Britain's Got Talent
When Richard called me it was great to hear from him, we hadn’t been in touch for a while as we had both drifted in our own directions with work. We had a long catch up and he asked “How do you fancy one last roll of the dice? Britain’s Got Talent!” I had finished athletics and put on weight and my joints were feeling the strain from 15 years of hurdling. I sat down with the senior management team and our lawyer and everyone said without a doubt we must go for it.
We could not make the London auditions so we trundled our busking box and kit across to Manchester for the Salford audition. We did not have time to rehearse but have done the show over 1000 times on the street so it is pretty much ingrained! I called Laura our lettings manager and asked if we had a spare room in one of the properties in Manchester for my two friends Matt and Rupert and myself. Richard was meeting us there in the morning. Laura sorted us with one of our properties in Salford where there were 3 rooms free. She said there’s a stunning girl called Roxanna living there and I will text you her number.
I called Roxanna and let her know Id be arriving quite late and that I hoped she didn’t mind that I would be jigsawing until the early hours getting ready for Simon Cowell tomorrow. She presumed I was a little crazy, loved jigsaw puzzles and was somewhat delusional as she told me afterwards! What I had actually meant was I would be using an electric jigsaw to make the most ridiculous noise cutting out 21 masks for the show in the basement until 2 in the morning. Nothing like preparation!!
The next day, red eyed we set off to the venue which was packed to capacity with 2500 people in, the largest audience we have ever performed in front of.
Before the act we were interviewed with Ant and Dec who were great lads and struck an instant chord being from Newcastle as well. Richard and I psyched ourselves up as if we were getting ready for an athletics final! Going through the routines in our heads preparing ourselves for our biggest challenge yet. We both agreed that with all of the judges experience if they did not like the show we would hang up the dancing shoes once and for all.
When show time came the adrenaline was rushing and the nerves kicked in...
Simon Cowell thought that we were simply going to perform a village people medley and buzzed us. This threw me and all of a sudden I couldn’t tell which mask was which. Richard was shouting to me to keep me right and saved the day. We managed to just about nail the changes and in the end the result was a great one. 4 yeses from the judges and a place in the next round in London where the semi finalist would be decided!
The dream was alive once again. I think in life you should always take each opportunity presented to you because many people regret the things they didn't do more than the things they did. I’m so pleased Richard made that call all those months ago. It would be a dream to dance in front of the queen and work with professionals to give this show a chance. Neither of us have ever had a dance lesson and the idea of working with professionals would be amazing. Dancing is the one thing that makes me so happy and Richard as well. Some of my greatest memories were traveling around in our clapped out Bedford Rascal entertaining crowds on the streets and churning out 15 shows per day at times in our fund raising ventures. The amount of hurdles each day we had to overcome from battery acid melting my MJ Thriller Jacket, coming to blows with pan pipers and bagpipers of the busking pitch territories. Getting a police escort out of Leicester after a gang decided to gang up against us. So many memories and here we were again. Richard was always supporting me to help me raise funds for my athletics and now to have him as the full partner is brilliant. Sometimes you just don’t know what life is going to throw at you next.
