Take That

Ah, Take That. The boy band that is now a legitimate man band. I love them.

When I was 10 years old, in 1993, my family moved to a new house to accommodate the newest addition to the family, Daisy. My youngest sis is now a staggering 19 years old, working in a bar, going travelling soon and off to Oxford Uni in autumn! How flieth time...

Back to the story. We moved house, and my sister and I became friends with two sisters who lived on our new street, called Nicola and Emma. Emma was massively into Friends Forever, the cartoon teddybears, and she had all the merchandise - the bedspread, the border on the wall, toys, mugs, notebooks. You name it, she had it, probably hundreds of pounds worth of stuff. Her older sister Nicola, however, was into Take That, and it is to her that I owe a debt of gratitude! Initially, I think I started liking them because she did, and because I looked up to her (she was in the year above me at school, and that autumn, I would start at the same school as her, and she and a friend would be the first people ever to offer me a cigarette).

It was the summer of 1993 and "Pray" by Take That (or TT for short) was at number one for six weeks. I'm writing this all from memory, so if some facts are wrong, forgive me. There was, to me, something sublime about their voices, the way they harmonised. And then I saw the video: 5 young men, too old for me, but young enough to idolize, with shirts flapping in the tropical breeze, singing and posturing on a sandy beach about "hoping that I'll be a part of you again someday". (Embarrassingly, I thought that the lyric was "All I do is shine and pray", when in fact it is, "All I do each night is pray". Shine and pray?! Good God.) I think that I was hooked when I saw that video. I'd been going round to Nicola's house and had seen the dozens of posters on her walls and ceiling and wardrobe, and quite quickly began to emulate and imitate her fanaticism. Throughout the early years of my time as a TT fan, I looked up to Nicola a lot.

When she had concert tickets for the eighth row to see them at Earl's Court, I was so jealous - mum had managed to get me tickets but for Block DD (if only tickets corresponded to bra size! I'd have won either way: had they correlated to actual bra size, I would have been in the front row. Or, magically, if your ticket then correlated in some mysterious way to a flourishing bosom, I'd have ended up with huge ones! Sadly, this is just a whimsical fancy of mine and not connected to reality in any way. I'd like to point out that this is the first time I've ever actually had that thought before. I'm not that weird.)

Back to Nicola - she made a banner saying "I'm on sale Bargain Barlow" for Gary, who had said in an interview that he was always looking for a bargain. This was towards the end of TT Phase One, when Gary had gotten lean and toned, had a new haircut and was promptly replacing Mark as the favourite of the band among the screaming tribe of teenage girls. Robbie had left by this point, and this tour was the one which was so impacted by Robbie's swift departure that they didn't have the time or resources to remove the fifth walking travelator from the stage for "Never Forget", so at the most poignant part of the concert, his absence was made all the more tangible. Nicola came back from the concert and reported that Gary had seen her banner, had pointed at it and laughed with the lads. I wished it had been me he'd noticed. Oh, how I wished.

Anyway, back to 1993... Once I had made the decision that I too liked Take That, a double mission began to take hold. Firstly, I needed to acquire as much memorabilia and merchandise as possible. I bought every magazine that they featured in, including "100% Unofficial" magazines which dished out all the goss on the fab 5. I bought countless copies of Smash Hits magazine and spent fiver after fiver in Athena buying huge A1 sized posters of them. I covered my walls and ceiling from top to bottom in posters of them. I bought their two albums, "Take That & Party" and "Everything Changes", as well as the VHS videos accompanying the albums, with footage and music videos and interviews on them. I watched them obsessively, memorizing everything about them. I fantasized about meeting them.

One morning, on a Saturday I think, I went into my mum's bedroom to get some pocket money, and from her bed, eyes closed, she told me that she'd met Jason Orange the night before. I've never quite forgiven her for it. How dare she meet him when I was the one who loved them! Another part of me was relieved that it hadn't been Mark that she'd met, or Gary or Robbie. I'd DIE if she met any of them and didn't bring them home for me to meet.

The second part of my mission was keeping this intense obsession a secret from everyone at school. Take That were not a popular band at school, and to admit to liking them was equatable with throwing yourself to the lions (we've all heard the stories about the child in the zoo who gets eaten alive). So, for a time, nobody came round to my house, or if they did, absolutely did not set foot inside the door. Until one day. Stealing was becoming the next "in" thing to do, and I had been going through a horrible time at school, feeling excluded one minute, being used as a go-between the next. Suddenly, an opportunity arose for me to do something to make me popular, included, and liked. That it meant stealing things was scary, but an acceptable price to pay.

So off I went, with my luminous pink sports bag, stealing little trinkets and pens. A security guard in a popular high street store came up to me and asked to look in my bag. My heart pounded in my chest and my head felt like it was going to explode. I was guilty and had been caught! Fleeting images of prison, of a children's detention centre, of disapproval, flashed in my mind. He took a look in my bag, saw only the layer of clothes I'd put on top of the loot, and sent me on my way. Round the corner, I started crying, and the girl I was with, the bully/friend who I didn't know where I stood with from one day to the next, ordered me to stop, telling me that the security guard had followed us round the corner and was watching. I looked up, and there he was. We walked to the top of the high street, detouring and taking the long route back to my house. I begged my friend, who had a lot of power in my class, to take the things I'd stolen. I insisted that I didn't want them anymore. And she insisted on coming into my room. I was utterly powerless. I tried in vain to stop her from coming in, but I saw the look on her face when she entered and looked around, the silent glee that spread from ear to ear, lighting up her eyes in malice. She had a weapon now, and she knew it. The weapon was just as powerful as when I wet myself in the corridor and a girl in my class saw and used it as bait in games of Truth or Dare.

People, of course, did find out about my love for Take That. I felt utterly alone, but I never stopped liking them. Even Nicola, the girl from my street, stopped liking TT at one point and began liking East 17, writing on the wall of my house one day "Take That are rubbish. E17 4 ever!", or something along those lines. I chalked out her words, her horrible, blaspheming words. Nicola eventually left the dark side (because it was always one or the other, E17 or TT, never both) and became a TT fan again. She had to take two days off school when they broke up, she was that upset.

I myself was absolutely devastated when they split. Take That and their music held me through such a critical time in my life. My family had fallen apart. I'd made and subsequently lost friends. I'd changed schools, was going through puberty, and suffered a seemingly endless array of upsets and rejections. Their music was my retreat, my haven and my promise of sanctuary. Them ending was another shattering in my already fractured world. I felt like it was the end of any shred of happiness for me.

Fast forward a number of years, and I am spending a year living in Australia when I hear the news that Take That have reformed and are on tour. Gutted not to be there, not quite believing that this could be true, it surprised me but then receded to the back of my mind. My utter adoration of them I'd never be able to deny, but that was a long time ago.

I came back to England in October 2006, and the following year in December, I was at the O2 seeing them in concerts. Yes, I was stuck up in the heavens, miles away from the four men with microphones, and yes, I was with my sister, who appreciated the experience but certainly wasn't a fan, but boy oh boy, I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world. When they sang a lyric from their really old songs and asked the audience to sing the next line, I proudly wailed along, rather smug that I was one of the minority who seemed to know all the words. Their music had grown and matured, just as they had, just as I had. I began to listen to them again religiously. Their songs touched my heart, made it soar and sing, gave me hope. A year later, I went into work early with the sole purpose of getting tickets for their upcoming tour, "The Circus". I was absolutely ecstatic when I got through and bought two tickets for July 2009, a full seven months away, but who cared! I was going to see them in concert again! I can honestly say that that evening was one of the "Greatest Days" of my life.

Today, the strangest thing is happening. The love of my life, Nige, actually listens to and likes Take That's music! Not all of it, of course. But he is listening to it non stop in the car, singing it, and reaching out to me about it. Having a ticket on my vision board seems to have worked a certain kind of magic in my life, and it's beyond my wildest dreams for myself that my partner actually enjoys the music that has touched the most intimate part of my heart.

Take That phase one held me through a really delicate time in my life. Their split mirrored a huge amount of brokenness in my life at the time. Coincidentally, their reformation, and the accompanying growth in them as a band and their music, parallels my own growth into being authentically me, into living a creative, loving and mature life. After Take That split, I lost control, and I'm so grateful that today, with them reformed, I too am whole again, living an incredibly beautiful life. My decision to not be ashamed of liking them is symptomatic of how much more accepting of myself I am. I used to have to hide the fact I was a fan, because it left me open to ridicule and aged 11, I was incapable of saying, "so what? This is who I am, and it's none of my business what you think, and it's none of your business who I like. Accept me, or don't. Either way, I know I am okay". Today, I do not hide who I am. I am a lovely person. And yes, I like a band who many over the years have slated and mocked, who are, some say, very uncool. And I love them anyway, and I think they're great, and I know that I have nothing to hide anymore.

So, come on come on come on come on, Take That, and party!