Dad joined a religious cult and music, but I ended up working
Melanie Blake’s rags to riches story reads like a novel by her literary hero, Jackie Collins. Now the former Birmingham promotions girl has a best-selling book of her own, which has already been turned into a play. VICKIE SCULLARD discovers more about her
LIKE many young girls, Melanie Blake watched Top of the Pops and was mesmerised by the glitz and glamour as her idols performed on stage. At that moment, she had no idea that one day she would be rubbing shoulders with some of the world’s biggest musical stars.
But Melanie’s journey into the world of entertainment was far from a walk in the park. Instead, it was energised by a day that changed her life forever.
Without warning, a seven-year-old Melanie watched as her dad came home from work a changed man. He took down her posters, and banned TV, music, books, toys and all popular culture after falling in with an extreme religious group.
“If I had not lived it, I wouldn’t believe it,” Melanie, now 40, says.
“I was from a very normal family and we had a normal life up until I was seven. Everything was fine, my dad had his own business, mum looked after us at home. We were a simple family who loved watching TV together.
“That was until one day everything changed. Overnight our house went from a happy Coronation Street-watching family into a religious prison. Dad had joined a church and they convinced him that we were all on the path to hell.”
Melanie spent much of her childhood planning towards the time she could break free of her suffocating home life in Manchester.
“Dad gave all our money to the church. We had no food, we had no new clothes – and he got rid of anything that he believed was a false idol,” she explained.
“We couldn’t watch TV programmes, music was evil. It was hell. Dad believed the world was ending. I realised even as young as eight or nine that this was no religion – in my opinion this was a cult.
But it was so extreme, no one would have believed me had I told them. ‘‘I just wanted to escape.’’ Inspiration came from an unlikely place, while accompanying her mother on her cleaning job at a dentist’s surgery one day after school.
“It was awful watching her becoming a broken woman,” says Melanie. “I looked at mum on her knees as she cleaned the floor and thought, I don’t want to be like that. She was so unhappy.
“I started reading the magazines left out in the surgery and thought, wow, there is a life on the outside.”
From magazines, Melanie, then nine, moved onto her next fix – books. Using her mum’s details, she went into her local library and picked out the first one that caught her eye – Jackie Collins’ Rock Star, she says.
“Reading that book changed my life. It made me want to get out of that house and get that job in the entertainment industry,” she says.
Melanie was dazzled by Jackie’s worlds where women clawed themselves from poverty into glamorous, moneyed lives. Women were bosses and winners who achieved everything they wanted, and it was these novels that inspired Melanie to change her destiny.
As soon as she was able to, Melanie started working part-time jobs and building up a running away fund in her Halifax account, she says.
“I worked on a reception, in a video shop and had a Saturday job at a toy shop,” she says. “I did everything I could to get money to put towards my escape plan.
“Finally, aged 16, when I was legally able to, I left.”
Using £1,500 that she had saved up, she got a one-way ticket to London to follow her dreams. It wasn’t easy – she lived in a bedsit and worked in promotions while receiving rejection letter after rejection letter.
She lived in Solihull for about six months in the 1990s
‘‘I absolutely loved Birmingham. The people were so friendly and would do anything for you. I was working at the Bullring doing promo – handing out flyers basically. We used to go out after work and have the best time. The people of Brum certainly know how to party.
‘‘I was only young, 18, and I stayed in various B&Bs and they used to take pity on me because they could tell I was young. They used to make me massive portions of food but only charge for small amounts. It was so sweet – you could tell they felt I was too young to on my own.’’
She returned to London but often came back to Birmingham to work on events at the NEC.
Her big break came when she blagged her way into a camera assistant role after pretending she had worked in a TV studio before. She did a double take when she realised where she was working.
“I met a member of a production crew who took me into the studio,” says Melanie. “I looked up and it was Top of the Pops.”
At the BBC show, Melanie worked with Destiny’s Child, All Saints and the Spice Girls.
This was the beginning of a whirlwind career which has seen Melanie move into music management, working with membes of groups including Mis-Teeq, Five Star, Bros, Spandau Ballet and Steps.
The also reformed 1980s girl group The Nolans for a sell-out 2009 tour which took over £2 million at the box office, winning numerous awards.
She has also become one of the UK’s leading acting agents, representing some of the most famous faces on British television.
Her management company has turned over more than £30 million. But despite her success, Melanie had some unfinished business that popped up 20 years after it first began.
Burning away in a cupboard at her home was a first draft of a novel she had