Meeting my childhood hero

They say – “they” presumably being a secretive subsidiary of the UN responsible for urban legends, clichés, and Political Correctness Gone Mad – you should never meet your heroes, because you’re sure to be disappointed.

Having now met my ultimate teenage hero, I know they are wrong.

I loved the Pet Shop Boys since I was 14, but it was when I was 15 and listening to their second album, Disco, on my walkman that I was profoundly shaken by music for the first time, by this completely fresh sound thrumming deep inside me.

The beat never left. Thanks to the Pet Shop Boys, I’ll always be a pop kid.

So how did this meeting happen?

Well, Neil Tennant – the main vocalist and lyricist – has brought out a book, One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem, and was at his London publisher signing copies. A bookseller friend was invited to meet him, and arranged to include this superfan.

I had my hair done, I bought a new dress – so pretty, I thought, for an afternoon perhaps sipping champagne with my New Best Friend Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys – and I even took champagne, to thank him for his time, and well, you know, just in case...

As we waited, I spotted Neil through a doorway busily signing books. Immediately, I began to sweat.

He came in, extended his hand, and introduced himself – to me! Neil Tennant from the Pet Shop Boys was telling me who he was, like I didn’t know! My heart was all pistons, my dress glued to my back, and my voice went several octaves higher.

We chatted in a blur over coffee: something about him having loved playing in Durban – he played Durban? – with a front row of women in vibrant saris; about Boy George, who’s lovely apparently but with a “nightmare button”; about that Disco record...

He signed my book and album, accepted my champagne graciously, posed for a photo with the proviso I didn’t post it online, and he only looked mildly perturbed when, in nervous excitement, I talked over him.

Never meet your heroes? Nonsense.

However, you may go away feeling that you – the middle-aged teenager in a sweaty floral dress – were the disappointment.