Cheryl: My Story. Cheryl

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СКАЧАТЬ mam, Joan, the chance to tell this part of the story herself, and this is what she told me when I started writing my book.

      What Mam remembers …

      One of me friends told me there was a local bonny baby competition and that I should enter you because you were such a pretty baby. You really were a pretty baby, with very dark hair and lots of it.

      I happened to walk past Boots one day in the local shopping centre and saw the competition advertised. I thought, ‘why not?’, took you in for a picture and then forgot all about it … until I found out you’d won it. Family and friends encouraged me to enter you into other similar things. You won every time and eventually, through winning competitions, a model agency approached us and asked if they could take you on. ‘Why not?’ I thought again.

      When you were about three years old one of me friends said, ‘Let’s take the kids to disco dancin’.’ She told me there was a class on opposite the Walker Gate metro station, run by a lady called Noreen Campbell. ‘Why not?’ I found meself saying yet again. You loved dancin’ at home. The boys did things like karate and trampolining but I tried to give you all a chance to do things I thought you’d enjoy, and I knew this was more your thing. When we got there Noreen told us we’d been mistaken. She didn’t teach disco – this was a ballet, tap and ballroom class. You had a go and loved it, and from that very first day Noreen started telling me you were really good at all types of dancing. ‘She’s got real talent, something special,’ she told me. You couldn’t get enough of it, and as soon as you were old enough Noreen entered you for dancing competitions, which you always won.

      After that she put you up for auditions for pantomimes, theatre shows – everything. You were Molly in a production of Annie when you were about six, at the Tyne Theatre, and at the same time the model agency was putting you up for all sorts of fashion shows in shopping centres, or for catalogue work and adverts. I was asked if Garry could go on the books of the model agency too as he was always with us, and the pair of you appeared in a British Gas TV advert together. You did one for the local electricity board and a big furniture store, too. As long as you were happy I took you along and let you do whatever was on offer, and you always loved it, posing very naturally and even suggesting different poses for the camera, which made us all laugh.

      Stage school was another thing you did for a time. I’ve always been of the opinion that in life you have to give anything a go and whenever another new thing was suggested I’d always let you try it to see if you liked it. You won a ‘Star of the Future’ competition and a ‘Little Miss and Mister’ contest run by the Evening Chronicle, and you were always very proud of yourself when you appeared in the paper. Any prize money you got from winning competitions, or fees from modelling, all went back into costumes or whatever else you needed, so you kept yourself going. Your brothers and sister didn’t mind me taking you places all the time. They loved what you did and were forever asking you to show them and their friends your latest dance routine or pictures.

      When you were about eight or nine we were encouraged to try out another ballet school run by a lady called Margaret Waite, who had a really good reputation. It was Margaret who suggested you should try out for the Royal Ballet’s summer school, and I know you remember all about that. All I’ll say is that I was happy for you to do it, and I was happy for you to give up the ballet. ‘What do you want, Cheryl?’ I would always ask, because you knew your own mind from a very young age. You had a lot of confidence as well whenever you were performing. I don’t know where it came from, especially because at home you were very soft and terribly sensitive. Our first house at Cresswell Street in Byker was always like an RSPCA rescue centre because you’d bring home pigeons with broken wings or stray cats that usually turned out to not be strays at all. Sometimes they just rubbed up against your leg in the street and you brought them home, feeling sorry for them and trying to adopt them. You worried yourself far too much about everything and everybody else, all the time. I remember telling you, right from when you were a very small girl: ‘Life is tough, Cheryl. You need to toughen up.’

      My mam is right. Of all my dancing experiences I do remember the whole Royal Ballet episode clearly. Margaret Waite was a really amazing dancer who’d had a brilliant career with the Royal Ballet herself before she set up her school in Whitley Bay. It was about fifteen miles from where we lived and twenty-odd stops away on the metro, but it was the place to go if you were really into ballet. Margot Fonteyn was my heroine and I couldn’t get enough of my ballet classes. I did every competition going and always managed to win.

      ‘You’re excelling,’ Margaret told me one day. ‘At nine you’re a bit too young, but I want you to apply to the Royal Ballet summer school. It’s extremely hard to get in but I think you’re good enough.’

      I told my mam, who took me along for the audition somewhere in Newcastle. Mam didn’t ask any questions, and I don’t think I fully understood what I was applying for. I just put on my favourite tutu, did my best on the day, then went home to play.

      One of my favourite games at that time was to pretend I was running a beauty salon. I’d convince Gillian I was really good at doing make-up and then I’d put mascara and blusher on her. Sometimes I’d even persuade my little cousins – the boys included – to let me put eye shadow on them, or lipstick. I’d also tell them all kinds of tales, like the time I convinced one of my really young cousins that the Incredible Hulk lived round the corner. When my mother found out what I was up to she went mad.

      Dad was always much stricter than my mam, and I knew I had to behave myself much better when he was in the house. One day I remember my dad looking very serious, and I wondered if I was in trouble about something, but I didn’t know what.

      ‘Me and your mam need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Sit yourself down, Cheryl.’

      He took a deep breath and said: ‘You’ve been offered a place at the Royal Ballet …’

      My heart leaped in my chest, but before I could jump up and cheer Mam interrupted. ‘We’re really proud of you, Cheryl. You’ve done really well and we know you’d love to go. But the thing is …’

      Dad finished the sentence, and my heart sank like a stone. ‘We can’t afford to send you. I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s such a lot of money and we just haven’t got it …’

      I ran up to my room and cried, hugging my pillow. It had no cover on it and a jagged line of red stitching down one side where I’d sewn it back together really badly, probably after whacking Gillian or Andrew with it in a fight. I always held onto that old pillow whenever I got upset about something, and this felt like the worst thing ever.

      Mam appeared at the door. ‘Cheryl, we’ll see what we can do. Things are never as bad as they seem. You’ve got Gimme 5 again next week. Put your chin up.’

      Gimme 5 was a Tyne Tees kids TV programme I’d appeared on a couple of times with a bunch of kids from the dance school. I tap-danced with Jenny Powell once and hit her in the face by accident, and another time I showed off my ballroom dancing skills, doing the rumba.

      ‘Get her back on!’ I heard one of the television people say. ‘She’s hilarious!’

      I think this was because when I was ballroom dancing I really got into it and pulled all these crazy faces. I can see now how funny I must have looked because I was only nine years old yet I was trying to look all sensual and sexy, like I thought ballroom dancers should. I didn’t even realise I was doing it at the time. I just really felt the music like that, and being on the TV felt normal to me, so I just let myself go.

      I can remember going round some of the local old peoples’ homes with the dance school too, and the pensioners would howl laughing when I pulled those faces. I loved it. СКАЧАТЬ