Gary Cockerill - From Coal Dust to Stardust

GARY COCKERILL

From Coal Dust

to Stardust

To my mum, dad and sister Lynne, all the strong, inspirational women who I have been lucky enough to work with over the years and to Phill, my husband and the love of my life

ONE Doncaster Dynasty

TWO Drama Queen

THREE Girl Crazy

FOUR Hell on Earth

FIVE Bright Lights, Big City

SIX Love at First Sight

SEVEN Tiffany Towers and Tawny Peaks

EIGHT The Superbabes

NINE My Real-Life Girl’s World

TEN Bailey and Beyond

ELEVEN Legends

TWELVE Celebrity Circus

THIRTEEN Tantrums and Tiaras

FOURTEEN Two Weddings, One Bride, Three Grooms and a Dog

FIFTEEN Heartbreak

SIXTEEN A Midsummer Night’s Scream

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Copyright

About the Publisher

I never forget a frock. This one was pumpkin-orange with a pattern of tiny yellow flowers, smocking across the bodice and a flourish of gypsy ruffles. It must have been the height of fashion in early Seventies Yorkshire. It was also far too big for me, and clashed with the frosted pink lipstick that was now smeared across my five-year-old face. My big sister Lynne took a step back and – head cocked to one side – appraised her handiwork.

‘Go on then, Gary, give us a twirl.’

I obliged happily, giggling as I tripped over the flounced hem. Now this was more fun than football …

My sister was three years older than me, a gorgeous, doll-like little girl with the sweetest of natures. I worshipped her – I still do to this day. For her part, Lynne had always wanted a little sister and when she was presented with a rosy-cheeked baby boy she obviously decided that she would just have to make the best of the situation, which is why I grew up with zero interest in cars or soldiers and an obsession with dressing up and dolls.

eauty Pageant was one of our favourite childhood games. I’d make the badges with the contestants’ numbers on them out of old toilet rolls and Lynne and I would take it in turns to be the show’s host.

‘… And here’s the lovely Miss Scunthorpe wearing a very pretty red pinafore dress. Her hobbies are dancing to Abba and watching Rentaghost …’

We’d rope in our cousins on Mum’s side (Lorraine, Julie, Cheryl, Mandy, Kelly – there was one boy cousin, Greg, but for obvious reasons he usually did his own thing) and we’d spend hours putting on concerts and plays and musicals in the garage, a magical place which doubled as Dad’s workshop when it wasn’t playing host to the all-singing, all-dancing Von Trapp children or being transformed into a ghost train complete with sheet-shrouded ghouls.

At the weekend Lynne, me and our girl cousins would troop off to the Saturday morning club at the local cinema together where I’d sit spellbound in front of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Fairytales were a particular favourite of mine, with a film based on the story of Cinderella called The Slipper and the Rose becoming something of an obsession. I must have seen it at least ten times. Even when Lynne wasn’t around to play with, I would sneak into her room to steal her shoes and dressing-up clothes and then dance round the room wearing this big black wig that Mum kept for best, pretending to be Shirley Bassey.

* * *

At the age of six, I begged my parents to get me a Girls World, one of those slightly creepy-looking plastic heads on which budding make-up artists can practise their skills.

‘Are you sure you don’t want a Scalextric set?’ my father asked hopefully, as he did every Christmas. My poor dad. He tried his best to do the right thing by his only son, bless him. He would take me outside and then lift the bonnet on our green Vauxhall Viva as if he was about to share some incredible secret.

‘Right, son,’ he’d say, crouching down by the car, all excited. ‘Now listen closely, I’m going to help you find your way round an engine …’

If it wasn’t cars, it was DIY. Dad treated his toolbox like it was buried treasure, the spanners and screwdrivers as precious as any diamonds or rubies. I hadn’t the heart to tell him I’d rather be lifting the lid of my sister’s jewellery box and watching the little ballerina spin round. He’d drag me along to watch Doncaster Rovers, even though I made no attempt to hide the fact that I was more interested in the half-time bag of crisps and pop, and occasionally he’d even rig up a net in the back garden to teach me some skills.

‘Come on, Gary, let’s go and have a kickabout!’

On one of the few times he actually got me in front of that net I was so scared of being hit by the ball that when he kicked it towards me I dodged out of the way and it went straight through the picture window at the back of our house, showering my mum and sister with glass as they sat watching Jim’ll Fix It.

I never did get the Girls World. However, my long-suffering parents did buy me the other presents on my Christmas wish list: a little toy Hoover and a pair of ruby red shoes for me to live out my obsession with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

‘Wouldn’t you rather be the Tin Man or the Lion?’ Dad would ask, an edge of desperation creeping into his voice. But no – I was convinced that one day I would go over the rainbow. There weren’t that many boy-sized sparkly red slippers in Armthorpe though, so Dad ended up spray-painting my trainers and covering them with red glitter.

Without a Girls World to practise my make-up skills, I started to steal my sister’s dolls instead. I would stockpile them in secret hiding places around the garden and when Lynne eventually found them stashed behind the hedge or round the back of the shed she would go mad because I’d have felt-tipped on red lipstick and blue eye shadow and tied their hair into plaits.

If I couldn’t get hold of the dolls, I would find other outlets for my creativity. I would get up early in the morning, long before anyone else in the house was awake, and trace women’s faces complete with pouty lips and one spider-lashed eye (I was too lazy to do a matching pair) into the condensation on the large window at the back of the house, sending my houseproud mother ballistic when she came in to make breakfast and saw all these smeary, drippy faces defacing her nice clean windows. I completely destroyed the covers of Dad’s treasured record collection by biro-ing eyeliner, lipstick and false lashes on the already heavily made-up faces of the ladies of Abba and The Three Degrees.

And when I ran out of pop stars to beautify, I started on the Page 3 girls in my parents’ copy of the Sun. I would define Jilly Johnson’s brows or make her lips slightly bigger, and once I’d finished with the faces I would draw bras on them. In my mind I was just making them look prettier, but – as you can imagine – my dad wasn’t best pleased, especially if I got my hands on the paper before he’d had a chance to see it. I would even draw muscles on the men, a skill that would stand me in good stead many years later when I would end up using make-up to shade pecs and abs on a certain singer who would later become one of my clients …

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My story really begins in the very early hours of 30 September 1969 at 67 Burton Avenue in Balby, a suburb of Doncaster, South Yorkshire. This was my parents’ first home, a typical two-up, two-down terraced house in an average Coronation Street-style street.