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In which I become way too invested in what Louis Tomlinson did on 30 March 2014

There’s a post about when the Tomlinson sisters learned about Larry, which I’m sure you’ve read. I’ve never been convinced by the post’s argument (I don’t think we can tell what Louis’ sisters know from their social media). But one part of it stuck in my head:

There was one instance in early 2014 when Louis was in London and was supposed to visit his family. He met with Jay (and no one else) at a train station halfway between London and Doncaster and they spent half a day there catching up instead of Louis going all the way to Doncaster instead to visit all of his family members. Then they parted ways and went back. Louis was on a long break back then and could definitely afford the time to visit family, which didn’t seem to happen.

I thought about this story a few days ago (before the post did its latest rounds). The image of Louis and Jay meeting at a train station has always seemed so sad to me, but also unlikely. Even if the best way to meet was halfway between London and Doncaster (which doesn’t seem particularly plausible) - surely they wouldn’t just hang out in the train station - they’d at least find a fancy restaurant. But I wasn’t around then, I didn’t know what the claim was based on, so I couldn’t investigate. I was left with an image of Louis and Jay catching up over stale sandwiches in Peterborough.

But then the author of the original post elaborated in response to an ask and I spent all afternoon investigating. This was the tweet where Jay tweeted about seeing Louis:

One Direction weren’t on a break at the end of March 2014; they were in rehearsals for WWA (they rehearsed a lot! I can see why people were freaking out at the beginning of OTRA). The week before they had filmed You & I video on the Monday and rehearsed Tuesday-Friday. They then had the weekend of the 29th and 30th off and had more rehearsals and launched the perfume on Monday (although I can’t be bothered figuring out if they actually had to do anything for that or if it was just videos being released).

In addition, (I use the 1D timeline of doom as a starting point for all my 1D researching needs) Louis was up in Doncaster the weekend before the 30th as well - on the 22nd he was photographed with tiny fans at Doncaster bowling alley (the 23rd is Phoebe and Daisy’s birthday).

Mothering Sunday is Mothers’ Day in the UK. Louis hadn’t been in the country for Mothering Sunday the previous two years (he was in Ireland in 2013 and the US in 2012 and would be in Thailand in 2015, which she probably already knew). He was filming in London on Mothering Sunday in 2011.

So towards the end of March 2014, when he was working a Monday-Friday schedule with tour rehearsals in London, Louis spent at least part of two weekends in a row with his family and made sure he was with his family the twins birthday and Mothering Sunday.

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On top of that, it turns out where he met fans is a little bit hard to determine, but wasn’t a railway station between London and Doncaster.

There were two fan photos posted on twitter that day, that look to be in the same Starbucks. One was Ella May - she’s only tweeted seven times and all that day. She said that she met him Hartshead Moor Services.

The other way from 1D__Vines who took the photo from her friend’s cousin’s facebook page. 1D___Vines is a little bit unclear, but suggests that the photograph was taken in Liverpool station. It’s possible that the photographs are taken in two different places, and Starbucks are just that indistinguishable - but I think it’s much more likely that Ella May is accurate and 1D____Vines got confused.

Some Geography:

The place where they probably seen is the red marker - about an hour out of Doncaster to the North and West. (You’ll see that the M62 goes all the way to Liverpool - this is where I think 1D___Vines got confused. She said that her friend’s cousin traveled to Liverpool that day - I imagine that she got the picture on the way). Doncaster is North and ever so slightly West of London - so this was very much in the opposite direction. I can’t see any evidence from either person tweeting that they came separately and met at this service station. And of course they didn’t - because that would be super ridiculous. I’m willing to consider a lot of possibilities, but not that Louis ‘mama’s boy’ Tomlinson was like: “I’ll hang out with you on Mothering Sunday, but only in a Starbucks at a Motorway Service stop”. Instead, they were going somewhere, or coming back from somewhere to celebrate Mothering Sunday and stopped for coffee.

I don’t think you can deduce that Louis didn’t see his sisters on a particular day, just because he was photographed with his Mum in a service station on the M62 - it’s possible that he didn’t, but seems far more likely to me that he was in Doncaster that day (otherwise where had the two of them met up - and that’s leaving aside the possibility that other family members were with them - just in McDonalds not Starbucks when the photos were taken).

And look - maybe there’s stuff I don’t know - like I said I wasn’t around. There could be stuff about that day that I haven’t found. I’ve put a lot of time looking into timezones of tweets and motorway systems - if anyone has more information I’d be really interested.

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Partly I’m just posting this, because I find Louis’ commitment to his family really lovely. And it saddens me that a time when he was seems to have been putting a lot of energy into ensuring he was there for the important events of his family is being represented as a time when he was alienated and distanced from them.

My bigger point is that even though it seemed implausible - I mostly believed that story about Louis and Jay meeting in a train station somewhere in the middle of England. This isn’t supposed to be an attack on the person who wrote it - there’s a lot going on with 1D and it’s easy to get things muddled or confused - or to have a story solidify in your mind in a way that means you forget the details. I’ve done it - I’ve done it a lot.

There’s so much we don’t know about their lives. My story about the 30th of March, based on my research, would be about Louis taking Jay out somewhere nice for Mothering Sunday and her really appreciating it. But that could be wildly wrong. They could have been going somewhere really unpleasant and boring, but it had to be done that day. They could have had a massive fight at the next service station and Louis could have stormed away in a taxi. So many things could have happened.

We make stories, us humans, that’s what we do. Give us three points and we’ll join the dots between them and be able to describe the line much easier than the original dots.

This is mostly a reminder to myself to live with the uncertainty - to live with the mights and the probably and the possibly. PS - the motorway service station they stopped at is pretty interesting for a motorway service station - you should check out the wikipedia page

#Louis Tomlinson #Jay is great #family #uncertainty #service stations #sad train station sandwiches

ur lovely wife about to lay a smackdown on an unassuming amphibian

no but REALLY im sorry this took so frickin long my computer crashed like 4 times and i nEver save my documents

sc r eAMIGN I LOVE THIS IT’S PERFECT THANK Y OU

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