‘God Bless You’ were the 3 parting words from international film star Tom Hardy when I met him yesterday at Fleet Services in Hampshire, he didn’t know us and had only spoken to us for a few minutes, and maybe it’s just habit, but if you can pass those good wishes on to someone you have just met then I think it says a lot about your character.
We were parked in the services, it acts as a good mid point of our patrol route at work, coffee supply is plentiful (if you like that sort of thing) and there are a lot of people to watch…that is my sort of thing
An Audi A3 parked up next to us, a new car but nothing special, very discreet, and out got a young guy and his son. The son was asking his dad whether we were police and, obviously being too busy fighting Bruce Wayne etc recently, the father didn’t know what we did.
We had a 5 minute chat and he walked off into the services. But his voice had sounded familiar, and he certainly looked familiar, especially the tattoos etc….I said to my colleague ‘that was Tom Hardy’. I think my colleague probably thought that made him one half of Laurel and Hardy…he’d certainly never heard of Tom
Whilst he was away, I became a little bit of a stalker I guess, I looked him up on Wikipedia and realised he had a son called Louis, a fiancée called Charlotte and an ex partner named Rachael. So when he came back to the car and said ‘Louis go and sit on the grass, Charlie ‘has Rachael called yet’, it seemed pretty likely that it was Mr Hardy himself. Searching for a subtle way to find out, I walked around the car to where he was sat, eating a massive salad, and asked ‘are you Tom Hardy?’…..subtle hey
We joked that he was using his son to smuggle drugs and this was the midpoint for his shipment deliveries. And in fact he’d asked if we were police to make sure he didn’t get caught. We laughed, hahaha. He was clearly just a young(ish) dad, separated from the mother of his child, doing the end of half term child swap over. His fiancée is also a film actress and will be appearing with Tom Cruise in a film next year….but considering most people I’ve spoken to don’t even know who Tom Hardy is, I very much doubt they’ll know his partner
My colleague and I debated the fact that surely a man of his fame and fortune would be driving a Porsche, a Bentley or similar. And maybe he does when he’s not with his family.
Anyone I’ve told has said ‘did you get a picture’ because obviously people don’t believe things without a picture. But do you know what, he’d gone out of his way to be discreet, he didn’t invite any attention, and was with his family. In the same way I respect people’s belief in god, I respect their right to privacy.
