I’VE SPENT £150,000 TRYING TO CURE MY BAD BACK
PETER ROBERTSON talks to the Bucks Fizz hitmaker about the painful legacy of a coach accident that occurred in the 1980s
AS SINGER Bobby G waved his nine-year-old daughter Millie off on a week-long school coach trip recently, he couldn’t help feeling anxious. Yet it wasn’t just paternal protectiveness that was making the 62-year-old star, best known for his Eurovision hit Making Your Mind Up with 80s band Bucks Fizz, nervous.
For Bobby, who now lives in Tiverton, Devon, with Millie and his wife Heidi, 45, that particular mode of transport is a painful reminder of an accident that could have killed him. More than 30 years on, he is living with the long-term effects.
On December 11, 1984, Bobby and the three other original members of Bucks Fizz – Cheryl Baker, Mike Nolan and Jay Aston – were all injured, along with their crew, in a horrific coach accident. As they returned from a gig in Newcastle their tour bus collided with a lorry.
Mike and Cheryl were catapulted through the windscreen. Mike was left in a coma while Cheryl broke three vertebrae in her back. Jay suffered a stroke that temporarily paralysed her left side.
Bobby, who had been sitting in the lounge area at the back of the coach, was flung forward 15ft into the band’s manager Jill Shirley. “I injured my neck, three vertebrae in the middle of my back and my knee,” he explains.
Following the accident Bobby, who was told at the time he would suffer from a bad back for the rest of his life, was treated twice a week at Headley Court, the famous Armed Forces rehabilitation unit in Epsom, Surrey, for two years.
“I had treatments, manipulations and traction,” he recalls. “It was six months before I had some movement of my neck. Yet, still, whenever I turned, my joints cracked and it was really loud inside my head. Specialists said they could fuse the joints together but I refused as that would have restricted all my movements.
“The damaged vertebrae were immensely tender so I couldn’t sit on anything hard and the slightest touch would cause searing pain. My back often used to go into spasm and I’d then spend two days crawling on the floor.”
HE RECALLS: “In different clinics, I had physiotherapy and other manipulations for almost 10 years. I got quite depressed with constant backache. Ever since, I have found that if I don’t move around I stiffen up. That has been the worst thing over the years.
“Before I go to bed I have two cups of tea so I get up to go to the toilet in the night as movement is good for me. If I do have a good night’s sleep, it’ll take 30 minutes in the morning to get myself moving.
“I still sometimes have treatments and massages to keep my body loose. I got around £15,000 in insurance from the crash but I’ve probably spent 10 times that on treatments over the years.”
Bobby G, real name Robert Gubby, was born in Epsom and expelled from school at 14 for non-attendance. He became a self-employed builder but throughout his 20s sang in pubs and clubs. He performed in cabaret with comedian Jim Davidson and understudied in the London production of Jesus Christ Superstar before auditioning for Bucks Fizz.
The group went on to win the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981, topping the charts in eight countries. International stardom followed and the band had a string of hits including Land Of Make Believe and My Camera Never Lies.
However, after the coach crash a series of line-up changes within the group began, including at one time Dollar singer David Van Day. In 1997 Bobby was granted ownership of the name Bucks Fizz and registered it in his wife Heidi’s name and the pair still perform as Bucks Fizz with two other members.
A rival line-up featuring Cheryl, Mike and Jay was set up but in 2011, after a bitter legal dispute, a judge confirmed Bobby’s right to use the name Bucks Fizz.
Despite the stress it caused, Bobby says: “I’m so appreciative of all that happened to me.
“Going through the court case and reading up about intellectual law, as much as it was a pain, was really interesting and I enjoyed doing it. I don’t know if I’d have enjoyed it if I’d lost it though.”
Cheryl, 62, Mike, 61, and Jay, 55, now perform as Formerly Of Bucks Fizz with new band member Bobby McVay.
Bobby G, who also has an adult son and daughter from two previous marriages, is happily settled in Devon with Heidi and Millie and every few years he has a full medical with his GP.
“I’d very much like to live to old age, particularly as I have a young daughter,” he says. To this end he steers clear of processed food, drinks redbush tea and decaf coffee and tries to stay very active. “I don’t go to the gym but I play golf unless my back is bad,” he explains.
He says performing the famous Bucks Fizz dance routines keeps him moving too, although, he adds: “We don’t do many head movements.
“I’ve always moved my head slowly since the crash and I still feel stress in my shoulders but as I’ll be 63 next month I don’t know how much is to do with getting older.”