Spice Girls: The Story of the World’s Greatest Girl Band. Sean Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ Cannon, a trainee hairdresser from Tottenham, who soon gave that up to join an insurance company in central London.

      Jackie’s father, George, was a stevedore in the docks, loading and unloading ships. He worked all hours to improve his family’s life, an ethic that Tony and Jackie followed over the years, in much the same way as Melanie Brown’s parents. Tony and Jackie married in 1970 but waited four years to start a family, building a better future by moving out of London before their daughter Victoria Caroline was born on 17 April 1974 in the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow, which technically made her an Essex girl.

      In 1977, when Victoria was three, Tony bought the Old School House in Goff’s Oak, Hertfordshire. The place needed a lot of work but he had the skills and the contacts in the building trade to do it up himself. But, perhaps more importantly, it had a large garage, which would become the hub of his new electrical-supply company.

      Goff’s Oak liked to call itself a village but was quite suburban, if full of people doing rather well for themselves. One ex-teacher at the local school observed witheringly, ‘Wait outside the school gates on any given day and you’d wish you had shares in a fake-tan company and one making leather trousers. They are women with too much time on their hands. They have nothing better to do than shop and get their hair and nails done.’

The media would always make much of Victoria being dropped off at school in her dad’s Rolls-Royce. That was much later. For now, she was driven in her father’s old Hillman, which also doubled as his delivery van. Victoria was a quiet little girl, who struggled with a lack of confidence, particularly in English, and took extra lessons in reading, comprehension and spelling. She was a million miles away from the outspoken woman with the ready wit she would later become.

      Tony loved listening to the Beatles and Stevie Wonder, and would dance his little girl around the house to the sound of the great Motown star’s hit ‘Sir Duke’, which Jackie said gave her daughter her love of performing. One teacher, Sue Bailey, recalled, ‘She always loved acting and enjoyed our drama lessons. She liked to sing and dance. She shone one year as Frosty the Snowman. She was a very sweet girl.’

      Victoria was inspired by the iconic film Fame. She envied the energy and the exuberance of the students skipping down the corridors of the High School for the Performing Arts in New York. She wanted to be Coco, the multi-talented character played so memorably by Irene Cara. It’s easy to imagine the Spice Girls dancing on the desks and singing in the streets with the rest of the students.

      She stuck a poster on her bedroom wall of the dashingly handsome Gene Anthony Ray, who played Leroy in the film and the subsequent TV spin-off. Ironically, Gene became a victim of his own fame, sinking into a life of drink and drugs and dying young, at forty-one.

      Victoria was obsessed by the TV show, taping every episode so that she could learn all the songs and the dance routines. She persuaded her mum to take her to see the Kids from Fame on tour and subsequently badgered her into finding a ‘Fame’ school near Goff’s Oak. They couldn’t find an exact match but the Jason Theatre School a few miles up the road in Broxbourne seemed the best option for a nine-year-old.

Rather like the Jean Pearce School in Leeds, the Jason had been running for more than thirty years, founded in North London by greatly respected local dance teacher Joy Spriggs. From the first class, Joy identified Victoria as one of her most eager students, prepared to work her tap shoes off to improve: ‘At the time, all the children wanted to do jazz dancing, with the ankle warmers and the leotards and the colourful catsuits. There was Hot Gossip on television and they wanted to copy that. It was the style of the time.’

      Victoria may not have been the most talented dancer ever to grace the Jason Theatre School but she made a dramatic improvement through hard work, determination and old-fashioned practice. Quite simply, the harder Victoria worked, the better she became. Joy observed, ‘She had a certain natural ability and we just channelled it in the right way. Victoria would shine because she was a very pretty little girl, with big dark brown eyes and long dark curly hair, but she was a little bit self-conscious to start with. She didn’t hold back but she wasn’t quite as confident as some of the others. We had to build that confidence with her.’

      Her self-belief was boosted when the Jason Theatre School linked up with the local amateur dramatic society for productions of Hello Dolly, Sleeping Beauty and The Wizard of Oz, in which she played a Munchkin. Her ambition was also fuelled by trips to the West End to see the most popular musicals of the eighties – Cats, Les Misérables, Starlight Express and Miss Saigon.

      Week after week, dancing provided a welcome escape from real school for Victoria. After the relatively quiet waters of primary school, her parents decided to send her to St Mary’s High School in Cheshunt where she stood out like a beacon, unhappily.

By this time Tony’s business was thriving and the family had plenty of money. The Old School House was now one of the grandest homes in the village, with a swimming pool in the back garden and the Rolls-Royce, with its personalised number plate, in the driveway. It was his pride and joy, although Victoria maintained she hated it.

      She had to say that because it might have alienated a million potential Spice Girls fans to hear tales of Daddy dropping her off in the Rolls-Royce. Victoria has always been careful not to describe any days that began with a ride in the Roller and ended with a dip in the pool.

      One of her best friends growing up, Emma Comolli, recalled that, perhaps unwisely, Victoria would talk about how rich her family was and how she was going to be famous one day: ‘The other children would turn on her and call her names.’

      Another girl said simply, ‘Victoria was considered snooty.’

      The full extent of the bullying Victoria suffered at school is a grey area. She was certainly verbally abused but her younger sister Louise recalled, ‘I don’t think she was bullied that badly.’

      In the early days at the Old School House the two girls shared a bedroom, but that changed when Tony had finished the remodelling and Victoria had her own pink explosion of a room with giant posters of Bros and Ryan Giggs vying for space with Gene Anthony Ray.

      Louise fitted in well at school and found herself having to stick up for her elder sibling. Their different personalities highlight why Victoria had a tough time. Ironically, considering the pack appeal of the Spice Girls, she was never one of the girls. She had a natural shyness that could be exploited by others, but beneath that apparent vulnerability was a girl who was thoroughly determined and as tough as old boots.

Fortunately, there was some enjoyment to be had at school in its lavish dramatic productions. Victoria was one of the best dancers in Les Misérables and Jesus Christ Superstar. Her passion for dancing was a double-edged sword. It gave her a sense of escape but also meant she seldom socialised with classmates. Boys were not on the agenda, although she did have a date aged fifteen with an American pupil called Franco McCurio who took her to the movies. The most memorable thing about it was that it marked the first time she had ever been on a bus.

      Victoria met her first proper boyfriend in the kitchen of the Old School House when she was sixteen. Mark Wood had come to fit a burglar alarm. He was three years older, six foot two, and the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. They started chatting and she readily agreed when he asked her out on a date.

      She didn’t have to travel by bus, which was a relief, when they went out for a drink to a wine bar. Instead, he picked her up in his dad’s white van, having taken the ladders off the roof for the occasion. Technically, Victoria was too young to be served alcohol but that didn’t stop her getting tipsy, although Mark did not take advantage.

      Being in a committed relationship with Mark was not necessarily СКАЧАТЬ