10 years ago

10 years ago I was seventeen and now I’m twenty-seven (for anyone atrocious at maths). 10 years ago I was in my last year of school studying for my final exams and now I work full time in retail.10 years ago I was living in a country I didn’t want to live in and now I live in a city I adore. 10 years ago, I was single, now I still am. 10 years ago I saw my favourite band live for the first time and now I’ve seen them live forty-seven times.

This a band called Take That. Surprise, I quite like them, ok I love them more than about a handful of people in my life. Take That, the Mancunian man band who’ve been around as long as I’ve been alive(I was born 4 days before they formed). The band who have given me friendships and memories and the best times of my life. The band who sometimes just give me an anchor on which to tether myself when times are low. This day ten years ago I was on my way to The 02 in London to see them live for the very first time. I thought I loved Take That back then. And I did, I loved them the way teenage girls love anything, ferociously and passionately, with my whole heart and soul. I loved them with delirium and screams and mania. The love teenage girls have could power the world with it’s energy.

I loved them back then but there’s a different love once you’ve seen them live. And a different love once you’ve met them. And a different love when seeing them all the time becomes your regular life. I love Take That, but in a different way now I loved them back then. I love them now with candour, dedication and uncomplicated adoration. I adore them, everybody knows I adore them but I wouldn’t be as frenzied about it now, I’d like to think.

I got into Take That back in 2006, I was 15, in school, hating it for the most part. I love learning but it took the internet and emigrating for me to find more than a handful of people I would consider friends.

Back when I was 17, I was hysterical. I got banned for watching them whilst eating cos I choked like twice when they were on the telly. My Ultimate Tour DVD was watched constantly, I listened to them all the time. I was young and stuck in a country where no one I knew cared about Take That.

My mum got us tickets to see them on the Beautiful World tour in London and Manchester(at the time I asked why would we go twice, oh past me you had no idea). I couldn’t believe I was going to be in the same room as them. As Take That! As dirty and witty Howard, as philosophical Jason, as the captain of the ship Gary. As foot stomping, hat wearing, Shine singing, the most adorable and my favourite member then and now Mark.

When I turned up to the arena and saw their picture outside I let out such a noise my mum said she didn’t think it was possible for humans to scream that loud. We were in the gods, Block 416, Row R but I barely cared. I’m not sure I would have managed front row off the bat to be quite honest. Every single one of my pictures from that night is blurry. Two weeks later in Manchester, I was excited that I could see their shoes clearly from my seat(block 214 in the MEN, going up in the world).

And then the next ten years happened, ten years that seventeen year old me could never imagine. Meeting Jason on a bench, meeting the rest of them at a signing. Thanking Mark for making my whole life better and him going ‘Oh bless you’. Meeting Gary three times and the reassurance of his bearhugs. Having Mark’s water bottle sitting on my bookshelf (he threw it to me at a show, I don’t just have it). Gary having read my blog and DMing me saying it was beautiful. Seeing them live in 9 different cities and 15 different venues. Countless front rows, barrier runs, the solo tours and the tv shows.

Watching Howard DJ and then running through Manchester trying to get to the Lowry before he did, going to a football match just to see Mark. Seeing them at Jonathan Ross and singing Happy Birthday to Gary, seeing them at the Royal Albert Hall, watching the recording of ‘An Evening with Take That’ and witnessing Mark ask an entire row of people what they liked on their chips.

Endless queues, standing in the cold, sitting in the cold, burning in the sun, drowning in the rain, freezing in the snow. Gripping onto barrier with your mates all around you, singing your heart out, and feeling happier than anywhere else. Ticker tape and clapping and dancing and laughing and smiling so much your face hurts. Because look, it’s them, they’re right in front of you, singing the songs that make your heart beat with reverence. And oh look, they’re interacting with you. And you’re weeping and grinning because this is your happy place and they’ve just made it even more joyous.

Within ten years we’ve had lasers and pole-dancing, elephants and aerialists, robots and puppets, flying cars and human carousels. Yet the best feeling is doing the Never Forget claps or hearing 80,000 people singing Rule the World. The boys love the spectacle, we love the spectacle but more than anything we love that deep down joy of feeling at home and being surrounded by love and awe.

10 years on, being front row is the norm, grabbing their hands is the norm. I still die if any of them sing at me or wave at me or interact with me in any way during a show. People say ‘they must know you’ and I know they have no idea, that people have met them countless times and they know them. But I like to think in amongst a crowd the boys would recognise me as a familiar face.

I’ve been called all sorts in the last ten years, crazy about summing it up. We all have but I don’t care, I know none of us do. Because those boys make us happy and surely being happy is the most important thing of all?

10 years on, I’ve moved country all alone, I’ve had three jobs and lived in seven different houses. My life has taken many a twist and turn but the boys have been my constant. Take That have saved my life in more ways than they’ll ever know.

Seventeen year old me would be ecstatic with my life now. Maybe not the single thing, but the whole living in London and seeing Take That all the time thing, yes.  Ten years ago I was really just started on my Thatter journey and here I am ten years later, so grateful for it all and so looking forward to all the joy and fun and love and memories the future holds. 

The day I met Jason Orange

Today is five years, a whole half decade since I met Jason Orange on a bench. Yesterday at work one of my customers was actually called Jay Orange which freaked me out a bit (his name wasn’t Jason, I did clarify).

I meant to go visit the bench today actually but I live so far from Kensington (I live East, Kensington is about an hour away which is a long trip to sit somewhere). Hey me of five years ago, you live in London now and you’ve met the rest of Take That. I don’t think you need to know what else happens to them though.

It was March 2^nd, 2012. About half 12 in the afternoon. Me and the bestie were wandering around Kensington trying to find somewhere to grab lunch, we’d only flown in that morning and were famished. We sat down in one place but no one paid us any attention and we decided to just grab Pret from the station instead.

As we were walking back, Amy started looking at the guy sitting on a bench and asking if it was Jason which to I went ‘Hah it’d be funny if it was because he’s sitting on a bench’. Then I looked properly, realised it was him and screamed. I ran/Amy dragged me behind a bit of wall so I could calm down. My legs were shaking like mad. After a few minutes I decided I was ready to go speak to him but Amy didn’t so Jason had to witness me walking up to him/Amy still trying to pull me back for some more calming down.

I stood in front of him and blurted ‘Jason I like love you so much’ and when he only replied ‘Right’ and I thought ‘Oh god it’s not actually him’, blurted ‘I’ve seen Take That live 14 times!’ And all smiley he went ‘Have you? Come sit down here’ which I did. I touched his leg (soz Jase) and went ‘You’re my favourite you know’ and he went ‘Am I?’ smiling even more. Oh god I was melting. Amy took some pictures and we started chatting.

We were chatting and I was just like 'I can’t believe I’m chatting to you’ and I didn’t want to be annoying him. He said I had a good eye and that people didn’t always recognize him with the sunglasses and the beard and I said 'Oh you’ve shaved, not shaved shaved but you’ve not got as big a beard’. I could not stop rambling.

At one point I went ‘I don’t want to be annoying you’ and he went ‘Nah you’re cool’ to which I shouted in his face ‘Oh my god Jason Orange just called me cool!’ to which he just burst out laughing. Sorry again Jay but years of low self-esteem don’t lead you to believe one of Take That will ever call you cool even if you didn’t mean it in that context.

I decided to quiz him on the next Take That album and asked when they going back in the studios to the words of ‘Gary’s off working and you’re here sitting on benches’. His reply to this, a couple of years later, made me realise why he left. ‘Gary like’s working though doesn’t he? I like sitting on benches.’ We agreed Gary worked too much and started talking about the tours.

He asked why we were in London ‘Oh you just over from Ireland for the weekend then?’ and we were like 'Yeah’. He asked what we were doing and I said nothing really and that I’d met him now and I could go home happy. I said we didn’t have much money to do anything and he was like 'Oh that’s my fault with all the concerts’ and I was like 'Yeah but I’d pay thousands for tickets’ and he was like 'Really?’ Yes Jason, yes, also me of five years ago, you’re pretty much doing that now. It’s so much fun.

I asked him if he knew the elephant’s name was Nellie and he said ‘Yeah, Nellie and Om’. I told him The Circus Tour was my favourite. He said most people said that and he was saying how he thought that they peaked at The Circus and that perhaps they were trying too hard with Progress, he didn’t know and I was sitting there going 'No no Progress was brilliant’ even though I completely agreed with him.

I eventually decided to leave and said we’d best go as I didn’t want to be annoying him too much and he was like 'It was lovely meeting you girls, enjoy your non-shopping shopping weekend cos I took all your money’. Then he put his hand out which I took and he pulled me into him for a hug and he kissed me on the cheek. I remember feeling the stubble on my cheek, my vision going black and all I could think was ‘Don’t scream, don’t scream’. And then we said bye and left. Amy told me she was saying thanks so much for talking to me and he had made my life and he said 'You’re more than welcome’.

So afterwards I went and called my mum, ran around Kensington Gardens going ‘Oh my god, oh my god’ and crying and not shutting up about it for weeks (ok months, ok years) on end. Even writing this up now has made me cry. I forgot how much I miss Jason, I know he’s happy which makes it ok and I adore the three boys. But yeah, he made those five minutes on a bench some of the best of my whole life. Thanks Jason, the whole thing is still as clear as day and you really did make my life.