Subject: LNL Report 14th December 2024.
Unfortunately, only a gang of four of us made our way out onto the streets of Lichfield shortly after 10.15 pm. It was a dry and relatively mild night although it did get colder as the night went on. The City streets were positively bustling with people out celebrating seemingly with Christmas cheer.
Though there was a somewhat different vibe evident to the night other than the usual feel though it still featured plenty of 'well-oiled' festive revellers.
It was this team's first experience of the new radio which we found pretty straightforward to use thanks to some well-written instructions.
We also had our new A-Frame sign and a new location to set up at (our appreciation to the very pleasant manager of Betsy's Little Dessert Shop) which was much better than before, giving us more room and a much better feeling of security for the team.
The addition of the lights from the Betsy's negated the need for our extra lights, which thankfully gives us less to carry around.
We experienced the usual steady stream of visitors to the table, some of whom knew us well and others who had never seen us before.
For some reason, on this particular evening the tea was very popular whilst our coffee flask remained almost untouched.
In addition to our usual selection of biscuits, we were able to offer some sandwiches, sausage rolls and other finger food bites generously gifted to us after a musical evening event at Wade Street Church.
There were no major incidents but one or two people did end up on their backs fuelled by alcohol but luckily no-one suffered any major injuries!
We watched two very young police officers having a 'chat' with one of the taxi drivers after he had used his horn to hurry them along.
Our friendly doorman, Bobby, had quite a chat with one of our number about Indian and Pakistani culture and language. He recommended the viewing of some action films from South India.
Later, at about 1am, Bobby was back, this time with our now regular treat of hot chips, which soon disappeared. At about the same time a local Council Leader, Doug, stopped by for a chat.
After this at around 1.20am we headed back to a much warmer base camp as by now the streets had become a lot quieter (and we had run out of tea!).