The Scottish Mail on Sunday - You
HARLEY’S STORY
Mum is a full-blown ‘momager’ in our family – like Kris Jenner, the matriarch of the Kardashians. She’s the backbone and makes sure the rest of us are OK. If she’s not dropping someone off to an audition, she’s reading lines or rehearsing songs with us. I ring her every day at 8am and we talk for an hour.
Our family is really close. For my parents’ first album together [Shirlie and Martin recorded In The Swing Of It last year], I wrote two of the songs, shot the album cover and my creative agency made the TV ad.
Mum was enthusiastic about everything I did so when I got into photography, my parents became obsessed with it, too. I’d be given an assignment and I’d come home to find Mum and Dad had set up a mini photo studio. Sometimes they’d even take the pictures and I’d be like, ‘Stop, this is my project!’
When I started writing music alongside my photography, I had that feeling of not wanting to be the ‘daughter of’. My parents were hugely successful. I was worried that if I went to a record label they were just going to say, ‘Well, this isn’t Wham!’ Now I’ve got over that and it’s great that I can go to Mum for career advice – although when I asked her for business tips, she said, ‘Close your eyes and imagine money falling over you. Then chant: “money, money, money.”’ She had learnt it at a workshop but I was furious – what kind of advice is that?!
I’m roughly the same age Mum was when Dad got ill. To think she dealt with that, and raised two small children, shows how strong she is. She’s sensitive and soft but can really hold it together. When my dad wrote his life story [True was released in 2000] he told me he did it because he thought he was going to die and said, ‘I didn’t want you to not know who I was.’ But I still haven’t read it; it’s too emotional.
Mum and Dad have been together nearly four decades, so the bar for relationships is high – it’s no wonder I’m single. They’ve got such a good balance: Mum gives him so much support with his career, then he cooks and cleans at home.
A few years ago I joined Mum and Pepsi on a month-long UK 80s nostalgia tour as her backing singer. On the first night she whispered to me at the side of the stage, ‘I can’t do this. I feel sick.’ Then the stage manager shoved me on and I was there alone, panicking about what would happen when the lights came up. But Mum came on shimmying and doing high kicks. Afterwards Pepsi told me, ‘Oh, don’t worry, she always does that!’ It was so much fun. I know that experience is really unique for most mothers and daughters, so I appreciate even those crazy moments.
Shirlie and Martin Kemp’s album In The Swing Of It is out now