‘I loved his hair!’
CATH HARRISON, 51, IS A VIRTUAL PA FROM DERBYSHIRE
Iwas in my early teens when I first became aware of Wham! It wasn’t like these days when you can find anything out about a celebrity at the click of a button. Instead, you had to wait for Top of the
Pops to air each week or wait for the latest issues of Smash
Hits or NME to be released.
And while my friends were George Michael fans, it was Andrew Ridgeley who floated my boat. He seemed quiet, kind, thoughtful, had a lovely smile – and fabulous hair! His dark locks were quite long back then, and often swept slightly over to one side. Very New Romantic! I thought he was a bit of a heart-throb, and their tunes were so catchy – it was impossible not to sing along to Club Tropicana…
At school, I decorated all my books with pictures of Andrew, Tippexed ‘Cath 4 Andrew’ all over my pencil case and was even known to scrawl his name on the odd classroom desk. Once, I even used my compass to scratch Andrew’s name into my dining table at home. That didn’t go down well with my parents, and they still bring it up all these years later. But I wasn’t allowed his poster up in my bedroom – although I appreciate now, I was quite young at the time.
I was gutted when Wham! broke up in 1986 and while George’s solo career took off, I didn’t hear much about Andrew, but he definitely held my teenage heart! Now, when I listen to their music, it takes me right back to a carefree time of permed hair, fab fashion and a lot of neon. Andrew, now 60, has aged well and I’d still do a double-take if I saw him now. Who knows, one day he might even tell me: I’m Your Man!
Cath didn’t follow the George Michael crowd