Now it gets serious.

Meeting the lady who has been my better half for the last fifteen years was a sea change in my life, even if the early period wasn't without its ups and downs. Complete and utter fidelity started a little later but has been unchallenged since 1997, so there. The composition of my blood will determine how candid I manage to be in the coming months, so it's in your interests (if there's anyone who reads this) to send me a few crates of the best cuvés available. No return without investment, as you all well know (unless you live in France, where you get everything for nothing anyway, or so it appears).

Andrea and Maria

Must just mention these two before leaving Singleworld. Andrea took a shine to me during my time at Les Mis. I told her I wasn't interested in any type of commitment, having just seperated from my wife but she remained undeterred. It was easy and uncomplicated: Andrea loved every type of sex you could imagine and was easily the most uninhibited girl I've ever known. In the tradition of a fine plasterer it seemed her motto was 'All holes are there to be filled' and her appetite to live this credo was insatiable. She wanted it to go further but I resisted and she ended up backing off, but not before we'd had a wonderful 'one for the road' in my new flat in Highgate which resulted in my having to phone the landlord to replace the bed. Whoever is with Andrea now is a lucky man, indeed.

In a dark and lonely hour at Les Mis I'd contacted Maria, she of Antarctic fame. She replied almost by return, berating my silence, calling me every name under the sun but including a recent photo of herself, all the same. A few days later I picked her up at Heathrow Airport. I'd just left Les Mis and Sunset had still not reared its head, so there was nothing to do all day except...you've guessed it. Maria still refused to have penetrative sex until she'd seen a crispy, new HIV-Negative certificate, so we spent the days finding a hundred other ways to skin a cat. I woke every morning to the most gentle and sensual alarm clock you could imagine and it wasn't long before it was me going off. Maria was incredibly resourceful and permanently thirsty for anything I could provide, so I acted like a perfect host should and kept her glass topped up as often as I could manage it. It was only when I let slip that I'd had another affair since last seeing her that she clammed up, called herself an idiot and promptly flew home. Everything in this London period seemed apocalyptic, nothing seemed destined to endure and I was majorly responsible for that. It was only after meeting my future wife at Sunset that things started to stabilise. Everything in its time, really. We were all adults and we all knew the rules. I might not always have acted honourably but I never lied.

Les Mis and the rest.

...And yet, it was here that my indiscretions were discretely ushered into the antechamber of their demise. Little did I know, but I was soon to meet the latest object of my desires who would prove to be my second wife, fit as hell, brighter than a 100-watt bulb and sharper than a brand-new Sabatier. In short: my match, and welcome, my dear; please come this way. As an aside: as I write, my wife is 40 with the body of an 18-year-old, a fabulous mother to our two daughters and as shaggable as a coked-up, 21-year-old Marilyn Monroe. Envy me; it's worth the effort, however vicarious.


Our first meeting was at Sunset Boulevard: I was Assistant MD, she worked Front of House, yet had to pass me on her way to the Side Bar every evening as I played the vocal warm-up for the cast on stage. One evening, I sat there as usual with my mobile and my cigarettes on top of the piano when she walked by. Then came the comment: "Mobiles and cigarettes; what other bad habits do you have?". I thought: 'I'm in love.' I'm a sucker for feisty women. We agreed to meet to meet at Caffé Nero, on the corner of Maiden Lane and Southampton Row (No idea if it's still there). She (G) was reading a book about Israel; I'd just been there. G was on the verge of going for an interview for a job on the Isle of Bute in Scotland...the message was clear: this babe was soon to be out of here and I had to make some decisions, and fast. She got the call to go North. Was I interested in coming? Duh! But we were still just 'friends'; this could be embarrassing...

We went to Scotland together. The company had - diplomatically - booked two single rooms for us but I had a perma-boner from Euston to Rothesay (those unfamiliar with UK geography, please check the route. Then you'll understand how painful it was). G got the job, we got together, the rest is almost history (I wasn't a complete saint; at least not in the first year) and now I couldn't imagine life any other way. I tell you (providing you want to 'listen'): Making love with someone you know really well just gets better and better, providing you stick to two basic tenets:

1)    You really believe in the relationship:
2)    You both stay fit.

As soon as beer guts and bingo wings make their presence felt, it's over. Fruit, veg and lots of affection. There's no secret. MacDonalds, Ladbrokes and Liverpool FC will kill anyone's sex life. Here's my recipe:

1)   Fresh fruit, cereal and fish;
2)   Excellent wines from the south-west of France;
3)   Oodles of conversation;
4)   Gorgeous children;
5)   Fit wife:


= High-Quality Shagging.

It ain't rocket science. Bonne nuit à vous tous.

Basel, Switzerland, 1995.

So off I flew to Basel to put up the first Swiss production of The Phantom of the Opera. We were put up in a hotel, La Plaza, which, although fairly luxurious, had no experience of guests who stayed longer than 48 hours. This gap in their education proved fatal for them on a number of occasions, but for the time being, everything was OK: the cast, composed of Swiss, Americans, Brits and Germans, was extremely good, the music director a very able man, easy to work with and backed up by an American music staff with a lot of experience under its belt. I'd explore the town on my own, then some of us would take day trips out together, to Ribeauvillé, Freiburg (where my father went to university) and, eventually, further afield to the Alps proper, but other things were afoot in the city itself. Bizarrely, my feelings for SM began to cool almost as soon as I'd left Hamburg, something I couldn't fathom at all. It didn't have anything to do with the women in Switzerland; I got no more special attention there as I did anywhere else. We spoke on the phone and arranged for her to come down. She sensed something was up, but I decided to wait and see how I felt when I saw her before leaping to any conclusions. I picked her up from the station and her mistrust was palpable. Not surprising, really, and I couldn't blame her one iota. We made love, we laughed, we joked but there was something awry. Maybe it was the fact I'd decided to go to London and this was a tacit admission that the passionate period was over; I'd deposited my years of pent-up frustration into her and was now ready to move on. I hated feeling less for her but didn't know how to rectify the situation. Was our age difference suddenly assuming an importance it hadn't, before? SM was, admittedly, nine years older than I, but you'd never have guessed, and I looked young for my age even then. Anyhow, she travelled back to Hamburg with everything up in the air but it was clear to us both that the writing was on the wall. I still had a packed case to pick up from her flat, so it was imperative to remain on at least civil terms. I hadn't forced her to move house, emigrate, leave her job or anything like that, so ultimately any split would just entail healing emotional wounds, wounds which were, it has to be said, pretty deep, such was the intensity of our relationship.

One evening, after rehearsal, a group of us went up to my room and partied. One lady, LB, stayed a little longer than the rest and, after wild 'petting' we ended up in bed. I woke at around 8am with the two beds completely pushed apart, bedding all over the room and no sign of my mate. We caught up later and I found out I'd fallen asleep on the job. This needed to be rectified, not such an easy task I can assure you. Still, we ended up making love on a bench by the river. LB was married and anything we did was to remain sctrictly between us. I don't know to this day if she ever told her husband or not. Anyhow, a little later I found out that the harpist in the orchestra, LG, thought I was rather nice and wanted to get to know me a little better. She spoke only French so I had to dust off what I'd learned in school, and sharpish. Her uncle was a world-famous film director, truly a household name. I never managed to meet any of the family, but our gentle relationship played out my remaining two weeks in Switzerland before heading over to England. L had been in touch from London and smelt a rat one day whilost we were on the phone; LG had knocked on the door whilst we were talking and I'd let her in without making a sound, a pretty stupid move if ever there was one. I should have shown enough presence of mind to greet her as one would a member of staff who has come round to check the mini bar or some such. Still, I didn't and was well rumbled by my still-spouse, as I was to find out later in London.

LG's feelings for me didn't last, contrary to mine for her. We'd had a lovely day out in Geneva where she was teaching and a romantic trip back in the dining car of the Swiss train, accompanied by a plate of parma ham and some red wine. Her last words to me were "Don't forget me", though she pretty much did me, shacking up with a Canadian double-bass player almost as soon as I'd left the country. I understand she's still single to this day, a strange situation indeed, considering her talent and beauty. I had a couple of days back in Basel in early December, 1995, ostensibly to se how the show was shaping up but, in reality, to see LG, who, of course, didn't want to see me. It was a horrible few days, particularly as Les Mis was shaping up to be a political nightmare, so there was no enjoyment about any aspect of being in the Palace Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue in those days.

I went to see SM when I got back to Hamburg. Needless to say, the meeting was short and unpleasant. She gave me my case, saying if I ever found out what had caused an about-face in my feelings, then I should let her know. I drove home to Bahrenfeld, packed what was left of my belongings and drove off to Hamburg's ferry terminal. My furniture was already in storage and waiting for the nod to be delivered somewhere in London, my brother and sister-in-law expecting me sometime the following afternoon in their house in East London. After eight years, the German experience was about to end. There'd been pretty much everything packed into that time: I started out as a single, greenhorn pianist who'd never conducted in his life and was leaving quasi-married, quasi-adulterer, headhunted by the biggest musical theatre company in the world to be musical director of their flagship production. In terms of moving on in life it had been eight years at 100mph, and that was not going to change...

Washington DC 1993

One of the most unusual jobs I've ever done was in September, 1993. I'd just taken over the musical directorship of The Phantom of the Opera in Hamburg when our supervisory team from New York came over to record the entire show with our orchestra but without singers. Apparently, there was wage-based discontent brewing between the orchestra of the Kennedy Centre in Washington and their employers and the smart money was on the players using the visit of the American First National Tour of Phantom to strike and get management to cede. The musical company had no desire to be taken hostage like that and struck pre-emptively by having a version of the show on tape in case there were no musicians to play it. They spent two days recording and went back to the US to face the music.

As it happens, the orchestra did strike and hell was let loose. They managed a couple of performances with two pianos before the musical supervisor started conducting the singers with the tape. A keyboard player was flown in from New York to cover the tricky, recitative-like passages. The audience was informed several times before entering the theatre that the performance would take place with pre-recorded orchestral playing and, should they wish to have a refund would they please claim it before the show started. Virtually no-one left. This happy state of affairs would have continued had the music supervisor not had to leave for another production. The regular conductor (actually my predecessor in Hamburg) could, as a union member, not do it, so they needed someone from outside. It was decided that they'd ask me to do it and, if I accepted, my predecessor would go back to Hamburg for the remaining three weeks of the Washington run. New York phoned me at about 11pm after a show; everything was sorted out with the Hamburg management and all they needed was my OK. So I gave it. Next day I sorted out flight details with the office in NYC, asked them to have a recording Fed-Exed over to Hamburg so I could get started on learning the guide track, sorted out a catsitter and, a few days later, headed off to the airport.

I flew Business direct from Hamburg to Washington. I was not to be paid while in the US as I had no work permit in those days but was generously 'taken care of' with a very good per diem and direct billing in the Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown, so I didn't have to spend a red cent my entire stay. That was also made easier by the fact that The Four Seasons had the best of everything, so I had no desire to eat anywhere else. We were moved into the Wyndham Bristol for the last few days as the supervisors had left. It was good, but a bit of a come down after my initial palatial accomodation. One of the nicest bits was having a strech limo at our disposal. This was our car. By 'our', I mean the keyboard player and I. Our driver, Sam, was in his eighties and still working to help put his grandchildren through college. Just like in Europe. Yeah, right...

Working with Americans in America is always impressive, particularly after the lacksadaisical, entitlement-polluted attitudes you find in Europe. The message was clear: do right by us and we'll do right by you. It's a simple message and, if followed intelligently, results in a win-win situation. Our collaboration was fruitful and joyous, even if I did have to keep my true identity secret, a strange ituation to be in. I was also assigned a bodyguard, as was the keyboard player, just in case any strikers spotted us and chose to get nasty. It didn't happen, of course, and we had a good laugh with Chris and Jon, who turned into good friends during the time we spent together. We would always enter and leave the theatre by the underground passage which opened out next to the Watergate Hotel and some Embassy. Seeing as it is illegal in the US to picket within a certain distance of an Embassy we always had a free run down in and out of the bowels of the Kennedy Centre, though we were instructed to keep our sunglasses on until inside. It seems a bit OTT in retrospect (did then, too) but it was a wonderful experience.

I finished my time in the US with a few days with my in-laws in New Jersey. Whilst there, we had a DC reunion in Manhattan: Chris, Jon, the keyboard player and I met up and had dinner with my father-in-law. There was a funny story to that evening, too. One of the Christines in Washington, Terri, was due to leave the show after the DC run and start in the show She Loves Me on Broadway. On our reunion night we found ourselves in the same street as the theatre where it was playing, and one of the group said: "Isn't that where Terri is, now?". Just at that moment, who should poke her head out of the emergency exit we were standing in front of but...yes, you've guessed it: Terri. So I said "And here she is: Ms Terri ...." She looked a little nonplussed, so I said "Terri, it's us, from Phantom in Washington DC". "Have you come to see the show?" she asked. "No", I said, we happened to be passing and you came out through that door; it's an extraordinary coincidence". "Do we know each other?" she asked me. "Terri, yes. Until four days ago we were looking at each other three hours every day, sometimes more if we also had a matinee performance. I was the conductor in DC". "OHMYGAAAD! Yes!" Hug, kiss, all that crap. When I told my colleague in Germany about it he went ballistic: "That's SO typical of her! She's not interested in anyone except herself. What a selfish cow" etc etc. I did find it a little strange, to be honest, but maybe I'd never encountered anyone so self-possessed, before.

I flew back to Hamburg a few days later. My most abiding memory of the Four Seasons was the service and the reaction of my room maid when she realised I'd left her a $50 tip (American dollar bills all look alike, you have to be careful). She caught me up in the corridor, went down on her knees and kissed my hand. I didn't know what to think, but it was clear that little bit extra meant an awful lot to her. Washington DC has a high black population and a lot of crime and poverty. I saw some of it when I went out to a suburban theatre performance with, funnily enough, the partner of the bloke replacing me in Hamburg while I was in the US. He knew Washington like the back of his hand but it was still a bit scary on occasions; not the kind of city I'd like to get lost in.

Endzeitstimmung.

My time in Hamburg was gradually drawing to a close. I was alone and was basically dead wood. One night, the night of March 31st, to be precise, one of the shapelier female violinists came up to my room after the show and asked to speak to me. Was it true, she asked, that I was leaving? Yes, indeed it was, I said, as I got changed out of my tails and back into civvies. Take a seat, Miss Jones, would you like a drink 'n' all that. We settled down with a glass of white wine each and started talking about everything under the sun. Cigarettes were lit, smoked, extinguished, glasses refilled, more cigarettes lit, and so it went on. We talked about her occasional ménage à trois involving her boyfriend and A.N. Other and how she preferred an extra woman to another man ('far too much work'). We graduated from wine to my Russian vodka stock, started to kiss and caress around 6am...it went no further, but we continued to talk until we both realised we'd created hell on earth for ourselves as it was now 9am: she had to play a concert out of town at 12 noon, I'd put myself down, exceptionally, for the 3pm matinee show with the second cast. I never conducted this performance and now I was going to have to do it with about a litre of vodka in my bloodstream. I went down to the garage, eventually found my BMW 520 and drove home with one eye firmly closed. If I'd been stopped I'd have been banned for life, but it was Sunday morning, after all...I set the alarm for 1pm and collapsed into a coma.

I vaguely remember something happening at some stage, but my most abiding memory of the day was waking at 2.58pm and realising the show I was meant to conduct was scheduled to start in 120 seconds. Trying to sound as level-headed as possible I phoned the theatre, asked to be put through to the stage manager's office and informed them that my assistant would be conducting the show that afternoon (we had a rule by which there was always a backup in the house). Some people thought it was an April Fool's joke. At 6pm I went into the theatre and turned myself in to the Company Manager. "I'm sorry, I have no excuse. Do with me what you will". Not having any previous in the last six years I was let off scot-free, but it was a salutary warning: don't mess around with your work. They didn't say anything like that, I just filled in the blanks for myself. You don't get many chances like that...

There was a Bulgarian violinist in the orchestra, quite one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. I remember cursing being married the  first time I set eyes on her and often fantasised about being in bed with her, her on top, looking into my eyes...Anyhow, years later, we finally got talking one evening in the canteen. We left at the same time, walking down to the garage, talking as we went. We stopped by her car and carried on talking until I suggested we continue the conversation somewhere a little more comfortable. She suggested her place, but seemed only interested in talking. I accepted. I followed her in my car and we went up to the flat in Eppendorf she'd bought with her ex-husband. The evening got later and later until it was clear I couldn't drive home. She suggested I share her bed, but without any funny business. You can imagine what was going on in my head and my body at this stage. We settled down and the inevitable happened, if on a minor level. For my part, I was in heaven; I'd lusted after this lady for four years and she was now beside me in bed. Why do these things always happen just as you're going to leave town?

It took a few days for the affair to get started in earnest but when it did I thought I was going to explode with happiness. My fantasy picture was played out in front of me every night, we made love for hours on end; this woman was more fascinating, intelligent and sensual than anyone I'd ever met, and she was mine, or so I felt. There was the illicit thrill of slipping away from work, no-one suspecting anything (they were used to me just leaving on my own) and driving to SM's flat, Steely Dan playing on the car hi-fi. It was an illicit paradise, a relationship to which I gave more than I'd ever given before and which reciprocated. If there was perfection on earth, this relationship with SM was it. I'd drive home in the morning and the cats would always have peed on my bed, their sign of discontent at having been neglected. SM came over one night (as did Maria in her time) after we'd talked on the phone: I would've gone to her but the cats needed attention and I didn't want to risk having nothing to sleep on the following night, so I phoned her and persuaded her to come. During all this period I had unlimited stocks of energy: everything - literally - went into SM and I couldn't have been happier than just being the one to envelop this gorgeous lady every night, every day. Paradise. Paradise lost, soon enough, as reality beckoned. I was to leave Hamburg and Cameron Mackintosh in London had been in touch, wondering if I'd like to become music director of Les Misérables in London. London, yes; Les Mis: no. I hated the piece but desperately wanted the chance to 'go home' and work in my home town, get a sense of where my life was meant to be going , sort out the situation with L in an English-speaking environment and move on. Where was this to leave SM? In my headiest moments she would be at my side, our future would be in London, in more moderated times she would be in Hamburg, waiting for me while I assured her of my continued devotion as my divorce was processed. Everything was up in the air. I went to London for a few days to watch the show and give some kind of reply to CM's management. I decided to do what everyone was advising me to do and accept then returned to Hamburg, where I'd sat for months with no work offers. I returned and found seven job offers on my answering machine having only been gone a few days. Bizarre. I turned down Sunset Boulevard in Niedernhausen (little knowing I'd end up doing it two years later) and accepted the post of Assistant Musical Supervisor on The Phantom of the Opera in Basel, Switzerland. I cockily informed Cameron Mackintosh's office in London that I wouldn't be available until October, knowing full well that if they didn't accept I'd just follow up Switzerland with Niedernhausen, anyway. By this time, Germany was my home; I didn't love it, but it was familiar and I knew my way around it. It would also mean I could stay near SM, if that particular equation were next on the list.

Cameron accepted, so Basel it was to be, with a little trip in the interim to London to meet the man himself, then off to take over the show, just after its Barbican tenth anniversary show at the Albert Hall and its tenth anniversary show at the Palace Theatre, which I would be conducting. The game plan was sorted out; it seemed that L would be coming to London after Switzerland to give our marriage a second chance; I was frantically trying to keep hold of SM and hoping she wouldn't give up because of this latest development. After all, nothing was really holding her in Hamburg, she was prepared to up sticks and try something new, too. Everything was up in the air but first and foremost, money needed to be earned and marriages sorted out. Were they to be pursued or not? If not, which direction was life to go in? The summer of 1995 provided all those questions with answers, and most were not the simple ones we wanted to hear whilst stil in north Germany...

IH

This delightful lady was on the ship's staff between Peru and Bremerhaven. We spotted each other quite early on and I'd already been propositioned by one girl from Berlin and bedded a Viennese beauty before I received the message that IH would like to have dinner with me. Our next port of call was in the Azores (regrettably we'd left it rather late) so we went out for dinner in Ponta Delgada before heading back to the ship to get to know each other a little closer. She was a lady of few words but those that issued from her shapely mouth were considered and insightful. Our first night together was a slow waltz of intimation, seduction, word plays and other games. Once we were finally together she proved herself to be as uninhibited between the sheets as she was discrete out of them. That's always a tantalising combination and we spent every remaining night together until we docked in Bremerhaven, her intimate scent still turning my head, the memory of her deeds still raising my temperature. All these years later and I still get hot under the collar when I think of our time together. Oh, a life on the ocean waves...

Cruises

The Hamburg years were punctuated by amazing cruises on which L and I, together or individually, would perform a 50-minute set once and then sit back and have a few weeks' paid holiday. In that time, either together or alone, we covered more countries than I can actually remember. I noted them all down and it's about ninety: all around the Mediterranean, Scandinavia, Acapulco to Sydney through the South Pacific; Peru to Cap Verde via the northern latino nations and the Caribbean, the Red Sea; Hong Kong to Singapore via Japan, Shanghai, the Philippines, Celebes, Bali and Malaysia etc. A wonderful time. L had done the dirty on me before I joined her in Hong Kong (she'd been on the ship with our friend Klaus a full month before I arrived) but every subsequent cruise I did alone I paid her back. These episodes will merit a few posts on their own, but there's time for all that. My favourite was a particularly intense couple of weeks I spent with IH, a German crew member, who was probably the most intensely stimulating and sexually provocative lady I'd ever had the good fortune to be naked with. More on that, later.

Moribund

By this stage it looked like my marriage was dead in the water, moribund, beyond help and hope. On top of that, one of my darling colleagues who will remain nameless as he is worth, even to this day, less than used lavatory paper, provoked me into resigning from my job as top musical dog at The Phantom of the Opera. The decision to quit was mine alone, but it was the spineless reasoning he used to explain himself when we subsequently worked together again four years later in Mexico City, which really sealed it.

Before leaving for the Antarctic and the gentle embrace of Maria I'd sorted out with the theatre that I would return on January 12th then fly on to Prague on the 15th to start auditioning singers for Phantom. I was to meet said colleague at the theatre just as soon as I arrived in Hamburg. Everything was sorted out, I was missing nothing in Germany, yet a provocative satellite phone call arrived while we were in Argentina to ask when I was thinking of coming back, followed by a protestation of innocence when I returned the call. I flew out of Punta Arenas, Chile, landed in Frankfurt fifteen hours later, caught my connecting flight to Hamburg and went straight into work, not having slept for 24 hours and, having flown east, subjected to appalling jet-lag. Colleague suggested I wait in the canteen as he something to sort out in the office. Eventually he turned up, not wanting to talk about the upcoming cast change i.e. the reason I'd come in to work in the first place and not gone home to sleep. I flew off to Prague a couple of days later, said colleague following on soon after. To cut a long story short, he'd kept me at arm's length concerning the cast change, choosing to discuss any possible changes with the Company Manager (who had no jurisdiction in the selection of artists), all the while lying to me about how long he'd spent in Hamburg preparing this little coup. The shit hit the fan in the Hotel Raphaël in Munich when I put two and two and two and two together and made eight. The extent of this guy's deceit was incredible. I threw the book at him, disturbing the other genteel guests over breakfast that morning, who had to listen to a few tabloid clichés about Germans, I'm ashamed to say...

We got back to Hamburg, I took an appointment with the MD and resigned. She didn't want to hear it. I stood my ground. The company eventually plumped for the default option of my assistant, not having found, in six months of auditions or interviews, anyone who they felt could take the show to another level. It was flattering, but I was not for turning; there was no way in hell I could continue to work with this particular manipulative, subversive arsehole.

It was only in 1999 in Mexico City that I found out why this bloke had behaved the way he had. He said he'd received information from the top floor in New York that I was to be replaced, so he decided to provoke me into resigning rather than see me suffer the ignominy of not having my contract renewed. He managed that quite successfully. He also had the good grace, I must admit, to add that he'd checked back with New York after I'd left if they really would have kissed me goodbye. The answer was interesting: "No way; he was the best music director we'd ever had for the show". Go figure, eh? This bloke, let's call him RF, as those are his initials, disgusted me ultimately only for his own lack of backbone and obsession to be an apparatchik. He ended up getting fired but still puts up Phantom productions, mostly in 'emerging economies'. He tried getting in touch a few times after Mexico, but I never replied to his mails, the main reason being they were always of the same ilk: looking for information but never revealing anything about himself. My days of playing with an open hand were long gone, as was any contact with this louse. Live and learn.

No shagging in this post, sorry about that. That'll change soon enough; we're working up to Switzerland, a fertile pasture after the self-destructive Endzeitstimmung of the last months in Hamburg.

Maria

I mentioned a certain Maria in the last post. I met her on another cruise ship, this time one which was sailing around the Antarctic. We flew to Rio de Janeiro, then down to Punta Arenas in Chile (where I currently am, funnily enough, but actually in Santiago, sixteen years later) where we joined the ship. First of all I developed an 'understanding' with another girl who then started to play the 'I've got a boyfriend' game. Maria stepped up to the plate and wasn't interested in adolescent mind games. After a rather liquid evening in one of the ship's bars we went down to her cabin to see what other watery substances we could generate, not emerging until after lunch the next day. We missed the first land excursion but being in bed with Maria was compensation enough, a lady who didn't like to waste a drop of what she inspired. She stayed on the ship when I flew back to Germany but we were to see each other more than once again after that. The next time I heard from her was months later when she phoned out of the blue as L and I were in the middle of a relationship crisis meeting. L was only back in Germany for three days and Maria picked her moment to get in touch with supernatural virtuosity. It also helped the talks, too, loosening L's tongue about what she'd been up to whilst I was thinking I was the only miscreant...

Married, but alone.

Despite being newly 'single', I had no urge to fool around. I was married and still believed that one should not do that kind of thing, even if opportunities were manifold, and they were. I was young, well-mannered, good-looking and successful. And, to all intents and purposes for the majority of the people I met and worked with, single. I chose to ignore a lot of the clumsier come-ons, not wishing, as one does, to shit on one's own doorstep. Still, one night, I caved in. Big time.


There was a group of about five of us out one evening after the show. I still remember saying something stupid to one of the Australian dancers, who didn't warrant my gauche behaviour; I'd miscalculated her feelings for me, or, at least, her own set of morals. It took years for that to heal, and I freely admit acting like a twat. Nonetheless, one of the other girls, a sassy, emotional New Yorker, made her feelings for me quite clear. She looked like one of the girls from Sex and the City and sang like Barbra Streisand. We talked, and how...I ran her home. We talked in her kitchen until 6am, when it became time to go to bed. I undressed her and caressed her. She went exploring. It was heaven. We didn't go to sleep until about noon, sticky, sweaty and wet. Then we started again. Hot, musky and sticky, until we could no more.

Afterwards, I had a pang of conscience. We talked the next day. I was sorry, I was married, this couldn't continue. There were tears. I found out a couple of years later that I needn't have been so conscientious; L had done the dirty on me a good three months previously and not just the once, either. I got this information from her then paramour, Klaus, as we later sailed towards Venezuela on a cruise ship. Klaus, L and I had met years before on a cruise and hit it off famously. Klaus turned out to be L's first refuge when things were not going sparklingly with me. I was incredibly grateful to him; life with L was so much easier and better with her after they'd had their affair and took the edge off Maria's call to me when L and I were in the midst of our final summit meeting, but more on that, later.

Looking back on those extraordinary few years, I'm surprised any of us surfaced from them without at least some form of mild STD. We desperately thrashed around in search of the truth and a better way to lead our lives, taking way too many other people emotional hostage as we went. Interestingly, a lot of the women I encountered in that period have been back in touch recently.

Newly married

The problems with being being married and sharing a workplace are the fact that things can go downhill for one person, up for the other and that you never leave work behind you. You take it home, you take it to bed, you talk about it over breakfast and you live it until alcohol finally opens the door to slumber the next night. It can be fun, it can be hell on earth.

The bald fact of the matter was that things started going uphill for me very quickly at Phantom  and downhill for L, who was, nevertheless, a pillar of the production, rehearsing and singing the lead every day for a month as her colleagues recuperated from illness, an ever-present, ultra-reliable and good member of the production. The only thing was that the Creative Team didn't see her as a lead role 'chairholder', if you like; she was fine as a fill-in, even if this filling-in lasted for weeks on end and enabled the company to continue earning shedloads of cash by not having to cancel performances, but that is, I suppose, life. Eventually, when I was in the top conducting job, the Team came clean about why they didn't want my wife as N°1. It was the reason which would crush any woman, particularly one who earns her living on stage, and I couldn't tell her, at least not then. I told her years later, I think, when we were in the middle of our final, defining row, our tongues loosened by too much wine. Three years of confused bile was regurgitated and distributed randomly to anyone who cared to listen. A vile evening, in all respects. But that was 1995, and we were still newlyweds in 1992.

L was finally informed that there was no more contract for her at Phantom, but Cats were looking for a Jellylorum/Gumby cover, and would she be interested. It was an elegant exit and she went on to become a well-loved member of that show. Cats eventually reached its sell-by date, too; she felt no longer challenged and wanted to try her luck elsewhere. The situation between us was not rosy, so she decided to go back to the USA and try her luck on Broadway. Armed with two major credits, her chances couldn't be that bad. We'd been living in a huge flat in Blankenese, a wonderful Hamburg neighbourhood. The flat was expensive, so we moved to somewhere a little smaller and a lot cheaper when L moved to Cats. This enabled us to save a bit more, then she headed back across the pond. We'd done some cruise gigs together in the years leading up to her departure, so whe had a good money-making contact if Broadway didn't work out immediately. I'll get on to the cruises in my next post; the really were something special. In all senses...

I stayed in Hamburg with the two cats, Norman and Tara. Life was different, and soon became unrecognisable.

Time to meet the family.

I celebrated the week before going to the USA for the first time to meet my new in-laws by getting chicken pox. Not bad at 29, eh? I just cleared travel fitness by 24 hours and off we went. In those days, you could smoke on planes, so everything was OK. It was also ten years before radical Islam decided to change the way we travel, so there was no turning up at the airport six days before your flight was due to leave, either. Travelling in those days was a pleasure, even if it was linked to a marriage that should never have come to pass, but there you go. L's family were delightful and made me very welcome. Years later, when we split up, I felt I'd miss her parents more than her. This trip was the first of many I'd make to the USA: New York, New Jersey, Washington DC on business, two music theatre National Tours etc etc. Between 1991 and 1999 the USA and I were close friends; our relationship began as a backdrop to my first engagement and ended in December 1999, when I boarded a flight from Minneapolis to Reykjavik, bringing down the curtain definitively on our tempestuous, eight-year long affair. There were times when I adored America and times when I loathed and despised it; it was a wonderful place to work but the most boring place on God's earth if you didn't have anything to do. I felt there, more than anywhere else I've ever lived, that if I wasn't being noticeably productive my social stock would fall at least 100 points. The pressure to work and to be seen to work was immeasurable. This was easily fulfilled in DC and on tour; not so easy in Minneapolis, where I was truly a freelance musician, looking around for any kind of work which might rear its head. My savings were slowly diminishing but there was a steady trickle of gigs coming in, but nothing remotely sustainable. That's when I booked a single flight Minneapolis - Paris via the Icelandic capital.

Despite our differences even at this early stage, L's and my sex life was pretty damned good. She loved to fuck, and fuck hard: one night, we did it eight times; she came eighteen times. We watched porn videos together, she loved it front and back and adored being spanked. We still managed to split up twice more before finally getting married on August 15th, 1992. Her family came over to England for the ceremony and we all headed off to Wales and Ireland on our honeymoon, taking in Tom Jones' homeland (for Aunt Dorothy) and southern Ireland for my in-laws, whose grandparents had left the country for the USA at the beginning of the twentieth century. Our families actually came from neighbouring villages in Westmeath. British soldiers pointed guns down our throats as we crossed the border into Ulster from Donegal and our landlady in Portrush fell in love with my new brother-in-law. All in all, it was an unforgettable week, particularly for my wonderful in-laws, who will never forget the fabulous time they had in the UK and Ireland. L and I flew back to Hamburg while her family trudged off to Heathrow's Terminal 1 for their flight back to Newark, NJ. Only then did things start to go seriously downhill.

Slippery slope

It was clear to me by now that L was interested but I was having none of it. I'd still run her home but drive off to my other life afterwards. One night in the car, though, things went further than planned and although I didn't think too much of it, one post-orgasmic female colleague clearly felt that life had taken a new direction. She phoned me the next day as if we were nascent lovers. I'd just got off the phone to the star and my head was elsewhere. L was audibly peeved "...you put your finger in me one night then pretend nothing ever happened?") and I, not wanting to provoke any bad feeling at work, decided to try to polyfilla over the cracks. As anyone with half a brain knows only too well, you can't keep everyone happy all the time, so I quickly decided, in the general public interest, that if anyone was going to suffer then it would be me. I discretely disentwined myself from the star's emotional embrace and L and I got engaged on October 3rd, 1991. I found out later in Roosevelt Park, NJ, that she hated the engagement ring I'd given her; it was 'too small', not 'flashy' enough and the fact that I'd asked an old flame's advice concerning keeping the cost down didn't go down too well, either. Let's face it, my heart wasn't in it from the beginning but I was too much of a masochist to just let it drop. I also had no confidence in my own judgement; L told me that if I broke it off with her I'd regret it for the rest of my life, and I believed her. I convinced myself that everything would improve once we'd got things sorted out. After all, we were both two intelligent, attractive and talented human beings; how could it not work? Well, where shall we start...?

The Phantom of the Opera, summer 1991

One of my former employer's masterstrokes was building a brand new, 2,000-seat theatre, hiring Wagnerian tenor legend Peter Hofmann and still managing to get back in the black after a mere twelve months. Phantom in Hamburg was a huge deal: Peter Hofmann was still a huge name in the classical world (all the while maintaining his pop career) and all stops were pulled out (of the Phantom's organ?) to make this show a success. The marketing department worked overtime to sell the idea of a quasi-opera - it's a musical, not an operetta, after all - to an audience still unfamiliar with the nuanced difference. Cats you could sell easily as a dance show, Starlight Express, still selling out in Bochum after all these years, was successfully launched as a poppy, roller-skating spectacular. Selling the idea of a semi-serious musical entertainment as neither opera nor operetta was a more difficult task. In the end, they decided to play it straight and sell it as a serious work of art. The bet worked: Phantom sold out eight times a week for over 90% of its ten-year run in Hamburg. Considering Peter Hofmann was only on stage for the first fourteen months of the run the efforts of the marketing department cannot be praised too highly.

The music director, J, and management made me feel very welcome and I played my first show on the keyboard after about a week. All of a sudden, J panicked and told me I had to conduct earlier than anticipated. I blitzed the score day and night for a week or two and stepped up and conducted the show from memory one Sunday afternoon in July, 1991. The cast included Tim Tobin, Hartwig Rudolz and Silvia Krüger, whose husband, Klaus Florian Vogt, played first horn that day. Anyone familiar with the world of opera will know that last name: a few years later, Klaus gave up his job as horn player in the Hamburg Philharmonic and went on to become one of the busiest Wagnerian tenors on the circuit, a regular at the Bayreuth Festival, the New York Met, Covent Garden and Vienna, amongst others. Quite a career change.

For the first time in a long time I'd found myself single. I was approaching thirty and felt the time was right to maybe grow up. One of the cast members, an American girl called L, caught my interest. She was feisty, entertaining, talented and single. Maybe a bit brash for me, but worth a little investigating. I started hitting on her, she realised, remained civil, and that was it. Eventually, her dad came to visit. We were introduced and got on famously. After he left, L's attitude towards me changed completely. She started to seek me out, wondered if I could drive her home etc. Basically, the tables were turned but I'd lost interest. In her heart of hearts, she wasn't interested but must have adored her father so much that his opinion counted for more than her own feelings. I write this in hindsight, years later...Anyhow, I'd run her home then drive off and meet up with former girlfriends from my Cats time. The girl who sang the lead opposite Peter Hofmann had started making demands on my time, too. She needed to put an album together and wanted me to help her select from the songs her producer had sent for her approval. We ended up spending a lot of time together, all of it, sadly, platonic, but I was obsessed with her; she had a star quality you couldn't define. L had disappeared off my radar, but you must never underestimate a Jersey Girl. She now had a mission and it was to be my destiny to obey.

All good things must come to an end

I was slowly getting the feeling it was time to leave Cats. Two assistants had come and gone and I was always required to jump in and do their job until a new appointment was made. One day, I asked why I was permanently passed over for this promotion and the reply steeled my resolve: "Because you're more useful to us where you are. You play the show, you play rehearsals, you conduct, you coach German and you play for the ballet classes. You wouldn't have to do even half of that if you were permanent assistant conductor". "So, being multi-faceted counts against me. If I were more limited, I'd have a better chance of moving up?" "Basically, yes."

So, I served them an ultimatum: If they were not able to guarantee me promotion the next time the job came up, I would leave. I'd see if I could move over to The Phantom of the Opera, which was just opening a mile or so down the road. Failing that, I'd move back to England. One thing was certain: I was not going to be used as a multi-talented doormat; I had too much self-respect for that.

The upshot was that they didn't want to guarantee me the position. I spoke to the Artistic Director of the company and told her I wanted to move to Phantom if there were something free. The new music director of that show came to watch me conduct a show and the job was mine. Within two years I became chief conductor and music director of that production, the biggest Lloyd Webber show in the world at the time, but that's by-the-by. Cats hired three people on full-time contracts to replace me.

Moving to Phantom changed a lot of things in my life. I was to meet my first wife and start playing with the big boys: Cats was a great show to start off on, but Phantom was the one that garnered international attention in those days. Moving from the Reeperbahn to the Stresemannstrasse turned out to be a longer journey than originally thought...

Ingrid

Now it's time to tell you about Ingrid. Astrid and I had split up and the annual Cats party was about to happen. This was basically an excuse for every desirable (and some not-so-desirable) young ladies to put on a short black number and get up on a makeshift stage and sing to the inebriated masses. Not everyone was a performer, though; the usherettes came along, too, and were often much more 'talented' than their stage-dwelling counterparts. There weren't many straight men in the production in those days, but we'd all noticed this one: she looked innocent and debauched in equal measure; large, green eyes, long, unkempt hair and an enormous mouth. Her off-duty dresses were often even more provocative than her musky allure. In short, she was fascinating, and nobody really knew how best to approach her. The answer was, of course, the simple, direct way, but more on that, later.

I turned up at the party with Uli. He'd made the acquaintance of a certain Frauke, who'd already indicated her interest in his mind by tossing him off just outside the stage door. Discretely, of course, but all the same. So up they turned and we got talking. Various Grizabellas, Bombalurinas and Rumpleteezers strutted their stuff on stage while I looked around for company. There she stood, alone, tending a drink, looking innocent, lost and yet debauched in aforementioned equal measure. The time was right. I walked over to her and picked her up. Literally. Scooped her up off the floor and carried her, Rhett Butler-style, into the stairwell. 'What are you doing? And who are you?' Her questions were certainly legitimate, so I told her: 'I'm *****, and I've been wanting to do this all evening. What's your name?' 'Ingrid'. We started to kiss, then laid down on the floor, where our nascent relationship became ever more 'caring'. Various party revellers stepped over us, around us or just plain waited until we'd finished. This was, after all, a showbiz party and no behaviour was deemed excessive. Or unexpected.

I eventually ran Ingrid home. It was 5am and I was so drunk I had to drive with one eye closed. I had her phone number, but knew I'd see her in the theatre before long, anyway. I had some free time coming up, so thought 'what the hell'. When I saw her next, we went off after the show to Meyer Lansky's (any Hamburger worth his salt knows this bar), ordered a couple of Pisco sours and sealed the deal to go to Paris for a week. We could catch up with P, my friend from Koblenz. He was now a dancer at the Lido, living with his girlfriend, a Dutch girl called Wilma, who was the vedette at the Paradis Latin. All we needed was a pair of train tickets; we'd sort everything else out once we got there. After all, it wasn't going to be high season.

Ingrid and I got to know each other pretty well in the time leading up to our departure. She loved sex, had no inhibitions, and sucked and swallowed with the best of them. Apart from anything else, she would also want to do it at the drop of a hat. We spent hours in her garret, inhaling each other's pleasure and scents, our desires and urges. We managed to hold off in the couchette department of the train, but christened our hotel room very rapidly. It was located in the 12th arrondissement; I found it over breakfast that morning, just after we got into Gare de l'Est.

We met up with P shortly after, round at his place in the 15th. 'Jeez, mate, where did you find her? Hitchhiking?' P was, to put it mildly, a bit dubious about Ingrid. True, she had gypsy blood but was an honest as the next man, so to speak. He ended up getting on very well with her, though. In my mind, nothing was ever going to come of the relationship; she and I were together for the sake of fun; I had no intention of settling down. Germany was not my country and there I would not stay; so primitive were my thought processes at the time. An Ingrid, an Astrid, or, indeed, an Anyone, was never going to tie me down. This changed, of course, and sooner than I imagined, but that didn't work out, either. Anyhow, that's a much later post.

Ingrid and I stayed together fr a while after Paris. None of the relationships of that time seemed particularly serious: the women weren't pushy until the chips were down, the men cruised through life from day to day without much heed for the morrow. Each union had a 24-hour flashpoint period, then life went on as normal. It culminated in her coming round to my flat one evening and leaving a livid note on my desk. My poor flatmate had already fielded two other women that evening, and, for my sins, I can't even remember why, save for the fact I do recall dating three women at the same time. For some incredible reason, they all learned of each other's existence on the same day. I was lucky to get off so lightly, but maybe I say that with the consciousness of a now faithful, married, risk-averse father. This all happened half my life ago, so to speak; it's incredible to think how much we can change.

Off to England with Uli.

One of the most enjoyable things about being young, free and single is the ability to up sticks whenever you feel like it without needing to justify your absence, apart from to your employer, of course. My friend Uli and I decided to have a week's driving holiday in the English Lake District, so I got hold of a book which summed up our goal perfectly: it was called Beer, Bed and Breakfast and was a more than worthy copanikon on our trip. We left Hamburg late one night after a Cats performance, arriving FAR too early for our ferry crossing in Hoek van Holland, waking up freezing with aching bladders and furballs in our mouths from dossing down in the car park between 2am and 6am. I had no idea you could get from Hamburg to the North Sea coast so quickly.

After staying the first night at my Mum's place, we motored north to Kendal, where we located a hostelry, booked ourselves in, did a bit of sightseeing then repaired to the pub for an evening's serious libation. Thus was the pattern set for the week. The countryside was breathtaking, the people friendly and the after-hours lock-in at the Black Cock Inn in...I can't remember exactly where...debilitating. Only later in the week, when we arrived in London, did I notice that the car had started lurching a bit. I put it down the its age and thought no more of it. We stayed a night at a friend's house in Honor Oak before driving back to Harwich. Their children were, as they always had been, absolutely nauseating: ill-mannered, ignorant, dreadfully spoken and devoid of any social grace. The two dogs behaved slightly better than the kids, even if one, after I'd laughed at it getting stuck in the cat flap, bounded over to me and soiled my crisp, new white shirt with its muddy paws. It really seemed to do it on purpose, quite dispassionately; 'Here' it seemed to say, 'That's for laughing at me'.

The holiday was a great success and, once back in Hamburg, I took the car in to be examined. I'd driven for a full week with a two-inch nail sticking out of one of the tyres. When I think back to the speeds we got up to on the motorway it makes my stomach churn. Word to the wise: buy a BMW; you'll be safe even if you've got hardware sticking out of your tyres.

By the way...

If anyone out there does stumble upon this blog, I suggest you read it from the beginning. It's an uncensored, personal diary, so if you want to sift through my underwear, you'd better start where I tell you so we all get maximum satisfaction.

As...the woman of my dreams, at the time.

This seems as good a time as any to tell you (me?) about As...; I'm even listening to Donald Fagen, who turned out to be my continual companion in those days, even if he released this particular album in 2005.

So, to resume: I went up to As...'s office with her to pick out a dressing gown. This lady was just my type: slightly older, bright and oozing sex. Being young, free and single I had one thing on the brain the whole time. That's not changed, but its manifestations have, by the way. As...was slightly shorter than I; her hips were shapely, her breasts full and her face gorgeous, a grin never far from her moist, red lips. Beautiful women are never in short supply in the performing arts, so As...was one more babe in the list I was privileged to encounter every working day. I paid her my 35DM and went on my way.

A few days later, our Old Deutoronomy had his farewell performance. He'd been with the show for four years and had decided it was time to do something other than sit on a tyre and sing Moments of Happiness in German to an audience that was likely to go off after the show and pay for a blowjob a few yards further down the Reeperbahn. His decision to leave the show so soon after encountering As... was instrumental in shaping the subsequent twelve months of my life, little did he know of his deed at the time. I'd played keyboard that evening and went down to the canteen after the show, only to find it fuller than normal. No wonder, Walter was leaving and his fans were there to pay hommage.

I sat at a table near the counter, noticing As... as I planted my backside on the chair. We nodded and smiled at each other in recognition. God, she's sexy, I thought to myself, but did no more than light a Marlboro and sup on my Flensburger Pilsner. I eventually got into conversation with As..., who had, up until then, been talking to her neighbour. "Are you American?" she asked. "No, I'm English"; I detected a slight shift in her mood as she wiggled a little on her seat and bent closer over the table. From that moment on, the evening was ours; no-one interrupted our conversation; we wouldn't have heard them even if they'd tried. I was transfixed by As... and she certainly didn't seem to be seeking out anyone else's attention. We laughed, joked and flirted, then eventually, we decided we both wanted to leave at the same time.

My flat was located no more than fifty yards behind the Cats stage door. My BMW 520 sat in a parking space nearby. As a joke, I asked As... to drive me home. Fortunately her car was close by and we climbed in. Just as she engaged first gear she asked me which direction she should take. "Stop right here", I said "Here?". "Yes, it's here". We'd gone precisely 25 yards and were now sitting outside my front door. A beat, then she burst into fits of laughter. The ice was not only well and truly broken between us, it had been fed into a blast furnace. The only question which remained was who was going to go through the formality of taking this encounter to its next logical, inevitable level.

We started talking about her situation. Mine was pretty straightforward: 27 years old, single guy, horny. There's not much to add to that, is there? As... had been divorced but had remarried a mere six months before we'd met. She had a daughter from her first marriage but, as it transpired, was less than enamoured of the situation she'd let herself in for half a year previously. We talked and talked, examining all possible states of mind, expectations and hopes for the future; why she'd remarried in haste, what kind of man her new husband was and all the rest. About two hours later, I leant over and kissed her full on the lips. She didn't back off, just let out a little moan and buried herself in my embrace. We sat there in each other's arms for about half an hour. "What's next for you?", I asked. "I don't know", she replied; "I have to think". "I'm there for you. You have my number, you know where I live. If you want to run away, you know where to come". This was no empty bravado, this was real. I meant it. I found her sexy as hell, but I wanted more than just her body. I wanted this woman's confidence, her devotion. And I wasn't prepared to squander the chance nor the feelings she could have for me. I was hooked. She was 12 years older than I yet I hadn't been this ga-ga since my Manchester days (bless you, Candace...). We eventually parted, yet we were on the phone to each other the next morning.

That evening, As...jokingly 'drove me home'. There was a makeshift car park opposite my flat; lots of alterations were being made to Hopfenstrasse and Kastanienallee at that time: the St. Pauli Astra Brauerei was being renovated, many houses in Hopfenstrasse were being renovated, so unexpected mini-wasteland car parks were springing up all over the place. It was in one of these that As... slipped her tongue into my mouth, then unzipped my trousers and sucked me dry. It was all I could do as a gentleman to return the compliment. As our passions rose, so our precautions dimished. My previous reluctance to invite As... back to the flat so as not to put my flatmate in an awkward position (another Cats employee and frequent collaborator of As...) disappeared, and we moved our soon-to-be nightly amorous sport into Hopfenstrasse 2, first floor. As... was completely uninhibited and visibly and audibly enjoyed every kind of heterosexual nocturnal pursuit I put her way. Her imagination was not lacking, either, clearly relishing exploring every nook and cranny of the male body, brandishing her omnipresent smile and curious tongue like triumphant tools in the pursuit of love and physical proximity.

Eventually, all came out with her husband and I was apparently in mortal danger from him and his friends. She lined up a new house with her daugher and arranged a fly-by-night morning move, when hubby would be at work. I went and helped; a team of six of us helped to get all her possessions out of the house in the space of an hour. God knows how we managed it, but we did. Soon after, As... and her daughter moved into a little terraced house opposite Helmut Schmidt and it was here that our iniquities unfolded, day after day, night after night until a stupid misunderstanding drove us apart.

Without wishing to bore anyone about our sexual activity over the following twelve months, it was impossible to spend more than two hours in As...'s company without us engaging in some form of sexual activity; either the whole nine yards in our bedroom on the top floor or improvised oral sex in the kitchen after or during lunch, dinner or whatever, a raised dressing gown during the evening's teeth-cleaning. It didn't matter. Somehow, we were put on this earth to fuck each other and fuck we did. It never got boring; to have any part of As...'s divine body in my mouth or attached to any other part of my anatomy just seemed the natural and right order on earth, as normal as sleeping, eating and drinking.

One day, we went to Worpswede, an artists' village in Lower Saxony. As... needed to check out a couple of candidates for the manufacture of Phantom artefacts. We were booked into a hotel for the night. By now, not even As..., who, at first, had seemed slightly nervous about being seen in public with a boyfriend who was, quite obviously, younger than she, cared who saw us. We entwined our hands over dinner like star-crossed lovers, kissed shamelessly over the aperitif and made no secret of our haste to go up to our room once dinner was finished. I remember that particular night as the few hours of the most mind-blowing sex I'd ever had in my life. It was all because my feelings for As... were running so high, knowing, at the same time, that she felt EVEN MORE for me. If there was ever a recipe for eternal happiness, then that is it. Ladies, you know what you have to do. You men, too.

OK, so now you're all going to round on me. "Why did you split up?" In a few words, it was the age difference. I convinced myself it would not work long-term and, after about a year, started to put a little distance between us. As... had talked about moving in together, but I didn't feel this would ultimately be right, at least not for me. I was determined to get married once, have childeren (probably) and fit right into society's expectations, if not my own. The relationship with As... was phenomenal, but we were both still young and pretty. Years would have to pass and complications would arise. I certainly wanted to settle, but was still young and hadn't encountered the woman I felt encapsulated what I was looking for in a wife. Had As... been ten years younger, there would have been no question, and we'd have probably been together today. But even as a horny 27-year-old, certain preoccupations gain the upper hand, even if they may be misguided.

I missed a date at As..'s place; a friend had come round in a state of flux and I'd played agony uncle while he poured out his soul on my kitchen table. The phone had rung, but I'd ignored it, not even thinking who it could be. Only later did I remember the date and realised it was probably As... We spoke the following day. I went round to her house and, by way of a greeting, she pushed me against the sink, unbuttoned my trousers and sucked me dry even before asking why I'd forgotten our date. She then boycotted a production of A, My Name is Alice I'd put on at another theatre in Hamburg, preferring to go and see The Enemy in my Bed at the cinema. In my post-adolescent mind, these were all reasons enough to split up, so we saw each other no longer. Our respective lives continued and I hope hers remained as invigorating as the section I'd been privileged to know. God bless you, Astrid.

Soon, I promise...

I'll post my memories of the sublime As... very soon. The time has to be right. It'll be worth it, so do call in if you're passing. If not, I'll just enjoy the reminiscences on my own...

Briefly back to A...

I nearly forgot to mention: One evening, A and I, under the guise of needing to check the new synthesizers in the orchestra box, went and bonked our way through the entire backstage area, ending up on the stage, just by the famous tyre. There was no show that evening, by the way, except for the one we provided for the ghosts and spiders of the Operettenhaus. A word to the wise: be careful when screwing on a raked stage; it kills your knees.

As...

I'd seen quite a few Cats dressing gowns around the theatre and decided, as one naturally does when having too much money in your pocket and beer in the bloodstream, that I needed one, too. But where could I get them? 'Oh, you need to see As...'. Finally, after two or three days, someone pointed her out to me as she stood in the canteen queue, waiting to buy a coffee. I made my move:

'Are you As...?'
'Yes, why?'
'Because you have something I desperately want'
(impish grin) 'What's that?'
'Dressing gowns'.

Cue meltingly sexy giggle and an offer to come to her office after her coffee break. She'd been remarried for six months and all this was was a healthy flirt between a 27-year-old single man and a thirty-something sex bomb. Yeah, right.

If you want to know what happened next, I suggest you check this blog again, soon. It was mind-blowing, and I don't want to scribble it down glibly in a few minutes.

Life after A.

...Basically carried on as before. Conducting the show was great fun and many of us would round off every evening either playing gigs in St. Pauli's clubs and bars or just going to Medusa and try to scam free pizzas off the coke-snorting proprietor. We basically kept that dump of a restaurant going for many a night, particularly as they used to get mileage out of their advertising slogan: The Restaurant Where The Cats Eat. However, once they were full of other punters, they treated us like dirt. One day, I was so fed up with their behaviour that I went downstairs to the loo and kicked all their suspended ashtrays off the wall. The owner would never have clicked it was me had he not come down to sniff some Columbian marching powder. He screamed at me but didn't ban me, knowing full well he'd lose a lot of custom if I took my clan with me. In the end, once I'd done it a third time, he did ban me. Medusa is still there and so am I. Whether or not the owner is, though, I wouldn't like to guess.

Shortly after all this, I decided I needed a Cats dressing gown. This moment was to prove decisive and ushered in the most intense period of shagging I think I've ever known. Her name also started with A, but was as far removed from the other as it was possible to be. She was beautiful and slightly older than I, with that look in the eye that only ladies of a certain age and experience can master. I benefited from the lot, but I gave as good as I got.

Reunification

The Berlin Wall fell and nylon-clad East Germans, brandishing their 200DM 'Welcome Money' came flooding over to look in the windows of innumerable porn shops on the Reeperbahn, their Trabi cars stinking out our orchestra pit in the Operettenhaus and even becoming my direct neighbours, but the big news of the autumn was that I was banging A, a colleague from Munich; very pretty, with pert breasts, but a pathological liar and closet lesbian. Complicated? You could say that. She had shagged her way through half the theatre before sharing my new flat adjacent to the Herbertstrasse, that famous brothel-rich thoroughfare in Hamburg's St. Pauli neighbourhood. Even while she was under my roof she invited men back ("They're just friends, you know") and proceeded to keep me awake, not through her noise, but through her attempted discretion. One day, though, I'd decided I'd had enough. I was out with Uli, my best friend to this day, and we decided to celebrate the night in style.. I linked up with Doro, a former flame and Good-Time George ("Kein Kind von Traurigkeit", as she so expertly put it), Uli headed off home with his choice and Doro and I went back to the Hopfenstrasse with evil intent and fire in our loins.

A was a notoriously light sleeper and Doro the loudest lover I'd ever known. Just the thought of paying back my tenant for the emotional torture of the previous three weeks made me hornier than ever before. Doro and I cracked open a bottle of white, took off our clothes and lit up a couple of cigarettes. It was 2am and there was damage to be done. We drank, smoked, sucked, licked and fucked our way through to dawn, Doro providing a soundtrack that would have done any of the Reeperbahn's noblest establishments proud. I heard A get up at about 9am, slamming doors and muttering about how inconsiderate people were. I saw her that afternoon, when she had the nerve to reproach me for my dreadful behaviour. She, of course, had never put a foot wrong, but so it is in the minds of the unbalanced. She moved out into her own place soon after, right after I'd had a visit from one of her other previous 'friends' who wanted to put the record straight with me i.e. dispel the lies he knew she'd told me about him. I'd known him considerably longer than I'd known her, and her face as we sat down over a beer after the show that night was a study.

A had tried to get me arrested. Every time I'd been to her place prior to her sharing my flat she'd attempted to get me blind drunk, knowing full well that the police always kept an eye out for WL - numberplates in Hamburg. I always resisted, recognising her man-hating games and this drove her mad. She never wanted a man to stay the night after fucking (I can't bring myself to say 'love-making', as it wasn't), so you'd shoot your load and have to leave. Yup, that's how romantic it was. She never wanted to expose her tits, either, but I managed to get around that. One day, a very obviously lesbian girlfriend came up from Munich to stay the week and it was clear she resented my existence. Confused times. Twenty years on, and A is still in Hamburg, probably still up to her strange games, even if Uli, who saw her a few years ago, said 'Sie sieht echt scheisse aus'. Back then she was a few years older than me, so she'll be in her mid-fifties, now. Time to grow up, I think. Against this salty backdrop, East Germany was quickly emptying and looking for work in red-light districts all over the Federal Republic, as it was still known. They still didn't know they'd been better off where they were.

Cats, Hamburg.

Being a pretty independent sort of person, I wasn't expecting anyone to come and meet me at Hamburg Airport, less still provide me with transport into town. I hopped off the plane and made my way to C...'s and F's place in Harburg, getting up early the next day to go in to work, meet my new employers and get started learning Andrew Lloyd Webber's music.

The welcome I received was more than I'd bargained for: the office was ecstatic to see me, not least because they thought I'd been kidnapped/got on the wrong plane/ended up in an Afghan opium den. They'd come to meet me, you see, brandishing a card with my name on, but I'd apparently just breezed past, not looking out for anyone. They'd provided a car and a hotel, though I knew nothing about any of this. So, apart from saving them money (and, er, wasting their time a bit) they were overjoyed to note I spoke fluent German, thus saving them extra work with the authorities, as I could do it all myself.

I did check into the hotel, right next door to the main railway station, and then soon into a flat in Barmbek before moving back in with C + F, who'd just bought a house south of the city. I learned my keyboard part quickly, then started studying the full score with a view to conducting. As learning curves went, this one was a prize erection and I conducted Cats for the first time a mere two months after joining the show, never having conducted a thing in my life. I must have been cut out for this profession, as three years later I was nominated chief conductor and musical director of The Phantom of the Opera in Hamburg, the youngest MD of that show anywhere in the world at the time. But back to Cats...

Just a few weeks after getting to Hamburg, something pretty momentous happened. It was November 9th, 1989. To the world at large, the date is better known as my brother's 30th birthday, but, unbeknown to many, something else happened that day...

Edgar Lustig-Lendva, Part II

Edgar's father was the Austrian War Minister at some point. A three-star baron.

Edgar Lustig-Lendva

A curious thing happened in Colindale when my mother was about nine years old. She had a cat that fell ill, and my grandmother suggested they take it to that nice new Jewish vet who had just set up surgery in the neighbourhood. They rang Dr. Lustig-Lendva's bell and entered the waiting room. When they were finally shown in, the vet, on seeing my mother, did a double-take, then continued with the formalities. My mother, not being slow to come forward in those days, asked him why he'd stared the way he did. 'Oh nothing, you know; you just reminded me of my best friend from Amsterdam' he replied. 'What was his name?' asked my mother. 'Jan van Wijk. Why, do you know him?' he asked, sarcastically. 'Yes', my mother replied; 'He was my father'.

And that's true. Jan and Edgar had studied medicine together in Amsterdam. Jan had come to England to continue his studies in Cambridge and had met my grandmother on a day trip to the capital. They started seeing each other, then my grandmother fell pregnant. She wrote to Jan in Cambridge to tell him what had happened and, in those days of three postal delivieries per day, got the reply late that afternoon: 'I'll be there tomorrow, we'll get married'. And come he did. Got off the train at Liverpool Street, took the Tube to Kilburn, stepped out of the station and was promptly run over by a London bus, fifty yards from my grandmother's house. You couldn't make it up. And there was my grandmother, an expectant, unmarried teenager in 1931, just the stereotype we love to vilify in 2011, so you can imagine what it was like, then. She finally got married when my mother was seven; our dear Kitty never lacked courage or will.

Just to put that last sentence into perspective: had that bus not rattled down Kilburn High Road at that particular second, my grandmother would have been called Florence van Wijk and would probably have lived an entirely normal, married life with her husband. As it was, she became an unmarried mother in 1931, a teenager to boot. We still love to put the boot in to this category, don't we? Well, let me just list what happened after this 'fallen woman'/''unmoralled teenager' gave birth:

Her daughter (my mother) attended one of the best schools in London (Henrietta Barnet) on a scholarship, went on to work at the War Office and qualified as a librarian. Later, she became Mayor of King's Lynn and West Norfolk, a frequent and welcome guest of Queen Elizabeth II at Sandringham and Buckingham Palace.

My mother's marriage to Philip, a former MI6 agent and sometime Head of German Broadcasting at the BBC World Service, sadly, did not last. One-parent families were rare and frowned upon in the '60's and '70's, but my brother made it to Detective Inspector at Scotland Yard and I, for my part, have conducted at the Chicago Lyric Opera and led a career which has taken me all over over the world, currently working at the Bayreuth Festival (look it up if you haven't heard of it) and, the rest of the year at one of the world's leading opera houses, collaborating with many of the finest singers in the world.

I cite all this not to brag, but merely to show that one-parent families do not only produce benefit-dependent wasters. Everything depends on the parents, certainly; a good protestant work ethic is, sadly, indispensible if you want to get on in life. Just compare Scandinavia and North Africa.

Edgar sent my mother two beautiful Waterford Crystal decanters when she got married. They are still there. He died in the 1970's.

Just before leaving Koblenz...

A couple of weeks before we all left Koblenz in the summer of 1989, one of the dancers, Lisa, introduced us all to a friend from ballet school who had just come over for a few days. She was beautiful and charming and her name was Francesca. Lisa told us proudly how Fran's brother was going to become a HUGE rugby star and that Fran was destined for EVEN greater things. Two months later, Francesca was dead, the youngest victim of the Marchioness disaster on the Thames, when forty-five partygoers perished on a pleasure boat struck by a barge. Her brother, Lawrence Dallaglio, went on to captain England at rugby.

Hamburg, September 1989

By this point, my life was split between playing cocktail piano in the Chesterfield Hotel in the evenings, staying with friends in Honor Oak and making sure Stefan and my mother could converse back up in Norfolk. At the end of the week I headed back up, ready to return the rental car to Dover and pick up Stefan's hopefully repaired TR6. And then the telephone rang.

'Could I speak to FrenchFingers, please?'
'Speaking'
'This is Barbara from Cats in Hamburg. We would like to offer you a contract'.

Talk about turmoil. OK, there was a three-month trial period, but you have to be a completely untalented, antisocial tosser to fail that in the music business. I accepted the offer, fixed a date two weeks hence to fly out (they would take care of the booking, the fare, the lot; oh, halcyon days) and set about getting poor old Stefan set up. His English was still at the 'Gut Mornink' stage; my mother's German a throwback to her friendship with a Jewish Baron, Edgar Lustig-Lendva, a vet in wartime London (but that's a post in its own right, coming up right after this one) and centred around property conveyancing: 'Ein kleines Abkommen' doesn't help much in such circumstances; references to post-Nazi property restitution not really being the order of the day when speaking to the modern German confirmed pacifist that Stefan was.

I managed to get Stefan B&B in my old London student digs in Barnes (yes, darling) and a 'date' with a dear friend from Koblenz, Lisa. My former landlady, married to a descendant of Wordsworth, was delighted to accomodate a charming, handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed teutonic language student and revelled in her contribution to promoting cultural diversity. He subsequently got a kitchen job in the pub next door, The Sun; everything worked out perfectly and I could fly off to Hamburg with a clear conscience. Which I did.

Summer 1989

In the midst of my landlord reneging on an agreement to let the flat to a friend of mine (who was also going to take all the furniture), I drove up to Hamburg with Stefan in his Triumph TR6. It was his pride and joy, despite being draughty and rather noisy. We met C...after the show, who immediately told me the company was looking for a keyboard player and conductor. Would I be interested? Of course I would, but I'd never done that kind of music, before. I was briefly introduced to Klaus, the chief conductor and vague intentions to set up an audition were pronounced.

I needn't have worried, Klaus was as good as his word. Admittedly, he was difficult to get hold of in those pre-mobile phone days, but from my vantage point back in Koblenz after a very enjoyable couple of days in the north I was able to organise an audition for a few days hence. Stefan had also decided he wanted to spend a year in England to learn the language before embarking on his studies. I offered to help him out by putting him up at my Mum's place and started phoning some people who might have work for him in preparation for our arrival, late August.

The next thing to do was go to Hamburg. I don't know whether I thought I'd have a chance, but I was looking for work and Cats had a vacancy. Klaus was charming and positive, but I didn't really feel I'd cut the mustard. Pretty depressed, I phoned a female friend in Koblenz, poured my heart out a bit and got on the train back south. In my mind there was no doubt my time in Germany had come to an end, so I phoned my old agent in London to line up some cocktail piano work for late August.

Stefan had decided to drive to England, so I booked the passage Dunkirk - Dover (I think) and told him we'd need about five hours minimum to get there. I had previous with these routes, but Stefan insisted on leaving later, saying there'd be no problem, the car was fast etc. Blah blah blah as it turned out; the car overheated and broke down in France, fortunately very close to a petrol station. The man in front of me in the queue turned out to be the mayor of the town, so things then went very quickly and efficiently, the car has hauled up onto a trailer and we were ceremoniously deposited in front of the ferry. A later one, of course, as we'd clearly missed our scheduled crossing. We arrived in Dover at 4am and were taken apart by customs. Unsurprising, really: two men in their twenties arrive at 4am, pushing a rather old but seemingly well-maintained sports car. They were very nice about it. We were towed to a nearby Ford garage on whose forecourt we then tried to get a couple of hours' sleep before seeking out a mechanic and a rental car to tide us over until the Triumph was fixed. Stefan's insurance covered everything, so things weren't too bad.

Somewhere around lunchtime we arrived in Norfolk. Stefan settled in quickly and I drove back down to London the following day to start work and sort out Stefan's flat (I'd had some good leads). Everything had to be finished in a week as we had to give the rental car back but even I had no idea how quickly some things could happen...

Vienna, June 1989

C, her boyfriend R and I checked into Pension Suzanne, right next to the Vienna State Opera. The owner was a bit peeved, seeing as we'd been held up in traffic for hours around Frankfurt. We did phone to warn her, but she was in no way mollified. The B&B was, as in later visits to Vienna, full of elderly American Jewish ladies on heritage tours of their parents' (or grandparents') city. The language over breakfast was Brooklyn and Bronx Yiddish, interspersed with English words when more convenient.

The three of us headed off to the Raimund Theater, where the auditions were being held. C bade us farewell and went to warm her voice up, R and I went off for a coffee. Returning about two hours later, I spotted a face in the crowd outside I found vaguely familiar. It was C..., the singer I met at the wedding reception in London after I'd re-emerged from my encounter with Elsa. She hadn't been to Turkey after all, as she'd landed a job in Cats in Hamburg, singing one of the lead roles. She introduced me to her fiancé and insisted I should come up, see the show, spend some time with them. Having friends in Koblenz who were die-hard fans of the show, I knew I'd have no difficulty in finding a bit of company for the trip. I promised to keep in touch about it and put her number in a safe place.

C came out later, having been asked to sing most of the role for the panel. It seemed to have gone extremely well but she was a little too coy about telling us much about it. I didn't know why, but was able to guess. R was due to go back to Koblenz the following day, leaving C and me alone in Vienna together, at least for another 48 hours. I knew she'd come clean in that time so didn't press the point until R was safely on the train.

Sure enough, C and the conductor of Phantom had fallen for each other. She'd always had this thing for men in positions of authority and had often remarked to me how it bothered her that R didn't seem to have any ambition beyond being Assistant Stage Director. Now, it was the real thing. She fancied Mr. Number One, and he fancied her. No matter that he was married with two children, but that's another story. She met up with him each day before we left, though these meetings were, she insisted, purely professional.

We also took a trip out to Otto Edelmann's house on the outskirts of Vienna. One of his sons, Peter, had been a soloist in Koblenz and Otto had always exhorted his son's friends to come and visit should they find themselves in his city. C knew Otto well, so over we went. Such a charming and delightful man! I knew he was famous but didn't realise to quite what degree. He showed me his Golden Discs, photos with Karajan etc. A lovely afternoon, all in all. I've just been given one of his Bayreuth recordings from 1951 in which he sings Hans Sachs.

Before the Koblenz season finished, C got her call from Vienna: the role was hers. She busied herself with preparations, I prepared to leave town for good, but not before making that trip to Hamburg with my friend Stefan. I spoke to C... and everything was fine. We were to go up just as soon as the season finished.

Decline and Fall - Autumn 1988

CB and I got a little train to the top of the Zugspitze, Garmisch's highest peak. About a hundred yards or so from the top, the train actually went inside the mountain, giving the whole journey a sort of James Bond-type feel. The view from the peak was magical: snow-capped Alps as far as the eye could see, bright sunshine and no wind. We sat with our mugs of hot chocolate on the viewing deck and marveled.

Later, sitting in the train back to Munich, CB suddenly got up and sat on the opposite side of the carriage. She insisted she was fine, but I knew something was wrong. A few of my friends at work had warned me about her past, but I insisted, with the assurance of a man in love, that she'd changed, she was over it (whatever it was) and that she was different, now, to which one of them said "Right, the way she was different every other time it happened". Their words came back to me in the train that evening and I started to feel unsettled.

Back in Koblenz, we still saw each other, still slept with each other, but not as often, and not with the same passion as before. Our nights together became fewer, her behavious ever more distant on those occasions we were together. This was only going one way, and I had no game plan to protect myself. When it came, I put a brave face on it, comforted by her declaring she "didn't want any kind of relationship, and probably wouldn't for a long time". Two days later, she was cuddling up to one of the actors in full view of everyone. Their relationship blosommed, they got married and she eventually had a child, which she promptly abandoned, running back to England and leaving the little thing with its father. This happened a couple of years later, but I saw CB when she came to audition in Hamburg for the show I was conducting. She behaved as if nothing had ever happened since we split: no mention of her abandoned actor husband or the fact she was a mother. All very strange.

Needless to say, I cursed her after she broke up with me. I had to see her every day at work, play the piano while she danced, and it was torture. Time did heal the wounds, but not until I'd left town the following summer. CB was my last romantic encounter in Koblenz; I had neither the stomach for another nor sufficient respect for the species to even have a one-night stand. My feelings went on hold and I turned all my efforts towards getting another job, as far away as possible. I'd already handed in my ten-month notice (yup, that's how long you have to give in certain theatres) so I knew I wasn't going to be there for another season, but things started dovetailing rather nicely in June, 1989. We never normally had any days off in the ballet, but this month we had five, all in a row. I'd just heard about them when my American neighbour, C, came in to tell me she'd been offered an audition for the Viennese production of The Phantom of the Opera and would I like to go down there with her? Incredibly, the audition fell in the middle of those five days, so I didn't hesitate. If there was ever a sign, then this was it. A few days later, we were back in her Peugeot 206, heading for the Austrian capital.

Life in and around CB

CB and I kept our relationship secret, or at least we didn't tell anyone, preferring, as you do at that age, to let people guess, gossip and find out in their own time. We spent every break from rehearsal in bed, returning to either her or my place in the evening to continue our exploration of each other's bodies until work reared its head again the following morning. It was hedonistic bliss: we talked, drank, smoked and made love until we decided to start the whole cycle again. I was 26, and heaven had arrived on a plate.

One evening, the night before a public holiday, we went for a pizza and spent the time in the restaurant writing erotic messages on each other's hands and arms. At midnight, we decided to go to the railway station and take a train somewhere. The destination didn't matter. The only train leaving Koblenz that night was for Munich, so we decided to go via there to the Bavarian Alps. It was a ludicrous idea, but logic could wait. Curled up in each other's arms we got to Munich at 8am, had breakfast and took a connection to Garmisch-Partenkirchen at around ten. Little did I know, but this day was to be our last together.

Back to work with sweaty ballerinas, September 1988

Actually, that doesn't sound so bad, does it? The only downside was having to invent all that music I mentioned in an earlier post.

I got back to Koblenz to find, mercifully, my flat in one piece. Things instantly got even better when I found out that L had come over with Chris's girlfriend for the beginning of the season and was keen to take up where we'd left off. So take up we did until we could take no more and she had to go back to the UK. A few days later I was sitting in the canteen and one of the ballerinas, CB, came and sat opposite me. We'd known each other for a year but had never really spoken that much. In any case, I wasn't on the conscious look-out for a relationship at work, so this chat was purely social and pleasant. Or so I thought at the time.

CB and I chatted for ages until they decided to close the canteen, so we left, talking, and I walked her home, where she lived with her boyfriend, who worked at the theatre. Turning round, I went home and thought no more of it.

CB started to seek out my company and it was clear that there were problems within her relationship. Nothing dramatic, just the usual stuff that people in their mid-20's have to deal with when they find their feelings changing. In the end, a friend and I helped CB move into her new flat, we stayed for a beer and went home. CB said she'd probably be coming into the centre for a drink and might ring my doorbell. Fine, no problem. She was gorgeous, but I never thought she could be interested in me.

Around midnight, my bell rang. I let CB in. She came up the stairs and told me she was terribly tired. I went to pull the sofa bed out in the sitting room and came back to ask if she'd like a drink before turning in. This was when everything changed. She was already lying naked in my bed and wondered how long I was going to be before I joined her. My head was literally spinning; I'd never been with anyone so beautiful. All the Koblenz ballerinas were incredibly feminine with fabulous bumps and curves; the ballet master liked his women to be sensual and he'd certainly done me an incredible service. We slept for maybe two hours, but I, for one, wouldn't have minded if I hadn't closed an eye the whole night. This was the start of an amazing, life-changing month with CB. No, it didn't end well; how could it?

September 1988 - July 1989: Introduction

I'll get around to writing more fully about this year, but it started with an electric love-shock, a hedonistic high I don't think I'll ever experience again (nor want to, probably), an abyssal disappointment,  then a fortuitous encounter in Vienna followed by a seemingly wasted trip to Hamburg and a triumphant return to the UK which lasted all of seven days. I loved this year, it had everything to get every brand, colour and consistency of juice flowing, and flow they did. I'll never forget this particular year, my springboard to what really mattered.

Summer 1988

We got to London in C's Peugeot 206, but not before I'd inadvertently thrown the map out of the window on the Belgian motorway system. This was before we got lost in Brussels.

It turned out to be the summer that shaped the next twelve years of my life, as I was contacted by a big producer of musicals to maybe take part in an upcoming foreign production of The Phantom of the Opera. They gave me a ticket for the London production and I instantly knew what direction I wanted my professional life to go in. No more ballet piano for me come the following summer; I was going to hand in my resignation as soon as I got back to Koblenz (you still had to give ten months' notice, hence the forward planning). C and her recently-arrived boyfriend managed to get a couple of standby tickets and felt pretty much the same way as I. Our instant, simultaneous love for this form would prove to have legs...

Apart from pottering about London, we all took a trip out to Stonehenge and visited Salisbury, the beautiful city where I spent most of my first six years, my bedroom overlooking the cathedral. We tracked down 96, Exeter Street but our other address, 48, Culver Street, had been turned into a multi storey car park. I calculated that we must have parked pretty much where my bedroom used to be, as the view through the windscreen rang more than just a few bells.

Stonehenge had started becoming Elf 'n' Safety conscious; cordons were up and 'Though Shalt Not' was written on quite a few walls. I still remember it as a three-year-old, when we were able to run over and play on the stones as if it were Druidworld. Now, I gather, you aren't even allowed within twenty yards of the things.

Back in London, I got an invitation to a wedding. A gay American friend from college was getting married (for obvious reasons). He was there with his companion, she was there with her boyfriend, and I met someone called Elsa. Slightly older but oozing charm, erotic and, yes, sex, we got to know each other a lot better very quickly in one of the spare rooms. High on the atmosphere and the forbidden fruit I felt I was going to explode. One of Elsa's virtues was her complete absence of morals once she'd taken her clothes off. I couldn't phone her, as she was married but how I wished I could have. She went on holiday soon after; by the time she'd returned, I was back in Germany.

Someone else I met at that party, albeit completely platonically, was a former fellow student from the RCM called C...She was going off to Turkey to sing in a nightclub for a few months and promised to call on her way through Germany. She never did, and only about a year later did I find out why when our paths crossed in Vienna, an encounter which sealed the prelimenary steps towards musical theatre I'd just made a few days previously, but that's for a later post.

Early 1988 to summer.

The rest of my first German season pottered on quite pleasantly: boat trips on the Rhine, the odd train trips up to Köln and down to Frankfurt, lots of socialising and the occasional visit from friends from England. The end of the season proved to be quite interesting, though...

One of our dancers, a Brazilian called J..., received a visit from his sister. She was a photo model, and not because she was classically beautiful. She had an extraordinary androgenous look and could have been a man or a woman, depending on your own perception of her appearance. She was absolutely delightful and struck up a friendship with B, one of my direct colleagues; a friendship which, predictably enough, ended up in the sack. This was curious, as many suspected B of preferring his own gender, but maybe the Brazilian model's look satisfied his curiosity and desire to conform at the same time.

A little while later, she left. B then struck up a relationship with J..., the brother. He insisted it was platonic, but no-one was fooled, nor did they care. Things came to a head when the sister announced she as coming back to visit B at the end of the season, in early July...

In the meantime, plans were afoot for the Theatre Open Days. B and I were to supply the accompaniment to a performance of La Cage aux Folles (seriously) on two pianos; there were to be public song recitals, open ballet classes, the lot. I was marked down to play for the ballet on stage and to accompany a baritone in a lunchtime concert. This would have posed no problem had I not made the acquaintance of L, an Irish girl visiting a friend in the orchestra at that time.

Her friend was a percussionist, a great bloke from North London who had taken time out from the LSO to get a bit of continental orchestral experience. He, his girlfriend (a friend of L's), L and I went for a pizza after the performance of La Cage. Much wine later, L decided it would be a good idea if I walked her home. Being the good Irish girl she was, she'd brought a bottle of Jameson's whiskey with her to Germany, just in case they'd never heard of it in Germany. We set about finishing the bottle then celebrated nakedly until about 8am, at which point I had to get up and prepare for the second Open Day. Still dressed in my DJ and black tie, physically destroyed and hung over, I ran back to my flat to find the music I needed for the ballet class and subsequent recital. Playing in front of 500 screaming schoolchildren at 10am when you're still blind drunk with one eye closed so you can focus, is no fun. Believe me. Concentrating so hard that you hit the right notes in the right order makes you sweat like a pig, you're dying of thirst and you just wish that everyeone would just go away and leave you in peace so you can go and curl up in a ball in bed. It went OK, though, but there was also the matter of the Schubert recital to get through. A strong coffee in the canteen didn't help matters; it just seemed to send the Riesling and the Jameson's on one last triumphant lap of honour around my body. In front of 300 people, I closed my right eye and struck up the first bars of Der Wanderer...Since that day, I've never touched a drop before having to go on stage.

The best was still to come, though. The second Open Day was also the last day of the season. I was leaving for England the next day with my American neighbour and wouldn't be back for six weeks. J... was living with B across the road but his sister was coming and didn't know about the love triangle that had sprung up in her absence. J asked if he could spend the night on my sofa before he and his sister headed back to Brazil for the summer. No problem, I said, but you'll have to be out by nine, when I leave for England with C. Deal.

There was a little party at B's place after the evening concert. The two Brazilians were there, J... leaving earlier with my spare key so as not to go mad with jealousy, seeing his lover fondling his sister. L showed up, too! I was really happy to see her and she came home with me around midnight. Two sweaty and moist hours later, my doorbell rang. It was the Brazilian model, seeking asylum from B's lunacy. He'd confessed everything to her (after they'd made love, of course) and she, appalled, went off to look for her brother. They shared the sitting-room sofa while I crawled back to my Emerald beauty.

The only thing was, I needed to leave at 9am the next day. L, J and his sister were still out for the count and couldn't be roused. In the end, I left notes for them all, telling them where to leave the spare key and reluctantly closed the door behind me on three people I hardly knew, fast asleep in my flat that I was now basically leaving open for six weeks while I went abroad.