgeous day and I had supposedly left the window open when I parked my car.

The traffic warden patrolling the car park disturbed two would-be thieves looking into my car. He and a policeman did some detective work, so I was eventually called out of the conference by a loudspeaker! I was told I needed to take my car to the police station.

To get to the police station I needed to get out of the Civic Centre car park. I was on camera and so the man on the gate had seen me looking for the exit (driving around a one-way system going the wrong way) and he came to my rescue.

To cut a long story short, I got my possessions back from the nice policeman at the desk, who added that he left my big owl sunglasses in the car as he didn’t think anyone would want to steal them.

So now I have met two nice security men from the Sage, a nice traffic warden (you see they DO exist), a car park attendant who probably thinks I shouldn’t be allowed out alone, another young policeman with a sense of humour… and they allowed me, when I returned to the conference, to park in the security car park and I used the stage door entry. It was a learning curve.