Indeed I did.
And we're not talking just a bit famous. I don't mean like someone who's been in Eastenders a few times, or made a twat of themselves on a reality show. Not that sort of famous. Oh golly gosh no. I mean really, properly, big time famous. You know people like Bob Dylan and David Beckham and Dame Judy Dench and Bart Simpson? Well I'm talking that level of famous (but it wasn't any of them, obviously). What we're dealing with here is serious, fuck-me fame and a name that's recognised all over the globe.
Hell yes. THAT famous.
However, he wasn't famous when I had my date with him.
It was a long, long time ago and we were both very young. The honest truth is that I thought he was punching a tad above his weight, going out with a girl like me, but he was quite cute and beginning to attract attention locally, so I thought I could spare him an evening of my time and allow him to bask in my fabulous company.
Our trysting place was the local cinema. My choice. I wanted to go somewhere dark because I preferred not to be spotted with this disreputable looking guy. I was a nice girl. I would later become quite a mucky girl, and being seen with louche looking blokes would be my main aim in life, but I was still in my priggish stage at this point.
We sat on the back row and went through the predictable routine of the date, as prescribed by teenage behaviour in the early sixties. We held hands, ate a choc-ice, had a bit of a snog followed by some unseemly tussling over my blouse buttons and eventually stumbled out in to the night, wondering what the hell the film had been about. He saw me to my bus top, asked if I'd like to repeat the experience the following week, I said I thought not and that was that. We'd still saw each other around. We'd smile and exchange a bit of badinage, but nothing more. That was my relationship with a VFP, in a nutshell.
And then he got famous. Very, very famous indeed. And rich. Hugely rich. And I didn't. Fame and wealth have both given me a wide berth.
And do I care? OF COURSE I DO!
At least, I do a bit....sometimes.
You don't honestly imagine I've never lain awake at night, wondering how differently it might all have turned out if I hadn't put up a fight over my blouse buttons, if I'd gone on another date, and another and another? Would it have been me on his arm in all those news clips, instead of some skinny blonde? Would it have been my wedding dress that made the front page of the newspapers? Could it have been me revelling in all that money, those houses, the private planes, that STUFF? Probably not, actually. I doubt we were sufficiently compatible to survive the stresses and strains of being constantly under observation. And the tabloids would have said hurtful things about my dumpy little legs. And some bastard of a PR man would have advised the VFP to dump the DLN (Dreary Little Nobody) and that would have been me, cast aside. And then I'd have soothed my bruised ego with drink and drugs and promiscuous sex....so not much different to life as it turned out anyway.
Actually, he was a rubbish kisser so I'd probably have kicked him into touch first.
But yes, I've had an occasional little pang about it, over the years, as must loads of us who had dates with Very Famous People before they became household names, worldwide. Yet, at the time, I took it completely in my stride. I was much too busy just being young and having fun to waste my time on what might have been. If he hadn't gone on to become a superstar I'd probably have forgotten him completely.
I have seen him again, face to face. The nature of my job meant that our paths crossed, briefly, a couple of times. And was there a flicker of recognition in his eyes, as memories of the night his heart was broken forever by the girl who turned him down came flooding back? No, of course not. The teenage dollybird, with the firmly buttoned blouse, was long gone. We were just two ageing people (I noted he was using more hair dye than I was) being polite to each other, as protocol demanded, before moving on. There may have been a fleeting moment when I wanted to point at his receding back and shriek to the assembled throng, 'He snogged me! He did! I've had his tongue down my throat!' But I didn't.
And I had moved on, after that unsatisfactory date, to have my blouse, and my mind, opened by men I'd found a lot more exciting and interesting than the VFP.
There have been similarities in our lives. We've both had a couple of marriages, the good and the bad. We both have children we adore and, generally speaking, have weathered some downs along with the ups, and sailed at last into calm and contented waters. Admittedly, his downs made national news and and were held up to public scrutiny, whereas mine caused no more than mild local interest and a bit of gossip in the supermarket queue, but that's the price of fame. I wouldn't want to pay it.
I like being able to nip out for a pint of milk, in the tee shirt I've slept in, with a bit of toast stuck to my face without the paparazzi taking snaps from behind the bins.
My life now is good and I am a happy person. Can you quantify happiness? Are there degrees of it? I tend to believe not. If you're happy you're happy. And I am. I have a nice life full of lovely people doing things that I enjoy. I'm very fortunate and I know it. Could I have been happier with the VFP? I don't think so. I found a man I love and who loves me too. And he's one hell of a good kisser. No contest.
Thanks for reading.
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