TRUE

Dear Alice,

Last weekend following dinner at an authentic Chinese restaurant in China town, Teacher Mum and I relived our youth at the Sydney Entertainment Centre by watching Spandau Ballet in concert. It was a highly significant event for us as this was the band we saw on our first ‘real’ date back in 1982. Despite only recently returning from skiing in Italy where we’d met, it was already becoming clear to both of us that this might be more than just a ‘holiday romance’. I was even beginning to think that this relationship might have the potential to go the distance. Sharp perception indeed, given twenty-eight years on, we’re still together. Spandau’s ‘True’ quickly became (and still is) ‘our song’ and therefore so we couldn’t wait to see them in Brighton where we were both living at the time. Last Sunday as Big Tony, who might have had a face lift and was almost certainly wearing a corset, powerfully belted it out ‘once more’ [Spandau pun], it was as if he was again singing it just for us… Now at this point, you are probably almost gagging with nausea at the very thought of your parents getting all lovey-dovey, so I wont go into detail of how we hugged and kissed throughout the song, but suffice to say, it was lovely and a very special moment. In fact it was almost the perfect night.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking, a load of old fat ‘has-beens’ forced to reform by their bank manager only to then perform substandard renditions of all their old hits to cashed-up baby boomers keen to relive bygone times. But you’d be wrong. This was actually a very polished performance by a bunch of guys who were clearly enjoying themselves and wanted to be there. They were actually extremely good, in fact I would go as far as to say that they were probably better than ever. The new arrangements of many of their thirty-year-old songs was excellent and it is perhaps testament to the quality of this music that all the songs still sounded as fresh and relevant today as they did back then. It was great to see that Tony Hadley’s smooth, timeless voice and the song-writing talents of Gary Kemp still shine on as brightly as ever.

I expect you are also wondering if I’ve met them? Well yes I have. Not that they would remember though. Tony and Gary used to work in the warehouse at IPC Magazines in Sutton, London when I worked there too. It was common knowledge around the building that these two blokes might make it big one day. I remember standing behind them in the canteen queue one day and thinking that if they ever did get famous, I be able to tell my kids how I once worked with them. Well there you go… I’ve done just that!

Next day your brother (Mr15) asked Teacher Mum if she’d enjoyed the ‘Spanish Ballet’! Ah well… nice of him to ask I guess!

: D