Hear Me Out

by Sarah Harding

  For a time, I also worked at a pub called the Legh Arms in Prestbury, which was, and still is, a charming old-fashioned village pub, serving good food. I worked behind the bar, brought food to the tables and generally got to know the locals. In fact, I had great banter with a lot of the old boys who used to come in and order their pints of bitter – they all seemed to love me.

  It was here that I met two people who both became a big part of my life.

  One of them was Fran, who also worked behind the bar. We worked a lot of our shifts at the Legh Arms together, getting up to all sorts of mischief and having a giggle. Fran’s sister Nat worked in a place called Nice Bar, which was next door to the pub, so one of us was always sneaking across to say hello while the other covered the shift.

  We both loved gossiping and having a laugh with the old boys who came drinking at the Legh. We could often be found trying to get them to sample something a tad more exotic than their customary pints of bitter, lager or Guinness.

  ‘Why not try a B-52 shot, lads!’

  As you may know, a B-52 is a triple-layered shot made of Kahlua, Baileys and Grand Marnier, and not for the faint-hearted. Apparently, it’s named after the American band rather than the World War Two bomber!

  Some of the guys really got the taste for it. They’d come into the bar after finishing their dinner and order a coffee, and I’d ask, ‘Would you like a little short one with that?’ Then I’d set about making the shots and lining them up on the bar. You put the coffee liqueur in, then pour the Baileys over a spoon to make the next layer, and finally the Grand Marnier. The shot ends up with three distinct layers, which you can then light.

  From then onwards, Fran and I stayed close friends. She’s one of those people who knew me before I was famous and has remained the same throughout. One of those rare people where, even if I don’t see her for a while, nothing really changes. There have been times over the years when we haven’t been in touch, and life has got in the way, but the minute we speak, it’s as if no time has passed.

  She has a baby now, Beau, who is unbelievably cute, but our friendship goes all the way back to those days at the Legh Arms, pouring B-52 shots for the old boys at the bar.

  I also set up my now single mum with one of the lovely men who frequented the Legh; a man named Peter, who I got on brilliantly with. I didn’t know it then, but he was also to be an important person in my life. Peter was a fair bit older than Mum, but I somehow knew that they’d hit it off. It started with Peter regularly coming into the bar, and me having his pint of bitter and his peanuts in a bowl on the bar, all ready for him. He’d been a fighter pilot in the RAF, and fought in the Malayan war, so always had plenty of life experience to share.

  One evening, Peter and a few of the lads were at the bar, laughing and joking with me, as they did.

  ‘Do you know anyone who’s single, Sarah?’ he asked. ‘Some of us could do with meeting some single women.’

  ‘Well, my mum’s single, but that’s about it,’ I said, with a grin.

  Later, Peter came over to talk to me across the bar.

  ‘Hey, Sassy!’ That was his nickname for me. ‘I think I’d quite like to meet your mum.’

  ‘Well, you can because she’s coming in tomorrow,’ I said, suddenly hatching a plan. ‘I’ll introduce the two of you.’

  Peter booked a table for lunch in the pub, and, the next thing I knew, the meeting had turned into a lunch date between him and my mum. While it was happening, I was like some kind of Peeping Tom, sneaking glances at them through the windows of the restaurant section, just to make sure it was all going to plan.

  From then on, Mum and Peter became close. I’m not sure they ever put a tag on their relationship as far as definitions go. Still, they were constant companions, going on holidays to Lanzarote and doing everything together. They shared so much of their lives, and it was wonderful to see.

  Peter was my pal. Always on hand to give me advice and to talk when I needed to. ‘Now, Sassy, listen to your old pal, Peter,’ he used to say whenever he was about to impart words of wisdom. He became something of a cross between a grandfather, uncle and surrogate dad to me – a truly wonderful man.

  He passed away four years ago, after living in a very nice care home for a short time, leaving an enormous gap in our family and in my life. While sorting through some boxes recently, I found Peter’s old RAF cap. I must have had it for years, and finding it again made me feel so proud of him. He was a real character and I miss him loads, as does Mum. He and Mum were companions right up to the very end.

  The best thing about moving to Manchester was the vibrant music scene. That’s when I really started getting into music seriously.

  I loved its escapism. I knew some friends thought I was over the top and crazy, but I didn’t care. I just had this confidence when it came to music that seemed to come out of nowhere, and I didn’t care what anyone thought about me.

  As far as advancing my career in singing went, I wasn’t really sure how to go about it. I didn’t have any experience with auditions. I guess it was because Mum wasn’t one of those eager showbiz types that could get me into things like that; it just wasn’t her world. That said, Mum is convinced that music is in my blood and she’s probably right. As I mentioned, my paternal grandmother was a classically trained pianist, and my maternal grandmother sang and played piano too. Also, two of Mum’s cousins were very much in demand on the northern entertainment scene for both acting and singing.

  However, not coming from any kind of formal theatrical background, apart from having my dad as a musical mentor, I was also clueless about the audition process or even what was out there. The first crack at performing in front of an audience, aside from productions at school and at performing arts, came from singing karaoke in pubs.

  One of the girls on my performing arts course was in a girl band, and her older brother acted as her manager. One night, he came and watched me singing in one of my regular karaoke pubs, and made an offer to sign me up. I ended up regularly travelling to Rhyl in Wales, where I’d perform in pubs, doing two 45-minute sets. I got paid £45, which, after paying for the PA and petrol, left me with the princely sum of £15. I guess that was my apprenticeship; driving to North Wales and singing in the pubs and caravan parks. It was really my first step to becoming a performer.

  Project G was the name of my friend’s girl band, and I was invited to be part of it. We did some demos, but two of the girls in the band were at college and couldn’t commit, so that didn’t last long. Still, the management company kept me on, recording some dance tracks, which I enjoyed. DJ Dave Pearce was interested in one of the tracks I did, and it was exciting when he played it on his show on Radio One. Still, my career as a dance-diva was to be short-lived because it all happened around the time when Popstars: The Rivals was starting. That ended up taking over, particularly as I got further and further along in the competition. But hey, I’m jumping ahead of myself!

  There were a few ‘almost there’ and near-miss moments in my early career. At one point, I even signed a contract to record dance tracks for an Italian record label. The trouble was, I had no idea what the music sounded like because they wouldn’t play it to me before I got there. In the end, I managed to pull out of the contract with my brother’s help. I also nearly ended up in the group Sweet Female Attitude, who went on to have a hit with ‘Flowers’. Unfortunately, I had to have my tonsils out, so that plan was also scup-pered. That’s another weird thing about me – my bloody tonsils. I’d already had them out once when I was seven. By some freakish circumstance, however, they’d grown back over the years. After complaining of a sore throat for the longest time while I was at the hair and beauty college, doctors told me that I’d been in a constant state of tonsillitis for about a year; my bloody tonsils had grown back. I should have been in X-Men, I tell you. Tonsil woman! Or Deadpool 2, when Wade Wilson’s lost legs grow back as baby legs, and he has to learn to walk on them all over again.

  A couple of years aft
er that I went up for a show called Fame Academy, which was like the BBC alternative to Pop Idol. The only trouble with that was it seemed to be full of people who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments, so I wasn’t convinced I was the right fit.

  Around the same time, there was another big TV competition about to start: Popstars: The Rivals. The first series in the Popstars franchise, the previous year, had been huge, producing Hear’Say. Also two major artists, Will Young and Gareth Gates, had broken out of the Pop Idol franchise. This sounded much more like the kind of thing I’d be suited to. Perhaps this would be my chance to shine.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The apartment I wanted has been approved and I have a moving date. It’s all going well and I can’t wait. It’s not going to be easy, I know that. I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to cope on my own. The idea is for Mum to come and stay with me while I settle in. It’s funny, really, and quite sad. I’ve lived on my own since I was a teenager, and I’ve always known how to look after myself. Having this disease takes more away from a person than just their health. It takes away their independence and their sense of self. Things that once seemed so easy have suddenly become a mountain for me. Things I once took for granted – simple everyday things – now feel like pots of treasure that are somehow out of reach. I suppose that’s why getting this place is so important to me, and why I’ve really pushed my lawyer Tricia to make it happen. The relative normality of being back in my own home, living with my dogs, is all I can think about because it’s about moving forward. It’s about the future. My future.

  For now, though, let’s get back to the past.

  Back in the early 2000s, the men’s magazine FHM had a feature called High Street Honeys, which came in the form of a free booklet to accompany the magazine. It was, as the name suggests, pictures of everyday women, who weren’t models or even famous, in sexy, sultry poses. It was 2002, and around the time that I’d started to feel a bit more confident in myself. I’d gone from tomboy to young woman, and I guess I wanted people to see the new me.

  I did a photoshoot with my boyfriend at the time. I wasn’t naked, and the pictures weren’t crass or tasteless, and I made it into FHM’s top ten High Street Honeys. However, the publication just happened to coincide with me getting the audition for Popstars: The Rivals, which seemed much more exciting to me than the idea of being a model. I looked pretty good, sitting in a car wearing nothing but a St George’s flag under the caption: ‘Doing It For England’. Still, when it came to a choice between singing and having my photo taken, singing was always going to win out.

  Unsurprisingly, these photos did surface down the line, and God, did I look young and fresh-faced in them. I’ve still got a set of them somewhere. There was also one of me wearing hot pants in a phone box, which was very kitsch.

  When it came down to it, I was quite uncertain about auditioning for Popstars: The Rivals – scared, I suppose, that I was going to make a fool of myself in front of millions of TV viewers. It was an ex-boyfriend who talked me into going for it in the end, literally on the night before the audition. So off I went to the Lowry Hotel in Manchester where the auditions were being held.

  When I finally got through the door, it wasn’t at all what I’d imagined at first. I ended up in a line of about ten people in a room, singing in front of some TV producers and someone from a record company. Once I’d managed to get through that stage, it was time to sing in front of the cameras and the judges: Pete Waterman, Geri Halliwell and Louis Walsh. For my audition, I wanted to sing a big ballad, like ‘I’ll Be There’, which is the type of song that always went down well when I did karaoke. The show’s presenter, Davina McCall, was telling everyone to make sure they had a backup song. Still, I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to sing. When the judges said they wanted me to sing something more pop, I started singing ‘Last Thing On My Mind’ by Steps. I knew I’d have sounded much better doing Mariah, but that it was best to give the judges what they wanted. I was so nervous, I veered off-key slightly, but I held my nerve and got through it. At the end of it, Pete Waterman said, ‘You’re through; you’re going to London.’ I blew the judges a kiss and said, ‘Thank you!’ And that was it: I was on my way.

  Unfortunately, my nerves continued throughout the show. Even as I made it through, week after week, I still found the whole process of a TV talent show really tough. The choreography was a particular nightmare for me. Try as I might to learn all the steps, the minute I felt like there were eyes on me, I seemed to go to pieces. As each week rolled around, I just carried on regardless, muddling through and winging it as best I could. At no time did I really let myself believe that I was going to end up in the band’s final line-up because I didn’t want to set myself up for a fall. At the end of each week, when I got through to the next round, I’d think, Oh, OK! Maybe I’m not as bad as I think I am. Then as the next week rolled around, the nerves would start all over again.

  To say that I was surprised to get into the final ten was an understatement.

  The final ten contestants all ended up living in a house together, but that wasn’t easy for me. I’d never had a sister or hung around girls a lot since my boarding school days, so being suddenly thrust into a situation where I was living with nine of them was a bit of a shock. It’s funny: I can be quite shy in certain situations, but the other side of me is the absolute opposite. Sometimes in the house, I was rather loud and over the top, and it soon became apparent that I wasn’t everyone’s favourite housemate. I ended up feeling quite disconnected from the rest of the girls, crying myself to sleep because I didn’t feel like I fitted in – and I so wanted to.

  The performance side of the show was no better for me. I didn’t like the way I was styled half the time, and I rarely enjoyed the song choices. In the end, I spoke up and said that I wanted to choose my own song and that I wanted to do my own hair and make-up. That was the one week on the show I felt happy with myself, finally singing Mariah’s version of ‘I’ll Be There’.

  When the final line-up of the band was announced, and the other four girls had been chosen, it came down to Javine Hylton and me. The whole thing was horribly nerve-wracking and emotional. Presenter Davina McCall brought us out front and told us how surprised she was that we were the last two to be picked. On the judging panel, Geri Halliwell said that the two of us had pulled the best performances out of the bag and that either one of us could easily have a solo career. This might have been the case, but at the time all I could think about was how much I wanted this. After what felt like an agonisingly long ad break, my mum was brought down out of the audience, in readiness to console me, live on stage, if I lost the vote.

  Then Davina announced the name of the last girl who was to join the band: ‘Sarah’.

  Of course, I burst into tears and sobbed on Javine’s shoulder. I was utterly overcome at being chosen, because, in truth, the expectation was that Javine was one of the dead-certs to be picked. To be honest, some of my tears were because I wasn’t sure all the rest of the girls were so happy with the choice. I know we all feel very different about it now, and that the girls are delighted the way things turned out, but at the time I felt like they would have preferred Javine to complete the line-up, simply because some of them had become good mates with her. When I sat down with the rest of the girls, Davina announced our name to the world: ‘Girls Aloud’.

  The truth is the name Girls Aloud had only been decided the night before the announcement of the band’s final line-up. For an entire week before that, we were simply ‘Aloud’. Other names on the shortlist list had been Overdose, Raw NV, X-Quizit, Raw Class, Raw Mix, Raw Deal and Raw Silk. It’s hard to imagine any of these now, but they were all serious contenders at the time. The record company even tried to register Raw Silk – and everyone, including ITV, had signed off on this being our name. However, it turned out there was another band with that name, so the registration application was declined. X-Quizit, on the other hand, turned out to be the name
of a porn site! To add to my insecurity about making the final line-up, there were stories in the media the next day that really took the wind out of my sails. Some papers ran with reports that the vote was fixed, and it should have been Javine that made the line-up rather than me. There were even stories of viewers who said they’d voted for Javine and then got a text back saying they’d voted for me – that it was a fix. It wasn’t great for my confidence. Journalists who write those stories, and the people who go online commenting about them, don’t realise how upsetting it can be, and what it does to a person’s aspirations and confidence. This was something I’d worked towards for such a long time, and now some people were saying I didn’t deserve it. So, rightly or wrongly, I started off my whole Girls Aloud journey feeling slightly unwanted.

  The whole idea behind ‘The Rivals’ idea was the race to see which band would be number one for Christmas. It was us against the chosen boy band, One True Voice. They were mentored by Pete Waterman while we were looked after by Louis Walsh and affiliated to Polydor Records. We mounted a huge campaign, almost like a political campaign, using the slogan ‘BUY GIRLS, BYE BOYS!’ and we tried to get it out everywhere, in every way we could. Wherever we went, up and down the country, we’d be handing out flyers. Even when our people carrier was stopped at a traffic light, we’d be chucking out flyers to anyone we could reach.

  The majority of the media decided to back One True Voice. I’m not sure why; maybe it was because they felt that the female audience would be the more significant audience and naturally go for a bunch of cute guys. It felt like everyone was more interested in interviewing the boys than they were us. In fact, try as they might, Polydor couldn’t get us a slot on Capital Radio, while the boys were invited with open arms. Still, we weren’t going to let a little thing like that stop us, so our guy at Polydor, Peter Loraine, along with Poppy Stanton and his marketing team, came up with a fabulously wicked plan. During the radio show when One True Voice were in as guests, Polydor bought all the advertising slots around their interview, with Popstars’ host Davina McCall voicing over our ‘Buy Girls, bye boys’ slogan. It was genius.