When I was 13 I got my first review. Gilbert & Sullivan, a school production. The Borehamwood Post said I was the next Dora Bryan – a lithe, comedienne who lived in Brighton.
However, longside my rave review was a damning paragraph that said I ‘Couldn’t sing for toffee.’
The gauntlet had been well and truly chucked.
Game on.
My father, always first in line with technology, installed a quadrophonic sound system in the front room. An Ercole rocking chair and black wood-chip wallpaper was the setting for my fight back.
I moved the chair and centred myself between the speakers. I put on Dionne Warwicks’ 1962 album, listened to her singing Burt Bacharach, rocking back and forth – Ms Warwick was on repeat. Over and over I copied her vibrato, her tuning, opening my mouth like she did, closing my eyes as I imagined how to sound just like her.
‘Don’t Make me Over.’ blared out into my future.
Five years later I got into drama school and asked Wiggy, the caretaker, to open up early for me so I could practice my piano.
I was dedicated and out for revenge.
Then came my first good review from the Financial Times. I’ve got it somewhere. A rave.
My second review was in Plymouth.
There was one person in the audience, otherwise it was an empty house. The show was about the troubles in Ireland.
That one person was a critic from ‘Time Out’. He penned my ‘Voice had the accuracy of an AK-47’, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova. I was on my way.
Ten years of practicing – practice doesn’t just make it perfect, it makes it permanent – and there I was, aged 18, leaning on the shoulders of Whitney Huston’s aunty.
A year later I played the Piano and sung for Ken Campbell. ‘Belt and Braces’ was formed and off we went round the country touring subversive material from Lands End to John O’Groats
I wrote songs until Tony Haynes joined the company. A magnificent musical director who told me to stand still and stop being a wanker.
We made a show when I had to hit a top ‘G’.
I’m an alto, so I went to a singing teacher in North London. She gave me exercises and with breathing and determination I managed it.
We toured the show and I received accolades from dockers in Liverpool and a shop steward in Newcastle who sent me flowers.
I pushed myself.
With a blind pianist and a drummer I tried an open mic session, in an Islington pub to prove to myself I could sing without ‘Belt and Braces’ I was booked for regular sessions but I didn’t turn up. I had achieved my aim.
In the audience was a woman wearing a faux leopard print coat, she collared me in the ladies.
After the set I left the pub to get a bus home.
I hailed down a little blue van thinking it was the drummer.
‘We don’t like seeing a young woman standing alone at 10.30 at night’ said the leopard wearing woman from the ladies.
Turns out Lally was a clairvoyant,
Her husband Len, stopped on the Embankment to have a wee.
Lally turned round and took my hand.
‘I’ve been looking for you for three weeks’ she said calmly.
I went cold. Lally revealed all sorts of information about my life and told me that my paternal grandmother had said I had talent and could sing.
How could she have known my motives for singing in that pub.
She dropped me off in Fulham with a scrap of paper that had her telephone number scrawled on it.
I never talked to her again. .
Years later, when we moved out of London and I found the scrap of paper but the telephone number was always engaged. I decided to have singing lessons again.
I found a delightful young man.
Gay and dead good at teaching.
He gave me a pottery otter as a gift, we were firm friends. That otter sits in my office to this day.
I went regularly until he had an incident.
The incident was traumatic for him.
Being gay in the 80’s was tricky. Living where we lived meant he would drive to Sevenoaks to visit a gentleman’s lavatory.
He frequented the same urinal until he got caught by the police.
He didn’t get arrested just a warning.
Terrified he would be found out, unable to deal with it, he went into therapy.
What would happen if it came out that he was ‘cottaging’?
What would happen if his reputation was tarnished?
How was he to deal with this George Michael episode.
The therapist guided him through weeks of anguish. Then she looked him in the eyes and declared
‘It’s not a problem’.
‘Of course it’s a problem.’ said the terrified teacher.
Just treat it as an AFGO.’
‘What’s an AFGO?’ said the trembling singer
‘You don’t know what an AFGO is?’ said the therapist brazenly.
‘No.’ whimpered the man.
‘An AFGO.’ said the therapist kindly is ‘ANOTHER FUCKING GROWTH OPPORTUNITY’
I didn’t see him again.
This kidney catastrophe is the latest in my AFGO’s.
Treating it as a growth opportunity ain’t easy, but if my old singing teacher can overcome a Sevenoaks nightmare, so can I.