Mercury & Gemini

"Just savour every mouthful,

And treasure every moment,

When the storms are raging round you,

Stay right where you are."

- Queen, 'Don't Try So Hard'

Freddie Mercury was 45 years of age when he passed away in the November of 1991. When I first heard the news, although I was deeply saddened, the thought of living to be 45 was a distant, unlikely to the point of impossible age for me to hope to be around to see, & yet, here I am, about to celebrate the entering of my 46th year on this wonderful, mysterious planet, still learning, still enchanted, & still gloriously in love with this crazy little thing called life. Such a milestone has given me much cause to ponder & so much to be grateful for, & of all the artists, when I look back, who have influenced me & enriched my life beyond measure, without question one of the most important was the man born Farrokh Bulsara, in Zanzibar in 1946, who went on to conquer the world of popular music & the hearts of many a devoted fan as the singer we all came to know as Freddie Mercury. His influence on me covers so many different avenues, & I have laughed & loved the world whilst being serenaded by Freddie, & I have cried & faced many a scary, uncertain hour with him, too. I adored his voice from the first moment I heard it as a pre-teen on 'We Will Rock You', & loved Queen's singles & the joy they brought to so many people such as myself, but in early 1991, Queen released an album that spoke to the very heart of my being. Any regular readers of mine might recall how I often mention the importance of timing in life for anything important - a person, an album, a book, a film, a particular philosophy or religion, etc - to truly speak to the deepest part of your inner life or soul. Well, when Innuendo was released, I had not that long before had my first really scary situation with my CF, as I had developed pneumonia during the summer of 1990 & had my first glimpse into what it truly means to have to live with, & face up to, the fact of having a chronic, life threatening condition. Although I fortunately recovered from the pneumonia, I was immediately transferred to the specialist Cystic Fibrosis Unit in Liverpool - until then I had been seeing a local chest specialist in north Wales - & the full enormity & complexity of my condition was impossible for me to not recognise. And during one of those regular trips to Liverpool hospital, my mind returns to a particular grey morning, the drizzle & damp enveloping my mood as much as it did the world outside the car windows, knowing I would soon have to endure a whole barrage of pretty unpleasant medical tests & procedures during the day, & then, while we were crossing the Runcorn Bridge, finding that the song I was listening to on my headphones in the back of the car was speaking a language that I understood on a different level to what I had been used to previously. 'The Show Must Go On' was its name, & I was left transfixed & spellbound, hardly able to move a muscle as I watched the industrial landscape drift by. "Empty spaces...what are we living for? Abandoned places, I guess we know the score. On & On...does anybody know what we are looking for?" sang that extraordinary voice. And all of a sudden, I felt immeasurably less alone. I was still only 19 years old at this point, & the Madchester indie scene was in full swing & my friends were busy getting stoned, getting high & listening to The Stone Roses & The Happy Mondays - & I was delighted that they were doing so - for why shouldn't they, for as Sophie Ellis Bextor sings, "If you can't do it when you're young, when can you do it?" - but during that particular time, & especially during innumerable hospital visits & health worries, I was grasping for something more. And here, in Queen's Innuendo album, I had certainly found it. It was to become an album that I took to the very depths of my heart, & the singer who sang on it, Freddie Mercury, was soon to become a glorious, life affirming obsession, who lit up, & continues to light up, my life like a glamorous, theatrical rainbow.

Following that immense, life changing encounter with 'The Show Must Go' that I have just mentioned, I listened intently to the entire Innuendo album that was its home with deeper intensity over the next few weeks, & so many of the songs touched on things that were very pertinent to my situation at that point. I was still singing & acting professionally at this time, but it was already becoming increasingly difficult to maintain my health whilst doing my treatments - which were considerably less than what I have to do now - yet I desperately wanted to continue doing it for as long as possible as I enjoyed it so much & it gave my life so much meaning as well. Although there were many rumours circulating about Freddie's health, he had strenuously denied that he was ill (& which, for the record, I applaud & support, for it was literally nobody's fucking business except Freddie's & whoever he chose to tell), yet there were unmistakable lyrics sprinkled throughout that certainly seemed to hint at issues about declining health & mortality. And soon afterwards, the second track on the album, which was helped in no uncertain terms by the incredible video that went with the single, was the song 'I'm Going Slightly Mad.' which also completely bowled me over. It was still a song with a sad message, but it came with a wicked sense of gallows humour & the video itself showed Freddie, despite the severity of his illness at this point, as a master conjuring performer. Shot in black & white & with Freddie in a splendid big black fright wig, it is a masterpiece in the art of the promotional video. And as this song & vision lifted the mood of Innuendo after the majestic, meandering opening title track, & after being so ill myself but finding that my health was gradually improving & beginning to settle somewhat, & as I got used to the new hospital & CF team at Liverpool, so too did my own mood begin to lift, & I returned to life with an even greater sense of relish & appreciation than I had had previously. And who better to nurture & encourage me through this next part of my journey, than Freddie Mercury?

"This is your life,

Don't play hard to get!

It's a free world...

All you have to do is fall in love...

Play the game,

Everybody play the game of love."

- Queen, 'Play The Game'

That following spring & summer, I felt my life returning with a shuddering, urgent intensity, & I was determined to drain every drop of joy, fun, creativity, singing, acting, laughing, flirting & supporting Everton as I could possibly muster. I was in full Freddie obsession mode by now, & had got hold of all of Queen's back catalogue, Freddie's solo albums, & literally every book & magazine article I could get my hands on. And what a summer that was! I was filming as an actor on a well known TV series, was therefore financially secure, I had a spring in my step, a Queen song in my heart, & a determination to make the most of every moment that life offered me at that moment as because of my CF I had no idea how long would be left for me to enjoy being free & alive in such a way. (Although cystic fibrosis is a genetically inherited illness, I wasn't diagnosed until I was seven, & my mum was told that I probably wouldn't make it past my teens). I adored being in London, a magical city where I spent a lot of time at this point. I can recall sunny days strolling/cruising! around Soho, taking in the wonderful spectacle of life that flashed & raced before my very eyes. My senses were on fire & on red alert. Sounds, smells, sights, tasting different cuisines that North Wales had never even heard of. Being surrounded by the beautiful flowers in Regents Park & "watching the wildlife!" around Marble Arch. And all this with Freddie's insistent words coursing through my mind & every nerve fibre: "This is your life, Don't play hard to get...It's a free world, so play the game..." And taking this on board & grasping life to the full. Enjoying being a working singer & actor. Trying to never take things for granted. Being excited by having to catch a train to London at 5am to go for an audition or costume fitting, rather than cursing about having to travel across the country all of the time. And travelling to other places like Leeds & Ashford in Kent, checking into hotels & feeling like I had to make the most of every single second, even on the bad days. And also when I was back in Wales, lying in my mum's back garden, Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon with my adored & beloved pet dog, a Dobermann, who was an incredibly mischievous, giant teddy bear called Llewelyn, & whose name was to fit exactly with Freddie's cat's name who had got a song to his credit: Delilah. Whenever I hear 'Delilah', even now, I still sing 'Llewelyn' instead & remember so fondly that beautiful, crazy friend who I took so very much to my heart, & who used to gaze up at me with those rich, dark eyes of his & then the lyric of 'Delilah' (Llewelyn!) would immediately spring into my mind: "You make me smile, When I'm just about to cry. You bring me hope, You make me laugh & I like it.... You get away with murder, so innocent!"

And then, of course, being a young Gemini, there was the flirting! Oh yes, my dears & darlings, there was plenty of that good old fashioned lover boy stuff, too. Which brings me nicely to the part of my life that began in the early 2000s when I met & began dating the beautiful creature of the night who was to become my wife. For if I was a master flirt, then Lydia took the art of the game of flirting to levels I could only dream of. And as we became closer & then got engaged, our friends of that time had that sudden spark of recognition of, "Oh! Of course they'd fall in love with each other...they're the two biggest flirts in the Tiv!" (The "Tiv" Tivoli was pretty much North Wales' only night club, but the indie/rock nights that they had there, which was where Lydia & I met, are now legendary). And this wonderful observation would be smilingly repeated to us as often as we all got together, especially when alcohol was involved! And I also remember in those very early, embryonic days of our relationship, going through Lydia's albums & my heart skipping a beat when I noticed the A Kind of Magic album cover in amongst the Marilyn Manson & Placebo cds, as well as Fleetwood Mac's gloriously atmospheric & exotic Tango In The Night. "Ah, not only is she beautiful, she has immaculate taste in music as well," I will no doubt have thought. And, dear reader, that is no unimportant thing, for if, as some people say, we are what we listen to, we could have run into problems if the albums she had had been by the likes of Oasis or Ian Brown! But of course, I needn't have worried. And as time went on we would listen to & talk about Freddie & Queen, amongst a million other things, into the early hours, as we still do now, though perhaps not into the early hours as I am not quite as robust as I was back then. And it was because of Queen that I was blessed with witnessing another example of Lydia's wonderful, sharp ability to pour scorn on somebody without her needing to say anything that could be considered even remotely offensive. Picture the scene if you will: A group of friends & acquaintances had gathered & were enjoying each other's company, but there was also an infuriating individual present, a total "know all" who had seriously severe superiority issues. We all know one, I'm sure. With him already having spent much of his hot air on denouncing Daoism, vegetarianism, energy, the arts, etc, the subject of people's favourite bands then became the next subject being discussed. Queen, obviously, were mentioned & I don't think it was even by me. And then, with a smug grin, came his announcement, "Oh yes," he said, "I saw Queen in concert in the early 80s. I was quite bored throughout & thoroughly unimpressed. I got nothing at all out of it." After I had picked up my jaw from the floor I shook my head with disbelief & Lydia asked me what was wrong. I then relayed to her what had just been said & with ultimate grace, poise & with the perfect air of the dandy, she suddenly replied, "WHAT!" Rarely, enchanted reader, has one word meant so very much. For in that slow, elongated reply, delivered in a tone so withering that Freddie himself would have bought her ten crates of Moet & Chandon in a pretty cabinet had he himself been present to witness it, she had said, in a nut shell, what everyone else around the table was thinking. For what that one word actually meant was this: "So, dick head, you've had the wonderful privilege of seeing Queen live yet you got nothing out of it. NOTHING AT ALL? You mean you couldn't even admire Freddie's superhuman voice, Brian May's powerful, yet delicate & intricate playing, on both electric & acoustic guitars, a bass player who could have been in a funk band, Freddie's control over an audience & his exquisite showmanship, the theatricality of the show, the lights & the cleverness of the songs & their arrangements, which takes in ballads, music hall, elements of opera, through to heavy rock, & the interaction  of the crowd & their participation in the concert, which made it an event & not just a show to be watched as a spectacle & which was so vitally important to Freddie? In that case, then you sir, are a philistine & a fool of the highest order & let it be known, because we all know it very well, that the fault lies entirely with you yourself, as there is something for everybody at a Queen concert, no matter what their personal taste in music is, & you are obviously completely incapable of appreciating art & are, to conclude, about as sensitive as a house brick." But of course, if she'd have said all that, there would have been arguments & tears & tantrums & the evening would have been spoiled. But she made her point admirably, without the need for any of that, & the amused grins from the many other people present confirmed to me that I wasn't the only one to recognise this fact. It was genuinely wonderful to behold, & if it were to be recreated as a scene in a film or a play, I reckon that perhaps the only actress who could possibly do it justice & come anywhere close to expressing the truth of the moment, would be Helena Bonham Carter...



Lydia had most certainly been on killer queen form in that instant, & as Fred himself sang, "she'd been a cool cat!"

But the subject of Queen live in concert actually brings me to one of the great regrets of my life. I have been so very fortunate to have seen some of the greatest live acts imaginable & had transcendental, out of body experiences at many of them. But I sadly never got to see Queen. Which is probably why I enjoyed Lydia's reply to the aforementioned know all just described so very much, as it infuriates me beyond measure to think that such a blessing was wasted on one so unappreciative. But there you go & such is life sometimes. I would dearly have loved to have heard Edith Piaf & Frank Sinatra sing live, & am saddened that I never saw Richard Burton act in a Shakespeare play on stage, particularly in the role of Hamlet, & not seeing Freddie is another one on that illustrious list. But at least there are the songs & the concert DVDs, & they are worth their weight in gold.

But although Queen with Freddie are no longer around, there are lots of wonderful tribute acts, & we have had some wonderful evenings watching them. Tribute bands often get a bad rap, & music snobs often pull a face, but almost all of the Queen ones I've seen have been fantastic. The band & the audience are quite aware that they are not the real thing. But the players & the audience love the music deeply & they have a wonderful sense of appreciation & wild abandon. They are also a splendid opportunity to dress up! Here are some pics from a previous occasion a few years ago when we saw a Queen tribute strut their stuff...

Lydia as 'Roger Taylor' from the 'I Want To Break Free' video...

Me as...I'm not sure exactly whom I was supposed to be...a kind of Flash I suppose!...

And our good friend Cornelius as Freddie, again from the 'I Want To Break Free' video...

And group shots amongst friends, as that is what it's also all about really...

As you can see, much fun was had by all & how badly is fun & love & craziness needed currently? Wonderful times, indeed.

Which brings me to the part where I would like to talk a bit more about Freddie himself & discuss his legacy, which has been gargantuan. The first thing I should probably mention is his extraordinary voice. I recall a conversation in college where it was discussed whether or not Bob Dylan was a finer artist than Freddie, & it was suggested that as Queen's songs were far more polished & as it were, completed, than Bob Dylan's, that Dylan was the greater artist as his songs were more covered by other artists & also had many different versions, often available on bootlegs & which meant that there was never a definitive version of a Dylan song. It is something I find very interesting to consider, but I would also point out that the reason that Bob Dylan is covered by more people than Queen is that Dylan's melodies are a breeze to sing when compared to Freddie's as Freddie's songs require such astonishing vocal ability. And who amongst us, darlings, have Freddie's range & power? Not many, I can assure you, as was evidenced during the Freddie Tribute Concert at Wembley in 1992 when, arguably, only George Michael & Annie Lennox, who sang Freddie's part alongside Bowie on 'Under Pressure', got anywhere near Freddie's soaring vocal lines. Bob Dylan's lyrics are unquestionably magnificent, but even matching Freddie's vocal is extremely tough & bettering it is nigh on impossible. These are the kind of things I like to consider sometimes when I'm unable to sleep because of the side effects of the drugs I have to take, etc, dear reader, along with wondering how we can stop global warming & get Jeremy Corbyn elected as Prime Miniser, & I can certainly vouch for the difficulty in matching Freddie's melodies, as I have been immensely privileged to have sung some of Queen's songs myself in the past. I clearly recall a gentleman asking me after I'd sang a few of them on one occasion, "You love singing Queen songs, don't you?" And I immediately answered, "yes I certainly do!" They were difficult in places & I struggled with a few of the very top notes (but with Fred, whom of us wouldn't, darlings?), but they were an absolute joy of joys. Songs written by a real singer that can be sang with great joy by real singers. (And Freddie wrote a whole album for the opera singer Monsterrat Caballe, don't forget, so he wasn't some folky type just churning them out & he obviously knew his craft). And that is what this particular guy had picked up on. My opportunity to sing such wonderful songs came primarily with a wonderful musician called Nidd, who is probably the finest semi professional guitarist in north Wales. He asked me if I would sing 'One Vision,' 'Tie Your Mother Down,' 'I Want To Break Free,' 'Hammer To Fall,' 'Fat Bottomed Girls', & 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' during an unforgettable gig he organised one night at Theatre Clwyd, & all this came with the power of his incredible guitar playing & his full band behind me. It honestly felt like an aeroplane taking off. And we also played 'Love Of My Life' with just him accompanying me on acoustic guitar - what can I say? Words can't adequately describe it. And last, but certainly not least, singing 'The Great Pretender' & 'My Melancholy Blues' at various times with my good friend Phil accompanying me with his gloriously delicate & sensitive playing on piano. They were all moments of pure bliss, each & every time I sang them & are memories I will treasure to the end of my days. These are the kind of incredibly special things that make the struggle against serious illness so very worth while. And because, as Freddie so passionately informed us, no matter how tough things become, The Show Must Go On.

Freddie, of course, had his detractors, not least among many in the little indie fascist community that included many of my friends & who derided any band that played in stadiums (until Oasis came along & then that particular sleight was conveniently forgotten), or had ambition to reach the masses or had a singer who could actually sing. (i.e., a singer who was not like Ian fucking Brown). The fact that Freddie was so overtly theatrical also upset some people, who thought that Queen weren't "authentic" enough to be the real thing. But I'm going to venture an opinion here that may be a bit controversial & which many people may disagree with vociferously. Because, in my mind, Freddie Mercury was, in many ways, actually a bona fide punk. No! Hear me out! I have a well thought out argument to defend my claim here! Okay, so firstly, if you believe a punk is an individual who sports a green mohican, gobs continually at people or on the floor & wears ripped jeans & bovver boots, then of course, you will not consider Freddie Mercury to be even remotely punk. But let us stop to consider what actually makes somebody a punk. Here is what makes a punk in the words of Joey Ramone, who was actually born Jeffrey Ross Hyman, from the legendary American punk band The Ramones:

"To me, punk is about being an individual & going against the grain & standing up & saying 'This is who I am.'" 

If that is the case, then Freddie was, especially in the early years of Queen, as punk as they come. He transformed himself from being Farrokh Bulsara into the person we came to know & love as Freddie Mercury. He was an outsider on account of being an immigrant from Zanzibar, & also because of his sexuality. Yet, he recreated himself into an artist of sheer energy & magic, & people who knew him recall repeatedly in interviews how he knew he was going to be a star & would get frustrated that the world was taking so much time in recognising this. He stood against the grain by bringing opera & ballet into the world of rock & pop music. He stood up on stage & said unreservedly, 'This is who I am.' He wore outrageously camp clothes on stage yet ignored the people who derided him. He went against all record company warnings & insisted on 'Bohemian Rhapsody' being released in its full six minute form, despite threats from record company management & the mockery of the suits in the music business, who opined that the public would never listen to a single that was longer than three minutes long & that if they proceeded to release it they could go bankrupt as a band. But he stuck to his beliefs & was proved correct. And so, if you believe a punk is an identikit, mohican wearing cockney, who poses for photographs by tourists in London whilst wearing dog chains round their waists then clearly, Freddie was no punk. But if you believe, like I do, that the original idea of punk was to create yourself anew, to have belief in yourself, to say "fuck you" to the doubters & beigists who get on your case, to be resolutely individual & which has more to do with early Roxy Music than with torn trousers, then Freddie could certainly, if admittedly not an out & out punk, certainly be said to have the true spirit of punk that Joey Ramone describes above resonating deep inside him. It is also worth recalling an interview that Freddie gave after he had met John Lydon & co in the studio sometime in the late 1970s:

"Actually, I will never forget, we were in the studio doing the 'Sheer Heart Attack' track, & the Sex Pistols happened to be in the next studio... Anyways, I got Johnny Rotten & Sid Vicious in to listen to one of our tracks & I said I would sing on one of their songs if they sang on one of mine, & you should have seen them! They were like, 'We can't sing with Freddie Mercury!' I was wearing ballet pumps at the time, & things like that. It was quite funny. I think I called Sid Vicious, Simon Ferocious, or something like that, & he didn't like it at all. I said, 'So, what are you going to do about it?' He had all these marks on him, so I asked if he scratched himself in the mirror & he hated the fact that I could speak to him like that." (Mercury, Freddie. p. 28)

I'm certainly not attempting to denigrate the Pistols in any way here, as they were an incredible band & without them popular music & a great deal of alternative culture wouldn't have been anywhere near as rich as it is & I adore much of their work too. And I'm certainly not trying to suggest that Freddie was a rip roaring "Champion of the People," as he was more Nietzsche's Zarathustra than Marxist. But he was definitely not a self confessed Tory Royalist like the darling of the indie scene, Ian Curtis of Joy Division, & was certainly no class traitor like "the miner's son" from the North East, Bryan Ferry, who since he made his fortune admits to being a conservative who spends much of his leisure time shooting pheasants with Earls on their grand estates whilst sticking up for two of his twattish, email bullying, fox hunting sons, Isaac & Otis. For all his faults, I could never imagine the glorious lover of life that was Freddie Mercury wanting to shoot or kill anything. All I want to do here is to point out that perhaps Freddie had a great deal more of the original, genuine punk spirit in him than he is given credit for. And that also, as with most things, the music press were anything but fair & even handed with him when they complained about his love of luxury & ambition, criticising him in the extreme whilst giving people like Ian Curtis an easy ride. I wonder sometimes if there was more than a hint of barely repressed homophobia in their negative reactions to him. And let it never be forgotten that the New Musical Express (NME), in their, ahem, wisdom, on June 18th in 1978, published an article which dissected the merits or not of the god-given genius of Freddie Mercury, & which ran under the pathetic, mean spirited title of:

As always, despite the haters, it wasn't Freddie but the resentful music journalists who were left with lashings of egg on their misery arse faces. 

Final Score: Freddie 1 The NME 0

Another brick that was often thrown at Queen was that they were apolitical. As a band, they made it perfectly clear that this was their position from the very beginning. As somebody who adores the Manics, post-punk bands, the Situationists & many other artists that are fiercely political, it does indeed sadden me that Queen didn't engage in politics in their music. But it is interesting to delve a little deeper on this subject & I have found some revealing insights over the last few years. The first was an interview that I heard with Brian May. In the interview he revealed that Freddie had talked to him about how much he enjoyed having an audience in the palm of his hand, but that it also concerned him somewhat. Freddie had picked up on the power he had, & had told Brian that politics would have to stay off the Queen table as he was concerned that if he/they said to a huge audience that they should vote this way, or do this or that, there would be many members of their audience who would do exactly that, just because he/they had told them to. This may have had little influence in reality, as I think that deep down, Freddie wanted Queen & his own solo music to be about creating joy & allowing his audience to have two hours of unbridled fun. He was more than aware of the problems in the world - just listen to 'Is This The World We Created?' for proof of this - & wanted everyone to just get on with each other & be happy. And of course, when all is said & done, the lyric in 'In My Defence' explains Freddie's situation perfectly:

"I'm just a singer with a song,
How can I try, to right the wrong?"

And then there is the quite astonishing stories I have picked up from interviews, books & articles about some of the things that Freddie did in his private life, with the most poignant being one that his partner Jim Hutton relayed on a TV interview. According to Jim Hutton, in the last couple of years of Freddie's life, & as it was becoming increasingly clear that he was running out of time, Freddie allowed the doctors to experiment with all kinds of new drugs & various drug combinations. But, it turned out, he was quite aware that this would all be of little benefit to him as he was already so ill. He was doing it to try & help other people who would be diagnosed in the future to see if anything that he was given could be proven to have positive affects. I can feel a lump in my throat as I write this for although Freddie, being human, had many many flaws, as we all do, this act convinces me of the incredible generosity of spirit that almost everybody who knew him talks about him having had in such wonderful abundance. And this selflessness could be used as a shining example to us all, in a world where we are now so busy chasing our own tails & making money that we can hardly find the space to spend some quality time with friends & acquaintances. I have to spend a great deal of time in hospital because of my CF, yet if it wasn't for Lydia, whilst there as an inpatient I would see absolutely nobody except for specialists, doctors, nurses & other health professionals. It is an anxious, lonely time for me as I am in a unit where all the patients are isolated from each other because of the risks of cross infection. And I am, I don't mind admitting, often as lonely as a little petunia in an onion patch, watching people writing about their lives to each other on Facebook - "Human interaction reduced to little more than data" (Renton, T2 Trainspotting) - which has now become an all-encompassing crap alternative to spending precious time with friends & acquaintances in the flesh. And in among all this naval gazing & high flown, flowery language about life being merely an illusion, all I can actually see is yet more excuses to act like the selfish, bourgeois brats that the Manic Street Preachers warned us that we were all in danger of becoming back in 1992 on their epic, snarling glam rock masterpiece, 'Repeat.' Thankfully, Freddie's wonderful approach to life shows us, even when he was going through the darkest of days when he was facing up to his life being close to its end, a far more generous & beautiful way of interacting with our friends, our fellow humans, fate & the world.

Which brings me to the closing stages of this blog about Freddie Mercury & the wonderful, life affirming influence he has had on my life. I have a couple of little anecdotes to tell before I sign off, however, & they are of the more personal nature that I often try to include when writing about my heroes. The first one is when I made a pilgrimage in 1992 to Garden Lodge in South Kensington where Freddie had lived. It was eerie seeing all the messages that had been scrawled on the wall by heartbroken fans & some made me cry & some others made me smile. I actually have a photograph of the occasion somewhere as a young Brazilian woman was there at the same time & we chatted & exchanged stories about why Freddie meant so much to us & we took a picture of each other so that we both had a record of each other visiting Freddie's house. It was strange seeing the door that Freddie would have walked through so many times & I could hear his infectious laugh ringing in my memory. Another compelling moment for me was when I realised that I would be performing in the play The Fifteen Streets at the Playhouse Theatre in London in 1988. For I knew that Queen's 'A Kind Of Magic' video had been filmed at that theatre in 1986. It was a trying run in many ways, & although there were many great shows, there were also some when the audience was pitifully small & it's hard to keep excited about performing in a play when audience numbers are dropping considerably, even if it is in London. But in spite of this, I knew that I was treading EXACTLY THE SAME STAGE THAT FREDDIE MERCURY ONCE HAD! As I waited in the wings, I knew he would have done the same thing. He would probably have sat in the Green Room & drank his beloved Earl Grey tea in the very arm chair that I was sipping my tea in at that moment. And then, of course, was the real thrill. For my dressing room might even have been Freddie's dressing room & he may even have sat on the exact chair I was sitting in & had his make up done & looked back at his great, mesmerising black eyes in the very same mirror that I was peering into now!

Ah yes, dear reader, those eyes that were no doubt used as a magic charm if Freddie took a shine to you. I don't know about you, but I'm not convinced that I would have been able to resist! And even after all these years, these thoughts & recollections still send a shiver down my spine. I also know that he absolutely adored musicals & was a regular theatre goer in London's West End & had actually seen Les Miserables many times. I have to say that this is nearly too much for my sensitive nature to grasp. That Freddie could have been in the audience & heard me singing as Gavroche in Les Mis is something that my mind cannot completely comprehend. I wonder if he will have had any inkling that the boy from north Wales who he was watching & who was singing with all his heart was also incredibly aware of a couple of his teeth that used to stick out, & like Freddie, used to put his hand over his mouth whenever he laughed as he was so hopelessly self conscious of them. Even now, although they have straightened out considerably, I still refer to them as 'my Freddie teeth!' And finally, there was a much hoped for but sadly unfulfilled opportunity when I graduated from college in Liverpool in 2014. I had heard that Brian May was quite often the guest of honour at Liverpool University Graduation Ceremonies & was hoping beyond hope that it would be him when I graduated, as I wanted to tell him how much the Innuendo album had helped me all those years ago & how his guitar playing on 'Bijou' remains one of the most beautiful & haunting pieces of music I've ever heard. Sadly, however, he wasn't there on the day so I will have to wait for another opportunity to tell him, should our paths ever happen to cross.

And so, to conclude, if possible, what does Freddie still mean to me now?

Well, a great deal as you can no doubt imagine. The milestone of reaching my 46th birthday makes me ponder not only how well I've managed to do (the average life expectancy for someone with cystic fibrosis is now age 40), & how incredibly fortunate I am, but also how desperately sad it is that Freddie only lived until he was 45. I still listen to him often (particularly on sunny days!) as his & Queen's music is, in the main, so gloriously uplifting. His message & influence is as important now as it ever was. I am still awe struck when I see his live performances or listen to his interviews. Here was someone whose very existence encouraged me to live life to the full & to try & savour every second. And the Innuendo album speaks to me, if anything, on an even deeper level than it did before. There are lyrics in there that explain how I feel quite perfectly, & oftentimes in a perfect rhyming couplet. In 'I'm Going Slightly Mad', for example, Freddie sings "You're simply not in the pink, my dear... to be honest, you haven't got a clue." How often have I felt that way when admittedly well intention-ed healthy people have proceeded to inform me how I could better approach dealing with having cystic fibrosis. Another line in it runs, "One thousand & one yellow daffodils, Begin to dance in front of me, oh dear." As you can perhaps imagine, the stress of having CF & the side effects of the barrage of drugs I have to take often make me feel that I too, am going slightly mad, & Lydia knows that if I say that "the daffodils are dancing in front of me," that my head is in a funny place & that we might be in for a tricky day. And those pesky but beautiful full moons don't help very much, either! 'These Are The Days of Our Lives' is, as it already stands, an emotional thunder bolt of a song, as Freddie looks back & urges the listener to appreciate every second of their lives, & which has increasing meaning for me now as it was also played at my mum's funeral in 2008. And then, of course, is 'The Show Must Go On.' Lyrics such as, "My make up may be flaking but my smile still says on," & the unforgettable, "I'll face it with a grin, I'm never giving in, On with the Show!" have quite staggering personal meaning for me now. And there is something else that Freddie showed me: That whatever your limitations are, truly make the most of your life & your talents. He was terribly ill when Innuendo was being recorded, yet his appearances in the videos for 'I'm Going Slightly Mad' & 'These Are The Days of Our Lives' are among the greatest & most powerful that Queen ever made. Because he did what he could & adapted to his situation, & that is something I personally find incredibly inspiring. This blog is an example of this. So, okay, I cannot sing & act professionally any more, but I can still write. In the five to six weeks or so that it has taken me to put this particular post together - & which has included two weeks as an inpatient in hospital - when I've felt up to it I've put time into this blog, whereas I could have just watched crap on Netflix. And when I sing on the odd occasion that I do, even if it's only a few songs, that is infinitely better than not singing at all, & I will sing those songs on those occasions with all my heart & soul. And what else do I remember, perhaps in a less sombre sense, as his main influence on me has been anything but sombre. His overreaching message, for me, is that you must always refuse to let others stop you from doing what it is that you love. To embrace style, to flirt, to believe in yourself & feel great about yourself so that you can then help others to feel great about themselves too. To have a Byronic lust for life, just as he had. The Innuendo album, as I've mentioned, is as powerful & relevant to me as ever, & the lyric that I opened this blog with from 'Don't Try So Hard' is a wonderful image to retain. But primarily I try to never lose hold of his principal philosophy of life: enjoy it, make it beautiful, make it yours & make your own rules. To ignore the moralists & the naysayers, who are nearly always wrong or just plain jealous. To be fabulous! And if being fabulous is important to you, darlings, then BE ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS! And do it in an unapologetic manner. Do what you love. Be generous, again like the poet Lord Byron, whose own approach to life is the one I think of most when I consider Freddie, & who believed, just like Freddie I'm sure, that it was far more generous to be flirtatious & to embrace the beauty & sensuality of life than to be a moralistic, puritanical prude, because being flirtatious, when done properly, is actually nothing more than the art of making other people feel more happy & confident about themselves. And of course, to approach life with laughter, with stoicism & grace when things go wrong, & with great generosity of spirit & with love. Freddie's hedonism & love of partying was well documented, but Freddie's partner Jim Hutton said that Freddie was actually quite often never happier or more contented than when he was feeding his beloved Koi Carp from out of his hand, in his treasured Japanese styled garden at his home in Kensington. And Freddie, of course, personified the phrase 'lust for life.' Not lust in the narrow, sexual sense that we have somehow contrived to reduce it to, but lust in its earlier meaning & manifestation, & which meant vigour, an intense longing, eagerness & enthusiasm, & which is described by the feminist writer Mary Daly in this way:

"Above all, lust requires elemental faith. It is an invitation to the country of the Strange. The expression of Pure Lust, is a conjuring of the Elemental Spirits of not only women but all who have Wild natures. Such conjuring joins our Selves & our Sisters with the earth, air, fire & water. It connects us with the rhythms of the farthest stars & of our own sun & moon. It mends our broken ties & spins & weaves the tapestries of Elemental creation." (Daly, Mary. x)

And with those astonishing words, this Gemini signs off his love letter to Mercury, one of the greatest singers he has ever had the privilege to hear & someone who has had such a monumental positive influence on my life, & who is the one we all call Freddie Mercury & of whom Mary Daly's words above could be said to describe with unerring accuracy.

And I shall never forget Freddie's wonderful words of wisdom, which he sang with every ounce of his soul & which are as good as engraved on my heart & mind:

"Savour every mouthful, 

Treasure every moment...

And Ride the Wild Wind."


Stay Beautiful.

Bibliography:

Daly, Mary. Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy.

The Women's Press Ltd (2001)

Mercury, Freddie. Edited by Brooks, G & Lupton, S. 

Freddie Mercury: A Life, In His Own Words.
Mercury Songs Ltd (2006)

Reynolds, Simon. Shock & Awe: Glam Rock & Its Legacy.
Faber & Faber (2016)

Sky, Rick.
The Show Must Go On: The Life of Freddie Mercury.
Fontana Press (1992)