it would make her look thinner. An unnamed family member remembered that Geri at this time would refer to herself as ‘Fatso’. She was getting by on cigarettes and black coffee.
Even her agents noticed how thin she was, although both John and Anthony thought it was because she couldn’t afford to eat properly, rather than anything more serious. They would try to encourage her to have a sandwich when she came to the office.
Outwardly, Geri appeared her normal bubbly self. She continued to go for auditions that she thought might suit her. She went to one to appear in a backing video for Pink Floyd. At another, she met one of the wannabes who would become a Spice Girl. She joined Victoria at a movie call for Tank Girl, loosely based on the comic strip. Once again it was an advertisement in the Stage proclaiming that they were looking for ‘the star of this futuristic action feature film’. The role had already been earmarked for the established actress Lori Petty, who had starred with Madonna in A League of Their Own, so this was little more than a crude publicity exercise for the movie.
Needless to say neither Geri nor Victoria was cast, which was a lucky break as the film ‘tanked’, only earning a quarter of its $25 million production costs. For her part Geri decided not to go back for another season to Turkey – and also called time on any future topless modelling. Her Page 3 ambitions were at an end.
The problem she faced moving forward was: what could she actually do? She might not have been drinking in the Last Chance saloon but she was certainly in the bar next door. Perhaps this pop group might be something.
5
The best-laid plans for the call-back were slightly disrupted when Chris was told one of the shortlist couldn’t make it. Joan O’Neill had rung from her Merseyside home to tell him that her daughter Melanie Chisholm had tonsillitis. Melanie obviously couldn’t speak to him herself because she was under strict orders to rest her voice. Chris had been impressed by her vitality at the first audition and was able to reassure Joan that her daughter was not going to lose this opportunity.
Melanie Chisholm lived and breathed dancing. Growing up, it was her pastime and her passion and she was brilliant at it. But, secretly, she wanted to be a singer like her mum.
Joan was already making a name for herself around the pubs and working men’s clubs of Merseyside before her eldest daughter was born. At the end of the sixties, she had joined a band called Petticoat and Vine, which is best described as a folk-rock group in the tradition of the Mamas and the Papas. She was then going by her maiden name of Joan Tuffley – although in those days she was billed professionally as Kathy Ford.
Norman Smeddles, the guitarist and leader of the group, decided they should have two female lead singers. His girlfriend and future wife, Val, was one and Joan became the other. They were blonde, pretty, and excellent singers. Norman recalled, ‘Joan was a typical Scouser with a quick wit and was not slow to speak her mind.’
Joan’s voice had a touch of Roberta Flack about it, and she adored Motown artists, particularly the cool and melodious Smokey Robinson, whom she called ‘Smokey Robbo’, much to everyone’s amusement. She was so skinny that her friends used to refer to her as Joan the Bone.
They secured a record deal with the Philips label in 1970 and released a début single called ‘Riding a Carousel’, a pleasant enough song. It led to their TV début in October that year on The Harry Secombe Show, alongside other guests Jimmy Tarbuck and the popular Irish singer Clodagh Rogers.
Joan cheekily managed to buttonhole Jimmy and secure an invitation for the group to appear on his own show. All was going well and national stardom beckoned. The one potential difficulty was that Joan had fallen in love with Alan Chisholm, whom she had met one evening at the Cavern Club, arguably the most famous music venue in the country, thanks to the Beatles’ performances there.
As Petticoat and Vine became better known, they had to spend more time in London, which didn’t suit Joan at all. She wanted to get back up to Liverpool to see Alan as much as possible, which led to some tensions within the band. When the group were offered a tour of Canada, she decided to leave. Ironically, the trip across the Atlantic never happened, but Petticoat and Vine battled on, eventually calling it a day in 1973. Norman and Val went on to achieve greater exposure with a new line-up called Champagne, a light group that was more Eurovision than anything psychedelic. They appeared on Opportunity Knocks, The Morecambe and Wise Show and The Jim Davidson Show but didn’t make a chart breakthrough. Val and Norman continued to enjoy a career as Champagne, touring internationally as well as remaining popular on their native Merseyside.
Meanwhile, Joan had married Alan, who worked as a fitter for the Otis Elevator Company in Liverpool, and settled into a neat semi in Kendall Drive, Rainhill, a suburb about ten miles from the city centre. Their daughter Melanie Jayne Chisholm was born at the nearby Whiston Hospital on 12 January 1974. She was always Melanie – never Mel.
Money was tight, especially when Joan and Alan split up when Melanie was three. She had to divide her time between the two and felt something of an outsider in both homes: ‘I felt like I was in the way and I had to make my own life and be independent.’
Home was a series of flats on council estates in some of the rougher areas of Runcorn. When they moved a few miles south to Widnes, she went to Fairfield Primary School in Peel House Lane and was able to move further along the road to start senior school at Fairfield County High. Joan found work as a secretary with the local Knowsley borough council but she didn’t give up singing or performing. She found new love with a taxi driver, Den O’Neill, who was a bass guitarist, a bit of a rocker and another familiar figure in local music venues. They set up home together in a small terraced house in Widnes.
Den already had two sons, Jad (Jarrod) and Stuart, from his first marriage. He and Joan married while she was pregnant with their son Paul. Melanie’s father Alan also married again and his new wife Carole had two boys, Liam and Declan. That meant Melanie was the only girl with five brothers. She didn’t know until she was a Spice Girl that she had a secret sister called Emma, Alan’s daughter from another relationship, who was brought up quietly in Llandudno, North Wales.
Melanie later admitted that she felt a little isolated when her father remarried and started a second family – caught between two households and feeling, temporarily, that she was ‘completely alone’. Looking back as an adult, she thought that even though her parents never bad-mouthed one another and relations were amicable, she started to blame herself for their divorce.
For a while, she might have given her mother a tough time, shrieking, ‘I want my dad,’ if she wasn’t getting her own way, but Joan and Melanie have a strong mother-and-daughter bond. According to Melanie, they are similar because they’re both ‘dead soft’. Her mum was also a terrific cook and, unusually among their friends in Widnes, she owned a wok. She introduced her daughter to Chinese food, which Melanie loves.
Melanie was also particularly close to her brother Paul, who, with her support, would grow up to be an ace racing driver and engaging TV commentator. They weren’t always best buddies, of course. She used to punch him when he farted. He hated her habit of cracking her knuckles constantly, especially if she was anxious about something. There was a mutual respect, however, and he would always tell her to stand up for herself even though he was five years younger.
Joan didn’t give up singing. She and Den formed various bands over the years, including Love Potion, with friend Stan Alexander, who had once been a guitarist with do-wop band Darts. They released a single on Polydor in 1977 entitled ‘Face, Name, Number’, written by Stan. The song was one of the light disco songs of the time that might have been recorded by a seventies group like the Real Thing. It made a few ripples but didn’t reach the charts. Joan also sang with the Ken Phillips Country Band, was in a group called T-Junction and yet another, River Deep, which was a tribute to Tina Turner and named after her most famous hit ‘River Deep Mountain High’.
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