I was listening to a playlist that I have created on Spotify called 'Byron's Favourite Slowies' last night, and one of the songs that came on sent me on a truly Proustian madeleine cake trip back to my fifth form drama school days in Liverpool in the mid to late 80s. The song that prompted this extraordinary trip down memory lane was 'China in Your Hand' by T'Pau, and the memories it stirred were so vivid and invigorated my mind so much that they prevented me from falling asleep (I listen to music on my headphones in bed). The first, involuntary memory was about T'Pau's lead singer, Carol Decker. My drama school friends, as fifteen/sixteen year old chaps are wont to do, were discussing one day who their current pop star crushes were. I had recently bought a single that I'd heard on the radio and fallen deeply in love with called 'China in Your Hand' by the aforementioned band, T'Pau, so instead of saying Madonna (who I had it bad for, dear reader!) I declared how I thought the singer of T'Pau was "well fit" and that she was my current main pop star crush. This was met by a barrage of uncontrollable laughter that could have crushed me if I had been in a bad space that day, because, according to them, she was a "ginger." This was news to me as the single cover was in black and white so I had no idea what colour her hair was. Here's the single I owned:
I'm pretty sure Sigmund Freud would find this fascinating stuff, as not only did I later not only discover and fall very deeply in love with the pre- Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti's heart-turning red heads in his astonishing art works, but my stunning wife also had long flowing locks, which soon became a red "Bowie-pixie" look. I clearly had a very soft spot for the otherworldly ginger/red hair look from an impressionable age! But not only that, listening to T'pau last night also took my memory to further depths, and one of the memories that I recalled was actually one of the most pleasant of my teens. I was about 17/18 by now, and I was playing the role of Mick in an adaptation of Catherine Cookson's The Fifteen Streets at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. We had been touring much of the UK and this weekly stint in the north east had me staying at possibly one of the nicest digs I've ever had. It was in Gateshead and I can recall the view every time I left the front door, which was on a slope that I could have skied down as it was so steep...
These two pictures, sadly, are not actual pictures by me from that front door, but are images I have found on Google, but as a very young man who hadn't even turned seventeen yet, living away from my home village in North Wales, this was a different universe. I loved the city of Newcastle, and the digs I had, was, in all fairness, entirely wasted on me. It was a converted loft and had en-suite shower, built-in kitchen, and a beautiful, large lounge space with luxurious sofas and chairs. Bryan Ferry would have quite gladly used this place as a secret love nest, I am sure, but for me, at that time of life when I was sixteen but still looked about fourteen, it was simply somewhere to sleep and keep my stuff. But 'China in Your hand' by T'pau has reminded me of the extraordinary emotional power music has on our minds, as if it wasn't for this song coming on at that moment these memories may have stayed hidden away forever. And not only that, but it has also remined me what an interesting life I have actually had. It may sound like a cliché but I have more than once been called the Billy Elliot of North Wales. And it's actually pretty accurate. Just picture me for a second, dear reader: a boy brought up by his single mum and grandparents in a tiny village in North Wales called Northop, living an adolescence punctuated by bullying and being seriously abused for many years by a supposed trusted family member before I managed to partially escape by gaining a place at a prestigious performing arts school in Liverpool when I was thirteen; and at the age of fourteen, creating and starring as Gavroche in Les Miserables with the Royal Shakespeare Company in the West End of London. I feel like I really must tell my story at some point. My wife and my friends have been persuading me how inspiring my life and story is and just how helpful it would be for other people facing similar problems. It's taken some time, but I am completely of the same opinion as them now. My story should be told. I have underplayed my achievements for most of my adult life instead of being immensely proud of them. Dear, faithful readers, I won't say too much for now but I will leave you with this teaser. I am trying to get the wheels moving in a way that my writing will be improved to such a level that my beloved dream of being a professional, published writer might possibly be achieved. In that famous theatrical manner all I ask of you for now is to say this to me:
"Good luck, darling!"
