In Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, the titular character says, “Give me a lady at an impressionable age and she or he is mine for all times.” It may have been the Spice Girls’ mission assertion. I used to be 9 after I found the group, and a boy (although the decision at college was very a lot out). I’ve been devoted ever since. They had been 5 miniskirted Miss Jean Brodies, and so they educated me in methods to be a fan.
Earlier than Wannabe, my idols had been my mum and Princess Diana, by advantage of proudly owning a tiara. Music belonged to the world of grownups and was of little curiosity in contrast with dressing my Barbies and consuming Skittles, till I occurred upon the Spice Women’ calamitous debut video and have become immediately obsessed. Right here had been 5 adults who behaved like kids – hanging off one another, sticking their tongues out and dissolving into giggles any time an interviewer tried to corral them into answering a query. They had been loud, boisterous and irreverent – every little thing I used to be advised to not be – and did all of it whereas trying like ambassadors from a greater, brighter universe the place everybody wore big sneakers.
I had little consciousness of how a fan ought to behave, and my actions had been initially restricted to drawing countless portraits of the group, and adorning myself with felt-tip replicas of their tattoos. (By the point I used to be 13, this escalated to sneaking out and truly getting Scary’s abdomen tattoo, which migrated throughout my torso throughout a progress spurt.) I didn’t personal a stereo, and it didn’t happen to me to really purchase the Wannabe single. This naivety was short-lived, and shortly I had the album, an unofficial T-shirt and as many buying and selling photograph playing cards as my meagre pocket cash would enable. The Spice Women taught me methods to be a client – that was their first legacy. Loads of folks took umbrage at their rampant capitalism, however I nonetheless get an inordinate quantity of pleasure from hoarding pop merch. Throughout the first lockdown, I redecorated my bed room in official Spice Women wallpaper. I’ve no regrets.
Because the band’s ringleaders, Melanie B and Geri had been my favourites. Once I discovered that Melanie was from Leeds, I lobbied my mum to escort me on a pilgrimage there from our West Midlands house, contemplating it my Bethlehem. I used to be determined to fulfill them and entered countless competitions, reworking a nook of my room right into a chapel the place I rehearsed what I might say if my want ever got here true. Years later, my sister’s boyfriend was in search of a file on our house laptop and pulled up my forgotten software to develop into a Newsround Press Packer and interview Geri in her function as a UN Ambassador. We’d been requested to write down an essay on a problem affecting kids. The profitable entry had been about entry to wash water and included all types of stats. Mine was an impassioned diatribe towards the evils of kid intercourse trafficking – a topic I had no actual information of and hadn’t thought of researching. I didn’t develop into a Press Packer.
My hard-hitting journalistic instincts would undo me a second time after I was chosen to ask Geri a query on CD:UK. The query I most needed to know the reply to was why she was having her Jaguar tattoo eliminated when she’d stated it was a tribute to her lifeless father (a used-car salesman, therefore the Jaguar). It was solely when it was learn out reside, and I noticed Geri’s flustered expression and fluffed reply, that I realised I ought to have gone for one thing softer and extra in step with the opposite followers. What’s your favorite tune possibly, or when can we see you on tour? The reminiscence of her hunted look haunted me for years.
Typically I’m wondering if the Spice Women did me a disservice by preaching that you can be something you needed to be, expertise be damned. They had been definitely chargeable for some very ill-advised public performances throughout my early life (I knew the individuals who stated I couldn’t sing had been mistaken, as a result of they stated the identical factor about Geri). I didn’t know I used to be homosexual after I found the group, nevertheless it doesn’t look like a coincidence that lots of the boys interested in their “be your self” ethos ultimately got here to the identical conclusion. We’re definitely a loyal fanbase; in 2017, I relinquished my Glastonbury ticket when the competition clashed with Geri’s comeback efficiency at GAY. Once more, zero regrets.
I used to be a reasonably sad youngster, who already understood that life wasn’t simple for boys who favored ladies’ issues. The Spice Women reassured me that change was doable, and {that a} larger world existed, one the place I may make my very own guidelines. They weren’t mendacity.
