Goodbye to Starman

Goodbye to Starman. So many happy David Bowie memories. And only last night I chatted with two of my sons about him – to Asa about Blackstar, and then I sat with our youngest – Dexter – in front of the fire talking about how brilliant David Bowie was, watching and talking about his videos from over the years. We watched Blackstar and then went back to watching Starman on TOTPs, and I told him some of my David Bowie stories. I just said to Julie on the phone this morning that it seemed like he was our very own special hero. We laughed and said that’s what it was like where we were at school, but really he was hugely influential to the lives of so many many people. So, goodbye to Starman from me and Julie. He surprised us at every turn, right to the very end.

29/6/2013 – David Bowie and the Spiders were my first heroes. The first gig I ever went to was when me and Julie went to see them play at Leeds Rolarena on June 29th 1973 – the last gig before Ziggy died at Hammersmith Odeon. I was blown away by the gig, and that was it, I wanted to be in a band. So my first ‘band’ was just me & Julie. We were called The Weirdies in the Wardrobe. I played ‘drums’ on my mum’s place mats (pictures of roses on them). Someone told us David Bowie’s address so we wrote to him, and couldn’t believe it when Angie Bowie wrote a hand written letter back. Angie said in her letter ‘Good luck with the Weirdies in the Wardrobe, lovely name for a band’. We got the seal of approval from the Bowie family – this was the most exciting day of my life!

We got the seal of approval from tbe Bowie family

‘THE’ Envelope

The Spiders were amazing, Trevor on bass, Woody on the kit. Mick Ronson was stunning and they were hugely influential to my whole life. I moved to Hull a few years later and I nearly got to meet Ronno. We were recording at Fairview Studio and he was coming in to check it out, with a view to recording a band called One the Juggler there. I was dead excited, I was finally going to meet my main man, but had been recording all night and was a mess, so I rushed home to wash my hair. Needless to say, when I got back I had missed him. Serves me right I suppose.

Not long after the first gig we went to see Mott the Hoople at Leeds Town Hall, and Queen were supporting them. I got Ariel Bender’s autograph on a picture of Brian May’s hair. Mott were awesome and I read Ian Hunter’s book Diary of a Rock & Roll Star over and over again.

Here’s another David Bowie related story. One day, when I was playing with The Planet Wilson I got a telegram (Sam) from the manager of a band called Thrashing Doves saying their bassist had left and would I be interested in joining them. I thought about it, but said no, because I was a Planet Wilson girl right then. Anyway, the bass player who had left was Gail Ann Dorsey who played with David Bowie for years. Ahhh….