Adventures in the capital

Travelling to London by train is a frequently disorientating experience, on a number of levels. It's not uncommon for me to find myself at Euston while my brain is still at Stockport train station.

Last night was the book launch for the new, updated edition of Lucy O'Brien's Madonna biography, Like an Icon. Because I am being a writer full time now, because I thought it would be fun to go, and - most remarkably of all - because the train fare was actually quite reasonable for a change, I went along.

The launch took place at Gay's The Word, an independent LGBTQI+ (I hope I got all the letters right...) bookshop in Kings Cross, a short ish walk from Euston station. I haven't actually been down that road before but it cuts through innumerable bits of Kings Cross that I've either stayed in hotels in, got lost in, or passed through in other ways so I was pretty confident of finding it.

Normally I find these kind of events incredibly nerve wracking, but I've had slightly more practice at speaking to people since I went to Lucy's last book launch in 2013, and I like to think I fared better this time. Lucy did a fantastic speech about Madonna, and about the book, which I think won round or at least whetted the appetite of a few skeptics. Enough to buy the book, which I would recommend you do, because it's a really good, intelligent read even if you aren't a Madonna fan.

I am part of the first generation of women to grow up with Madonna as a constant cultural presence in our lives. I wouldn't say I was a fan though. When I was seven I was obsessed with the song 'La Isla Bonita', to the extent that when we did, shortly after it's release, head into Stockport to WH Smith for a family music shopping trip to buy mine and my sisters first records, I believe I did intend to purchase the True Blue album.

I can't remember exactly why I didn't. I think now it might have been the case that WH Smith only had True Blue on CD at the time, and we didn't have a CD player. Either that or I was so turned off by the artwork that I insisted on going home with The First Album on LP instead. I think my sister went home with nothing, which speaks more to WH Smith's failure to provide than hers to choose I think.

We took it home and my dad put it on the record player. 'Lucky Star' began. We looked baffled, my dad equally as much as the rest of us. There was some discussion as to whether the record was on the right speed or not, followed by confirmation that it definitely was. We weren't used to early Madonna and her high, slightly squeaky, voice. But we did get used to the record, and learn to love it, quite quickly.

True Blue and Who's That Girl? period Madonna excited me musically but once the promotion period for both was over and Madonna wasn't releasing new material, I moved on musically. To Bananarama and Belinda Carlisle specifically, both of whom I formed a considerably longer, more enduring attachment to. Why was that? Was it because the Madonna of 1987 felt so remote? With her jogging routine, her minders, her very 'hard' Marilyn Monroe inspired blonde bombshell look? There was a girl next door accessibility to Bananarama and a mysterious, slightly tragic, glamour to the post Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle that Madonna didn't have. I couldn't achieve Carlisle's Veronica Lake inspired long red hair anymore than I could achieve Madonna's blondness, but it felt more attractive somehow.

Belinda Carlisle seemed a more fallible performer, I realise in retrospect, and I think I've almost always been attracted to that quality in my female performers. Even Siouxsie Sioux's ice queen exterior would melt if you got her on the subject of cats, equally as certain as Florence Welch can't go a single gig without, at least once, looking like a kid in a sweet shop. Madonna always felt like she wasn't quite human so that, when the inevitable evidence of humanity did emerge, it always felt like a shock.

I think Lucy's book works so well because it seeks to challenge that perceived lack of humanity, to get underneath the image, to interrogate and explore the myths.

I spoke to a number of people while I was there, mainly about punk and about writing. Not really much about Madonna. Helen McCookerybook was there and I spent a long time talking to her and a lady called Paula Wolf, who had lived in Manchester for twenty years and had a lot to say about the Manchester scene. Much of which corresponded with my own observations of it during my fanzine writer years. They had both seen David Wilkinson talking about City Fun at Porto and, by the sound of it, his enthusiasm has proved infectious. This is one of many strengths of David's approach to both academia and public speaking: His enthusiasm is very, very infectious. I know he enjoyed the academic conference at Porto as well because we talked about it last week when I went over to see him in Marple.

Helen was talking to us about the She Punks film and it was really inspiring hearing and watching her talk about it, because I could see how much it meant to her. I was really sorry to tear myself away to go back to Euston for my train.

They were making the final call for the Manchester train as I got onto the concourse at Euston and myself and a youngish guy immediately starting legging it towards platform 14, only to be stopped by the ticket inspectors at the entrance to the platform. They pretty much had to hold up their hands for us both and shout "WHOA!" We must have looked incredibly anxious because they were very quick to reassure us, after we'd showed them our tickets, that we were safe to walk to the train, not run, as it would be sitting there for "a few more minutes yet".

As I was walking towards the first class end of the train I heard a really loud bang and, out of the corner of my eye, saw an explosion of bright white sparks, like a firework, emerge from a train two platforms away. The experience made me jump and rattled me so much that I started running again and threw myself on the train in the next first class carriage. I briefly conversed with an, if anything, even more rattled passenger, who was convinced the explosion had come out of the roof of the train two platforms down. There didn't seem to be anything I could say or do, and events had clearly been witnessed by both Network Rail and Virgin staff in the station, so it wasn't like anyone needed telling it had happened.

I could feel the adrenaline surging through me as I walked all the way down the train to my seat. The train was moving by the time I got there and I sat down and closed my eyes for twenty minutes, wondering what the hell had just happened. One of the rare downsides of not having a smartphone is the fact that, whenever you are witness to something odd or upsetting, you can't immediately go online to research the incident in question and try and figure out what happened. For all I knew, they could be in the process of sealing off Euston station and combing the platforms for explosives. Not as alarmist as  it might sound really, given the time before last I went to London by train we were accompanied by a patrol of armed police up and down the train on the way home (I never found out why) and also that someone had seemingly had a go at Parliament Square again with a car earlier in the week. I tried to ensure my imagination didn't go into overdrive, but it was hard.

After twenty minutes the buffet car opened so I went and got a Limonata and tried to cool down a bit. I was still brooding about what had just happened and I found myself furtively watching the people around me to see if anyone looked upset or anxious. After a bit I gave it up as a bad job and, in a suitably dark mood, decided that if I was going to die I'd do it to Florence + The Machine and put my mp3 player on a Florence only shuffle.

Awhile later the driver, after what sounded like some difficulty with the PA, made an announcement. 'Ladies and Gentlemen, if you could all pay attention for a minute'.

Here it comes... I thought

'There has been a fatality...'

Oh no...

'...On the line north of Stoke - On - Trent'

Huh?

I can't remember all of what he said next as it was somewhat geographically complicated. The upshot being that anyone with a ticket for Macclesfield was out of luck as we weren't able to get there now and they'd have to get off at Stockport and double back. Further updates to follow.

I switched Florence back on.

After a ghostly trip through a series of dark and abandoned looking stations in Staffordshire and Cheshire, we finally got to Stockport at five to midnight, fifteen minutes late. Stockport station looked about as deserted as most of the stations we'd passed through in Staffordshire and Cheshire, but at least the lights were on.

I couldn't remember what the current state of play is with the 192 bus after midnight if it's not a Friday or a Saturday so I walked down to Grand Central with a vague tangent of hope. One that was gradually dampened, then extinguished altogether in the following fifteen minutes. Grand Central, despite the sterling efforts of Stockport Council and, at various times, Greater Manchester Police, has never been more than two steps away from lairy, and is definitely not a place to hang around if you can help it. Saving money is one thing but it looked increasingly unlikely that a bus would be coming any time soon and it would take me at least 45 minutes to walk home. I walked back up to the station and got a taxi instead.

I sat down at the kitchen table with a massive mug of hot chocolate and turned Radio 4 on. Their headline news items was the death of Aretha Franklin that afternoon so I quickly concluded that I hadn't witnessed an attempted terrorism attack at Euston and that maybe a signal box had blown up or something instead.

I hadn't realised that Aretha Franklin had died until her death was alluded to at the book launch ahead of Lucy's speech. I'd missed the announcement because I'd been on the train when it happened and, after that, mooching about at the British Library and on the plaza. And not having a smartphone again.

I came to Aretha Franklin's music very late. I was in my mid 20's before I really started to be interested in her and my introduction came via Brian Matthews Sounds Of The Sixties on Radio 2, which I used to listen to on Saturday mornings while getting ready for work. 'Think' had more impact on me than 'Respect' did. Not because 'Respect' was no good, but because I'd been overexposed to it before I was ready to be interested in it and hear it for what it really was.

I hadn't grown up being interested in soul music at all, and I realise now that it's because I'd been exposed to the wrong kind of soul music while I was growing up: That very diluted, bland, overly slick 1990s chart soul, which always left me totally cold. Hearing 1960s soul records, whether that be Aretha, Otis, some of the Motown and Stax rosters, and various Northern Soul records, made me understand the evangelical devoteeism of the soul scene. Even if I never became a soul girl, a window had been opened, an explanation provided, a piece of the puzzle located.

RIP Aretha, it is mightily clear that you are missed, and will continue to be missed. As for Madonna at 60, it proves her doubters wrong. To survive so long in that area of the music business takes guts, determination and sheer bloody mindedness. Qualities I don't think many thought Madonna had back in 1982. Hats off to her.