It’s magic as Gary Barlow comes to fan’s 40th party
It took 243 days of tracking down, camping out, travelling the length and breadth of the country – but finally Take That fanatic Atty Hussein got her man.
Atty and her “Thatter” girl fans have been on a mission to get Gary Barlow to make an appearance for her 40th birthday.
And on Friday night the boy band frontman made her dreams come true when he turned up at Maidstone for the mum’s lavish bash to serenade her.
It all started in March this year when the megastar tweeted: “If you have a milestone birthday this year start your campaign now, 21,30,40,60, 110! I’ll come and sing at your party.” That was that – and her #GetGarytoAttys40th campaign was launched on Twitter.
Atty, a retail director, said: “We basically bombarded him. I’m sure he would look up and see us in the audience and think ‘not them again’.”
She and five girlfriends wore distinctive superhero orange and purple capes to stand out in the crowd anywhere Barlow was making an appearance. But her hopes were shattered when he sent her a message two days before her party at Oakwood House Hotel in Maidstone, apologising to say he had to go to Germany. Unbeknown to Atty, Barlow’s text was a decoy and her mates were in on the secret.
In the evening Atty was asked to join guests on the dance floor.
She said: “All of a sudden there was a lot of screaming and it just went mental. There was Gary walking towards me. He gave me a cuddle and said I was the craziest woman he had ever met.”
Atty has been a Take That fan since she was 14. Since then she has lost count of the number of times she has seen them.
Last year alone, she went to 21 gigs and would have gone to more had it not been for work commitments. She said: “It’s like returning to my teenage years. I still get the rush of adrenalin.”