The garden helping fans keep the faith
Eleanor Steafel meets the ‘lovelies’ who have tended a shrine outside George Michael’s home since his death, despite opposition
In the memorial garden opposite George Michael’s former Highgate mansion, which came into being in the weeks after his death on Christmas Day last year, the bouquets of flowers are piling up. On a dank December day, the garden is now an oasis of twinkling fairy lights, pictures of the pop star sway in the wind, and a woman in her forties is bent over, heroically lighting hundreds of tea lights in the drizzle.
The grass has turned to mud in the past week, but this little patch of land in the middle of a north London street is beautiful in its way. Flanked by imposing Georgian town houses, there is no doubt this sea of banners, purple Christmas trees and flags looks out of place here, where even a brightly coloured front door would seem garish. But over the past year, the garden has taken on a life of its own, providing a haven in which Michael’s devoted fans gather from around the world to remember him. A year on from his death from natural causes at the age of 53, his fans, known as “his lovelies”, are preparing to mark the anniversary. They will congregate here over the weekend to sing the songs that have been the soundtrack to their lives, all while his Wham! hit
Last Christmas sits at number three in the charts, 33 years after its release.
“When we lost George, the pavement outside the house was covered in flowers, it was like Princess Diana all over again,” recalls Tonia Katsantonis who, along with a small group of dedicated women, has taken it upon herself to tend the garden three times a week for the past year.
“It began when George’s family decided to bring all the flowers from outside the house into the garden.”
The memorial has been the subject of much controversy over the past few days, after a local conservation society complained it looked a “mess”. The fans had had their moment, they said, but now it should be cleared away.
“One wonders what George Michael would think of it all outside the beautiful home that he looked after so well,” said Susan Rose, chairman of the Highgate Conservation Area advisory committee. “Jamie Oliver and Jude Law live locally. I can’t imagine they are overly happy about it all.”
The committee, made up of local residents, has said it would not be adverse to a more permanent memorial, like a statue – something Michael’s fans and family alike have vehemently protested against.
For Tonia, 42, and her fellow devotees, the thought of tearing down this shabbily beautiful place is unbearable. “People around the world send us things to put here for them,” says the mother-of-two, who has given up much of her job at the family car sales business to maintain the memorial. “There’s a candle holder over there from India, those hearts on the railings come from Malaysia. There are pictures from Italy.”
Helen Feichtinger, 46, forgoes much of her spare time to keep the flowers fresh and candles lit. “Fans who are based abroad send me their tributes to lay here for them,” she says. “People want to know that they’ve left a bit of themselves here. I don’t think you can underestimate that.”
The garden has come to be about more than trinkets and tributes. Between them, these women have raised around £20,000 in the past year for charities that were close to George’s heart. Since his death, stories of his dedication to charitable causes have inspired his fans to carry on his good work. They have heard how he worked at a homeless shelter, paid £1.67million for John Lennon’s piano and donated it to the Beatles Story museum so it could stay in Liverpool, and gave a woman he had seen on Deal or No Deal £9,000 so she could have IVF (she has since given birth to a little boy called Seth).
“The fact that he never wanted people to know it was from him just shows the kind of man he was,” says Tonia. “He did a private concert for the nurses who looked after his mum, to say thank you.
“So this year we’ve done a charity walk for the Rainbow Trust, a Macmillan coffee morning, which raised £1,300 in two hours, we’ve sold T-shirts with our slogan ‘If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever’ on them.”
A special moment this year, Tonia tells me, was seeing the garden filled with fans on George’s birthday in June, all wearing the charity T-shirts. “The garden looked breathtaking, the grass was beautiful, there wasn’t one candle out of place, there was music playing. Everyone was happy. Sad, of course, but happy together.”
So what do the neighbours really think? Alex Georgiou, Michael’s cousin, who has been living in the house for the past year and looking after the singer’s beloved labrador, Abby, says most residents don’t mind a bit, describing the few that have complained as “two-faced”. “Shame on them,” he said this week.
“George would think it was laughable and would probably think there are so many more important
‘People want to know that they have left a bit of themselves here’
issues going on in the world to worry about,” he added. Fans and family feel George would have been embarrassed by a statue. Instead, Tonia and Helen would like to see a George Michael Foundation set up to continue his charitable work.
“I was talking to Alex and he asked what I thought we should do,” says Tonia. “I said it would be lovely to have it paved and have some sort of water feature. George supported children’s charities, so maybe have a children’s play area.”
They accept that it has got a bit muddy, and they never could have anticipated still being here a year later. But people continue to come in droves to see it. Tonia and Helen are among the fans who “stuck with him for 30 years” through the ups and downs of his often difficult life, and they are not about to desert him now.
Tonia says: “He said once, ‘I know it’s never been easy being a George Michael fan’. But it was the easiest thing in the world. I’m so proud of him and everything that has happened since he died. That loyalty is stronger than ever.”