Got to have faith
Canterbury C of E Church, which is just a stone’s throw away, says the building offers a place of solace for grieving fans.
He claims one of George’s sisters has visited the church, where the singer attended Midnight Mass in 2015.
He said: “It’s a wonderful place for those who loved George to reflect after coming from the tributes at his home.
“People started writing in our visitors’ book and we got to over 300 pages of comments. So we added another book and now we’re finishing our third.”
Heartfelt messages to George include: “If being loved could have saved you, you would never have died.” One fan group raised £250 to pay for a chair inside the church in his memory. An engraving reads: “In memory of Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou ‘George Michael’ Singer/Songwriter/Philanthropist Lived at Mill Cottage 1999-2016.”
Pubs where he once drank are regularly flooded with fans who want a George Michael experience, say villagers.
The Catherine Wheel, one of his regular haunts, made record takings over the singer’s birthday as 1,000 revellers turned up.
A barman said: “George’s family didn’t come, just a lot of very excited fans. It was the busiest day I’ve ever worked.
“Some people came from Italy, some from Connecticut.
“I saw some ladies from Bristol wandering around the village at midnight looking for his house. “And recently we had a woman trying to staple photos of George’s face all over the bar – we had to stop her. “Most want to recreate what George did here. He used to buy scampi and chips, so that’s what they want. They want to sit in one of his two favourite chairs. And he always drank espresso martinis, so God knows how many of those we have sold.” A barman at nearby The Miller of Mansfield said: “Fans order a drink and sit there for hours staring at the photo we’ve put up of George.”
Local resident Geoffrey Hicks told of how he is missed.
He said: “You could walk in that door and he’d be there. And he’d say how are you? He was so good to people. If he thought you had a few bob less than you should have he’d buy you a pint.”
Geoffrey added that a tribute concert would be enjoyable for “all the people that he knew and he knew a lot”.
Some locals believe the singer’s family are planning to turn his home into a museum.
One said: “Let’s face it, nobody could buy it – it will always be George Michael’s house.”
I like to drop by and say hi to George. I’ve got CDs, videos, cassettes, even a pillowcase REBECCA PEPPETT HAS VISITED STAR’S HOME FIVE TIMES