Shirlie and Martin Kemp

0:04Martin Kemp: Hello and welcome to The Midpoint. My guests today are woven into the best bits of my cultural youth and quite probably yours. He was a member of one of my favourite childhood bands Spandau Ballet, still love them, and she was half of Pepsi and Shirley who of course had their own singing success as a duo, but were perhaps more widely known as being the women that Wham, George and Andrew, liked to hang out with as well as use in their videos and as backing singers and dancers. Now, if you were 12 years old in 1985, then this made them women worth obsessing over and knowing. So now I've got the fangirling bit over.

0:37Martin Kemp: We can move on. They've been married for nearly 38 years and have two grown up kids, Harley Moon and Roman. So, of course, I want to know how they're still married, why their kids are such lovely, well-adjusted people, as anyone could see if you watch them together on the last series of Race Around the World, and how they seem to have managed to have taken the best bits of being famous and skirt the worst. Let's go meet Shirley and Martin.

1:03Martin Kemp: Martin, Shirley, welcome to The Midpoint, although we've just had about a 45-minute chat. We've done the podcast. I'm exhausted already. We've covered everything that I really want to get into. So where to start? Well, first of all, it's so great to have you both here because, as I said in your introduction, you have managed to kind of walk this line of being the nation's kind of favourite couple in terms of... I don't think anybody could say anything about you that's, you know, that's negative. You seem to be so well-loved. You've stayed married nearly four decades. You've got a couple more years to go to four decades.

1:34Martin Kemp: I think we're going to get there. I think we're all. And produced these lovely humans as well along the way while still working within an industry that has so many pitfalls for couples like you. So how do you do it? What's the secret?

1:49Shirlie Kemp: I don't know if there's a secret, is there?

1:51Gabby Logan: No. I think it could be part ego. we're quite balanced and it has never kind of affected our egos what we've done we've always felt it's quite authentic and we feel comfortable so therefore i think when you're comfortable doing it just feels normal though oh yeah you can go on stage you can do that and go home and then be

2:09Shirlie Kemp: normal so i think it's because as well you know it's about being in entertainment for me and sherry i think it's just a job and it's not a lifestyle so we go home and we forget about it and get in the garden. Even in the very early days,

2:25Martin Kemp: because I think the younger listeners might not realise it's very different being a pop star now, isn't it, to when you guys were in the 80s, 90s kind of full-on, top of the pops, you know, screaming teenagers, being chased, all that kind of stuff. No camera phones, so people actually had to see you and be near you to get in your aura.

2:45Shirlie Kemp: Well, the difference now, I think, is that back in the day, being a pop star was all about myth and legend and you used to look at the poster and that's all you got. So everything else about this pop star happened in your head. What he was doing at home, where he lived, was it a palace? Who is this person from another planet? But nowadays they give everything. You know what Robbie looks like when he's sitting at home in his underwear and you know what everybody does. They have to share everything. Yeah, you have to share everything. So you know what people look like when they first wake up. Yeah, but you were always beautiful.

3:21Gabby Logan: It was a curiosity. It was always a curiosity. We used to avoid the cameras. I mean, we're sitting in Soho now. This was where we grew up. This was our nightlife around here. And we would always go in and out the back of clubs or restaurants because you didn't want to be photographed then, whereas then all of a sudden everyone was paying photographers to come and photograph them. So it was a very different time for us. So why we survived it, I think we were just at the right place, the right time. That was our era. We understood it. and love is also a very grounding thing.

3:56Shirlie Kemp: It's quite funny. We'd just stopped the road from Groucho's, right? And so I said to Shirley, while we were waiting, let's go and get a coffee in Groucho's. Shirley said to me, have you still got a membership from the ACES? I said, well, I have. Why? I have. I forgot about it. But I have. Let's go and get a coffee. I went in and I worked out the coffee most probably cost me about 30 grand.

4:20Martin Kemp: you haven't been for four decades

4:22Gabby Logan: what's funny is in the car I'm saying you've got to give that membership how much have you spent on that and then obviously we get here too early so I said quick to Groucho

4:30Shirlie Kemp: yeah it was good coffee though

4:31Martin Kemp: more than a coffee I mean they should have rolled out the red carpet I can't believe he's the member and I guess the way you met and this is legend or whether this is the truth you did the chasing really didn't you and you were kind of playing it quite cool at the start?

4:47Gabby Logan: It was kind of mutual. So I saw a picture of Martin in a magazine. So before Wham were big, George and I and Andrew, we loved Spandau Ballet and we'd always hang out in George's bedroom and he'd have posters of Spandau and other bands. And I remember opening up a magazine and there was a photo of Martin in it. And I went, oh my God, he looks so kind. And George laughing, going, oh, you're just saying that because he's good looking. I was going, no, there's something about him that's really kind. So then we used to go to the beetroot club, but we were not the cool ones. We were these young kids from Bushy and Spando were the cool ones.

5:23Gabby Logan: And we went to the beetroot and I remember looking over, seeing Spando and George nudging me going, Martin Kemp's over there. And I had this sound in a voice in my head say, not yet, but you will marry him. And I remember saying to George, I'm going to marry him. I'm not allowed to meet him yet. And him, like, she's really lost the plot. And then, obviously, Wham! do take off. And then we go on Top of the Pops. I didn't know that Martin saw that first show of Wham! on Top of the Pops. And I didn't find this out until we wrote our book, It's a Love Story, which was about 2016, that he said, I fell in love with Shirley on the TV.

6:11Shirlie Kemp: Well, I was at home with my mum and dad sitting on, you know, you're like, there's the sofa and I'm sitting up against the arm on the carpet and Top of the Pop comes on, which you can't begin to explain to anyone, a young guy now, young person now, how important that Thursday night was, right? That was the biggest piece of television that you, your week revolved around that Thursday evening. And Top of the Pops came on and there was a new band introduced and it was Wham! and you were doing Young Guns Go For It, right? And you had that slinky Melissa Kaplan dress on and I fell in love through the screen.

6:50Shirlie Kemp: But it wasn't the first time I'd fallen in love through the screen. I fell in love with Cilla Black when I was a kid.

7:00Shirlie Kemp: I did tell her that once, Cilla, and she wasn't very happy. I was Cilla, I would have to beat. She wasn't very happy. I was only a little kid, and I walked up and kissed the screen. And my mum and dad always laughed at it. But no, I absolutely fell in love with Shirley when she was on Top of the Pops. She looked absolutely incredible. And it wasn't long after that we met, wasn't it?

7:24Gabby Logan: Yeah, when we were asked to go to a premiere of a theatre show, I didn't even know what a premiere was. I was like, oh, we'll go to a theatre. Well, we're just a night out. I had my little mini, so the boys, we all got in the car. and I got to the foyer of the theatre and realised everyone was dressed up and I wasn't dressed up. I had no make-up on, my white kind of punky short hair and so I kind of hid in this kind of little corner and then my other friend David came running up and said, Spandau Pallier here, I'm going to bring Martin Kemp over because the boys knew how much I'd had to do him so I kept going on and on about it and all I'm saying is do not bring him over, not this woman.

8:04Gabby Logan: Not tonight. Not tonight. Anyway, then I just see Martin being pulled over by my friend David and he's got this huge silk green, like Anthony Price, shoulders out here. He looked a bit like Liberace, actually. Hair all gold and wavy. And I'm just dying, thinking this is going to ruin everything, everything I've kind of thought. And anyway, so we say hello and we talk and then I notice he's got mascara and more make-up on than I've got and I'm thinking, oh, no. I sound like, what is going on here? You can't see more opposite. And then after when the show finished, which was Yakety Yak with all the McGann brothers.

8:48Gabby Logan: Oh, wow. So when that finished, Martin came up and said, we're all going to a wine bar in Islington. So George is going, yes, yes, we're going, we're going. So we all get in our car, we go to the wine bar, Martin's there. And I'm still thinking, I've lost it, I've lost it now.

9:04Martin Kemp: Have you managed to find some kind of lipstick and some mascara by this point? No, no, I didn't.

9:08Gabby Logan: With a gang of boys. I was a tomboy.

9:10Shirlie Kemp: Let me tell you something, boys love girls with no make-up.

9:12Gabby Logan: Yeah, I was a bit of a tomboy when I was younger. I wasn't really into make-up. So you didn't even probably notice that? No, I didn't notice that. But when I look at my skin in those days, yeah, I didn't need make-up. No, no, no. And then Martin came over with a piece of paper and said, here's my number, will you call me? And I just went for George. Like once again, he was just so proud of the whole situation. Like, oh, you've got him, you've got him.

9:38Shirlie Kemp: It took her three weeks to call me. Yeah. Three weeks.

9:41Gabby Logan: Why would you wait so long? Because it's intimidating. Because Martin was very, I mean, still is, but was very striking. I just thought, how many girls does he go up to giving his number? Right. So, and also those days, no mobile phones. So you had to call the mum. And he was lived, like I did, we lived at our parents' houses when we met. Knowing you've got to call the family home. This is another thing young people don't realise, do they? No, it's fine.

10:06Martin Kemp: Usually it was somebody's brother. Yeah. You know, in my case it would be like, oh, could you put them on? It was awful, wasn't it? You had to go through an assault course to speak to somebody.

10:15Gabby Logan: So George, when are you going to call him? So we went into George's sister's bedroom. She had a phone in her bedroom. He dialed the number and handed the phone over. And Marty's mum did answer. And I was like, oh. And I was just thinking, she's going to just laugh. another girl who's got Martin's number. And then she said, I'll go and get him. And then he went, I've been waiting for you to call me. Wow. And I was like, oh, my God, he remembers me. And George is standing there, just, you know, when someone's going, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm going, I wish I had that, you know, they had that on video.

10:52Gabby Logan: Yeah. So that was, and then the rest is history.

10:55Martin Kemp: Yeah. Yeah, that was, I mean, from that beginning, the foundations that you have built in terms of your relationship, obviously, I would imagine the response you had on the phone, the honesty, you know, that kind of no game playing. I couldn't believe that. Just the honesty there.

11:09Shirlie Kemp: It was great. And then we arranged to go out on this first date, which was the Camden Palace. And as I'm walking towards the Camden Palace, I can see Shirley waiting outside. And she's standing there with someone else. She's standing there with George. Of course. George had come along on the date. Of course he had. And I spent all night trying to get ready.

11:34Martin Kemp: He was a fan. Did he ask you or did you ask him to come? Or was it just always a given?

11:38Gabby Logan: Well, also, you know, I'm driving myself because I lived kind of north London but more suburbs. So I drove myself and I just felt like a bit shy to walk in. It was Camden Palace. Yeah, yeah. And I'd never really been anywhere on my own, so I knew he would come.

11:57Martin Kemp: I didn't mind him coming at all. And you became just as friendly with him pretty quickly. Yeah, he loved Martin.

12:04Shirlie Kemp: George was... Shirley's known him since he was a kid. And he was part of our family. We grew up and we were kids and we were at a point when ourselves and George were just starting out. No one had any money. so we knew him as George there was an honesty we knew him as Jog he wasn't George Michael at that point

12:29Martin Kemp: so how do you think because you two, before we started recording we started talking about your diets, being very healthy and your lifestyle being healthy I'm not sure if it was ever thus it seemed to have been for you Shirley but how do you think then you navigated that path of temptation and everything that would be put in front of you that could lead you on to a life that wasn't as healthy and maybe, you know, led George into situations where he obviously, you know, succumbed at times to things that didn't make him as healthy as he could be. How did you manage to do that?

12:58Shirlie Kemp: We all succumbed at times, all of us. You can't get through life thinking I'm just purely healthy all the way through. You don't. You know, you have a little bit of this and a little bit of that and then as you get older, I think you understand it more, you know, and you look after your health a lot more. When you're younger, you're completely invincible. And that's how I was. So you enjoyed the party scene together?

13:22Gabby Logan: Oh, absolutely, yeah. My goodness, we had many late nights, many hangovers, walking home from Soho four, five o 'clock in the morning. We were absolutely in the heart of it.

13:32Shirlie Kemp: You know, if I look back at my time now and look back at being a kid and look back at being in Spandau, and I thought, oh, I just looked after myself all the time and didn't, you know, have the late nights, didn't enjoy myself, I'd be really disappointed. Really disappointed that I didn't make the most of it. Yeah. And I did. And we all did. And at points, I think all our feet left the ground. Yeah. There were points when the ego... Who pulled you back down to the ground then? You know, the planet.

14:03Gabby Logan: I think we just always have been like that.

14:06Martin Kemp: Yeah.

14:07Gabby Logan: I just think we are grounded and that's our soul.

14:10Martin Kemp: When you say there that you did leave the ground. Yeah, without a doubt.

14:15Shirlie Kemp: When I was touring with Spandau and we were playing football stadiums all around Europe and you have an army full of people just there to look after you and make life enjoyable, then it's difficult not to realise you're on the same planet as everybody else. But when you went home, presumably...

14:35Gabby Logan: Well, I think the difference is I think some people have addictive personalities and I think that's the dangerous side. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. Martin and I don't have addictive personalities, thank God. And that's one thing with my children. I remember thinking, well, the people I've seen suffer most in life are people with addictions. Yeah. And I don't think either of us have addictive personalities, so I think that was our saviour.

14:55Martin Kemp: So you can get addicted to that feeling, though, can't you? Well, you can get addicted to it, but I think, you know,

15:00Shirlie Kemp: that we used to go back home and you realise it's a job, you know? And I think a lot of that for me came from growing up in television television when I was a kid and going through drama school and going through theatre and doing all that and realised that rock and roll really is a piece of theatre you know you get on stage and you do your show and then that's it it's just that people in rock and roll don't see that they see it as like life is a party but I think because I grew up in in drama and all those television shows in the 70s play for today's comedy playhouses all those things that I used to do I saw life slightly different

15:38Gabby Logan: It's also understanding the illusion isn't it? It's understanding both sides, what's real and that's always been very clear to me when you meet a lot of people along the way and you realise, oh they're so affected or to me they always looked insecure I've always felt I could be myself and that's all I am that's all I have whereas I'd see some people really insecure and then become very affected and create these characters and you just think, why do you have to act like that? So it's just very see-through to me.

16:11Martin Kemp: So in terms of the buzz that you clearly both got being performers, you're not now out there every week treading the board somewhere, doing shows all the time. Why? Martin is. He's still out there

16:23Gabby Logan: every week. He's doing this DJing every week.

16:26Shirlie Kemp: I do this lovely thing that I adore. I do 80s DJ nights and I do three shows a week. All over the weekends we play to like 1 ,000 to 1 ,500 people every night and people absolutely lose themselves.

16:45Martin Kemp: And does that sate the desire in you to perform? It does.

16:49Shirlie Kemp: And I look at the audience that are kind of a middle aged audience that are reliving their youth through this music where they know every single word and every single breath and they sing along at the top of their voices. and we all forget as people, I think, how good you feel when you sing and the endorphins that you release when you sing and all these people come into these spaces. Like at the moment, we're doing this tour with lots of cathedrals in there and so we play cathedrals. We played one the other night and they take all the pews out and there's a thousand people all down the middle of this beautiful cathedral.

17:27Shirlie Kemp: The lights are all going around and they're singing at the top of their voices and it is the most incredible. And these are all over the country?

17:35Martin Kemp: Yeah. Oh, wow.

17:36Gabby Logan: Joyous. He's amazing. He shows me the videos the next day and I'm smiling watching it because... Do you not go very often? No, I don't go.

17:44Shirlie Kemp: Shirley's never been to one.

17:45Gabby Logan: I've never been to one. But I just think, what amazing job that you're standing there and everyone's just happy. You're making people happy. Yeah. Oh, I want to go now.

17:54Martin Kemp: Obviously, this audience, the midpoint, are your audience. So they will all be just checking it out now.

17:58Shirlie Kemp: Well, they need to go if they want.

17:59Gabby Logan: Yeah.

18:00Shirlie Kemp: It's the most beautiful experience. And, you know, in the cathedrals, it's just wonderful.

18:07Martin Kemp: How do you decide then what to do and what not to do? Because we were originally talking about doing this and then you went in the jungle. And I thought, oh, that's why you can't do it in December. And you were joking, Shirley, that you planted a trip to Australia. So is it always a team kind of effort when you're thinking about what you're doing?

18:23Gabby Logan: Martin always say, do you think, I mean, I'm always very pro. Yes, do that, do this, work, work. Because I know it's good for him anyway.

18:30Shirlie Kemp: Yeah, I'll always remember when I'm standing in the kitchen one day and my phone pings and I was smiling and Shirley says to me, what is it? I said, oh, it's Big Brother. They want me to go and do that celebrity Big Brother thing. And I said, I'm not going to do it. And Shirley came over, looked at it, saw how much it was and said, you're going. It's only L's three. What are you going to do? They're going around the corner. She said, I'll bring you lunch. but it is a team decision but you know some things you do because you know you're going to love doing it and that's kind of at the point i think i'm at yeah you can choose those things

19:12Martin Kemp: that you really want to do yeah yeah and i know you have your you have your instagram account which is your life and then you have your instagram account about the maison number yes

19:20Gabby Logan: yeah so would you say that's your passion now uh i've got so many little passions but i do love been at home so that's hard to get me out of the house so that's the garden yeah that's why i don't really when did gardening grip you when i was about four years old um i remember so my dad was a builder so our garden wasn't just a nice or and i remember crossing the road to my parents house because in those days no cars they just walked and i used to stand in my neighbor's garden and the sensation it gave me was like nothing on this earth. It just felt so powerful, so magical. And my mum always loved flowers, but we should buy bunches of flowers.

20:03Gabby Logan: Just the atmosphere and the change. To have flowers in your house is so lovely. I really love it. It's one thing I miss if I'm not at home, buying fresh flowers. And then when we got our first house, Martin's dad took me to Columbia Road Market and we bought all, like, bedding plants So as long as I can remember, gardens are the most magical place you could be. And what I love is being outside. I'm not really an indoor person. I'm much better with fresh air and being outside. So I created that account simply because we bought an old house. And I kept sending Roman, my son, pictures with the kids, pictures of what we were doing.

20:44And he said, you need to make an interview.

20:47Gabby Logan: I was going, no one wants to watch this. honestly within a day or so there were like 50 ,000 I'm like oh my god people want to watch people love and I didn't realize that so what I really like is posting things and people saying oh that was such a lovely thing to wake up this morning and see that because it is a feel good you know as much as the world there's some horrendous things going on I still think it's it's really nice to inspire people and if you know show people what we're up to yeah Yeah.

21:15Martin Kemp: And is it the process of planting something and seeing it grow? It's everything.

21:20Gabby Logan: It's the process of thinking, I want that there, or I'm going up to the gardens. We're always in the garden centre, always planning. But, I mean, Martin's great at growing vegetables, so he's got his patch, he's got his whole vegetable area, and I just love flowers just simply because their energy just speaks to me. They speak to me.

21:38Martin Kemp: And you were saying before, you're pretty much at home, vegans. So they're your vegetables that you're eating? Yes, yeah.

21:45Shirlie Kemp: Yeah, everything on our Christmas dinner plate this year, apart from the turkey, was from our garden. Which wasn't vegan.

21:53Gabby Logan: I don't eat turkey, but that was for Roma.

21:55Shirlie Kemp: Yeah, it was from our garden. Amazing.

21:59Gabby Logan: I must be so satisfied. The Brussels. It's lovely to eat peas. Yeah. I love eating. Yeah, most of it you can eat. It's outstanding.

22:06Shirlie Kemp: So we grow it, and I love doing it. There's nothing better for me than when, you know, you've been out all day and you get in the shower at the end of the day and the water that's coming off you is just black. Yeah, yeah. And you look down at your feet thinking, yeah, that's satisfying.

22:22Gabby Logan: Yeah, yeah. Put your woolly hat on, your anorak, your big wellies. I just love that.

22:26Martin Kemp: And when you get out there and put the radio on or do you work in science? Love the radio on. Yeah, have a bit of music in the background.

22:31Gabby Logan: Yeah, something nice about having the radio. I prefer the radio on in the garden than I do in the house.

22:35Shirlie Kemp: Yeah, so Shirley's in charge of the flowers and I'm in charge of the veg.

22:39Martin Kemp: And this is, we've gone from kind of talking about your rock and roll lifestyle straight in about three minutes to being in the garden. And the food and the flowers and everything that you're kind of growing, it feels like you're both very aware of how you grow your health in terms of what you eat, what goes inside you. You both look so well. You just kind of ooze health.

22:59Gabby Logan: I'm fascinated by diet. And also what I did that was also a game changer for me, I did the intolerance test because top athletes do. I'm thinking, well, if these top athletes are doing intolerance, why are we not all doing intolerance tests? There's so many little bits and skin disorders, you know, even a bit of eczema. And I did an intolerance test. Oh, my goodness. Potatoes. Nuts. I mean, there was so much dairy on this intolerance test. And I realized growing up, my mom had health conditions with her skin. I mean, my family didn't have good health. My mom and dad died early 70s. and I think through bad diet and they smoked.

23:37Gabby Logan: So we've never smoked. That's something we've never smoked.

23:40Shirlie Kemp: But you found as well you're allergic to potatoes.

23:43Gabby Logan: Yeah, potatoes. I can't even peel them. So now I have celeriac, so I kind of swapped that. So I think why are we not? I think there's so many things about our health that we should know. We should know our blood group.

23:55Shirlie Kemp: Celeriac is great.

23:56Gabby Logan: Yeah, it's really nice. What's the cheese thing you make? Oh, just like a gratin, you know. Yeah, it's lovely. Celeriac gratin.

24:01Shirlie Kemp: Yeah. It's really great.

24:03Gabby Logan: Making your own cheese. Yeah.

24:05Martin Kemp: And in terms of what you physically do then, because is gardening your main form of exercise? No, no, no, no.

24:11Gabby Logan: I'm at the gym. Lifting weights? I do spinning. I do weight. Tennis. I've found tennis. I've loved tennis for a long time, but I have had ankle surgery and shoulder surgery, rotator cuff surgery, new ligaments put in my ankle. So you had to wait for six years. I didn't do anything. And then I didn't feel good. I put on a lot of weight. I felt tired. And I'd always wanted to play tennis because it's the only sport that I can watch and really sit and stay and watch it. So this year, last year, I found a tennis club and a tennis coach. And I am addicted. Wow. So you didn't start playing tennis until you turned 60.

24:58Gabby Logan: 63. Wow.

24:59Shirlie Kemp: Now you can't stop.

25:00Gabby Logan: Now I would be out there every day because we've got a court at our house and we're just having it all redone so that I can...

25:08Martin Kemp: So when the kids were growing up, did they have tennis? Did they play tennis? Well, I did put Harley.

25:12Gabby Logan: I've got a picture of Harley when we lived in Highgate, at Highgate Racquet Club, only because the teacher said that she should play tennis for hand and eye coordination because her handwriting wasn't very good. But also I'm reading that tennis, there's no dementia with people who play tennis. So that's really important because my dad had vascular dementia. So keeping fit, I think it's even more important at my age now.

25:38Martin Kemp: Have you found paddle yet or are you sticking with tennis? I did.

25:40Gabby Logan: I had one game of paddle. I love that sound when the ball on tennis. You don't get the satisfaction of a tennis. The thwack. I just need to find people to play paddle with and a place to play it.

25:53Martin Kemp: The thing about paddle as well, I think, it's quite good if you're on holiday. it's so easy to get four people of completely different abilities together. Tennis is much harder, isn't it, if you could play doubles with four different abilities. But I think there's much more satisfaction in having a good rally in tennis, I think, for some reason.

26:09Gabby Logan: It's a fast... Well, I used to play squash, actually, when we were younger.

26:12Martin Kemp: That would be where the ligaments went and in the ankles.

26:15Gabby Logan: Also, you know what I'm also discovering, talking about health, is I'm hypermobile. And so when I was younger, I really... I know you were a gymnast. Yeah, yeah. That was Olga Corbett. I thought I was Olga Corbett growing. And they used to say, here she is.

26:28Martin Kemp: You were constantly bent over backwards.

26:30Gabby Logan: I was just like doing everything that I could watch gymnasts and I'd just be copying it. And my mum, she's just, you know, double jointed. But no one really, someone should have taken me to somewhere to let all that energy out. So you've started gymnastics as well? No, I haven't started gymnastics. But what I didn't realise is the hypermobility is such not a good thing at all. Unless it's controlled. Because all of my joints, that's why I've had surgeries, because of the hypermobility. And there's other things related to hypermobility, like endometriosis. So that's a whole, I'm really, and also ADHD and handwrite, because at school I couldn't write very well because my wrists used to turn in so much and it was weak.

27:16Martin Kemp: Yeah, and what you've got to do is strengthen those ligaments.

27:19Gabby Logan: Yeah, so that's now, that's what I'm saying now, I'm really taking it so more serious.

27:24Shirlie Kemp: It helps with your tennis, doesn't it? What? Your arm goes right away, Mac.

27:28Gabby Logan: I know.

27:31Shirlie Kemp: It's amazing. I know, sometimes you see. Yeah, so Martin will come along.

27:36Gabby Logan: I love it. Yeah, tennis, I would happily retire and go somewhere where we could just go to play tennis all the time.

27:42Martin Kemp: You're dyslexic as well, aren't you? Dyslexic, yeah. Was ADHD, when you said ADHD then, was that something that you thought you might have then?

27:49Gabby Logan: Yeah, because school was very hard for me.

27:52Martin Kemp: But not dyslexic?

27:53Gabby Logan: I think it's more dyspraxia.

27:58Martin Kemp: But you were diagnosed with dyslexia?

28:00Shirlie Kemp: Well, no, my dyslexia wasn't something I was born with. It came from when I had brain operation back in the middle of the 90s. So it came after that. Before that, I didn't have it at all. when I came out of the brain operations that I had in about 95 for two brain tumors that were taken out the dyslexia was more kind of like a spatial dyslexia where if I wanted to walk left I would walk right and vice versa and my brain was just a mess you can't imagine you know I I could walk, I lost all the use of my leg, I lost all the use of one of my eyes. I was in a mess, absolutely. And then as it died down, it became what was left over was dyslexia when I read.

28:52Shirlie Kemp: So it's kind of like all shrunk into this dyslexia thing that I still have.

28:57Martin Kemp: So when you first came out of the operation then, did you fear that this was you for the rest of your life?

29:02Shirlie Kemp: Or were you told that this can get better? No, I thought I'd had it, to be honest. I was in such a mess that I thought it was the end, really. And I think everybody else did around me as well at that point. And it took a while.

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29:55Shirlie Kemp: To realize that it wasn't the end. It was an odd one because it was just like a car crash. One minute I was fitter and healthier and working more than I've ever done in my life. And then the next minute you're diagnosed with something like a brain tumour. And it's like being in a car crash where everything changes in an instant.

30:17Gabby Logan: What were you, 35, 36? 35.

30:20Shirlie Kemp: And everything changes in an instant. And how old were the children at this point? You have to dig yourself out of that.

30:25Gabby Logan: I think Roman was two and Harley was like four and a half. It was the bleakest time of our life. and also the most grounding time because you just see your whole life has changed and also financially everything was changing because was Martin going to walk again? Because the diagnosis was so awful. So we sold our house. We moved to a cheaper house so that we could just live more comfortably and Martin had no pressure about work because, you know, our kids were very young.

30:59Shirlie Kemp: Well, I had about five years off, didn't I?

31:02Gabby Logan: Yeah, he didn't do anything for about five years.

31:04Shirlie Kemp: Yeah, five years.

31:05Gabby Logan: But nothing mattered at the same time. That's why it's so grounding, because nothing mattered. If we live and we have to move to a one-bedroom flat, I didn't care because I was so scared that, one, he was going to die, first of all, because they were saying the second tumour was inoperable. And also then they didn't really tell you much. They didn't tell you anything about the after effects. So Martin came home from the hospital and then started having some seizures. but no one warned me. I'm sure nowadays you'd be like, well, this. And so it took us a while to keep going back and find the right person to diagnose this and all the side effects from the operation.

31:43Martin Kemp: Because it was quite groundbreaking surgery, wasn't it, that you had?

31:46Shirlie Kemp: At the time, yeah. I mean, there's a massive metal plate on the back of my head and so they opened me up and the first one was a big old thing that was kind of like the size of a grapefruit but flattened. so that it would fit in the cavity in between your brain and your skull. And then all of a sudden there was no more room left in that cavity so it started to grow up into the skull. And then the skull started to thicken.

32:13Gabby Logan: Well, that's the blessing that it was pushing the brain.

32:17Shirlie Kemp: When they found that, they also found a second one that was growing right in the middle at the top of my spine. So if it wasn't for that big one...

32:24Gabby Logan: You find gratitude in such disaster.

32:28Shirlie Kemp: So I always look at it as like the luckiest thing that ever happened, to be honest. And you asked earlier, you know, what makes you grounded? You know, and partially that's got a lot to do with it, going through a moment like that in your life. And getting through that few years where you didn't work and didn't do what you had. Yeah, and it's not something you think about all the time. You never think about it, but it becomes part of your DNA. And so it is something that makes you grounded.

32:55Gabby Logan: It was like a reset. It was like a reset in your whole life. Did it change your marriage? It changed the dynamics for me as in I was on tent, like just worried about him 24-7, making sure I became like carer. Are you OK or where is he? Because when he said earlier about it, he would get lost. So when you live in London townhouses, you know, you've got all the floors. And then sometimes I would find him standing at the doorway confused, thinking, do I go right, do I go left?

33:23Shirlie Kemp: Yeah, but I'm still confused now.

33:24Gabby Logan: I still find him confused, yeah. So I just became like, it felt like three children. Like, I've got to look after Dad. I've got to make sure Dad's all right. And I still am like that. I'm still on the edge for him. Like, has he got this? Have you got that?

33:42Martin Kemp: And you weren't like that before? No. No. No. And how did you react to that then, the change in dynamic?

33:49Shirlie Kemp: I just had to go with it. I was in such a mess at the time. You were reliant. When you find yourself in a hole like that and people that have gone through cancers and tumors and different things like that, you just have to dig yourself out and you use whatever you can use to get yourself out of that hole. and Shirley was there to drag me up, which, you know, you don't think about it at the time, but I knew if it was Shirley going through that, I would be doing the same for her. And so you're a partnership, aren't you?

34:29Gabby Logan: Yeah, you're just fighting for that person. Because also what I couldn't accept when he was first diagnosed was, we've got young children, like the kids, they've got to have their dad. So I was really angry. Whereas Martin was obviously going through healing, I went through real anger. I used to cry all the time, but always on my own, never in front, never let the kids know the stress that we were going through. But I would say I was angry with God. I was like, how dare you? I've married, I've waited for this guy, I've married him. We've had these children, so why would this all be taken away?

35:05Gabby Logan: What was the point? And I was angry about that.

35:08Martin Kemp: And how did you get through that? The anger.

35:11Gabby Logan: Alanis Morissette.

35:14Gabby Logan: For a second, I thought you were going to tell me that over the years then.

35:17Shirlie Kemp: Some shaman or something. Music. Music.

35:20Martin Kemp: The power of music.

35:21Gabby Logan: Singing, listening to her lyrics.

35:23Martin Kemp: I imagine you find out the friends. It's not that you find out who your friends are, but you find out the friends who are really reliable.

35:29Gabby Logan: Yeah. I mean, George, once again, I don't really like people about him. He was massive. But he was on my case more than... He was going, are you okay? But you don't look well. because I didn't look well. I was grey, I was thin, I was worried out of my life. And he kept saying, do you need therapy? I was going, I don't need therapy, I don't need therapy, I just need Martin better. He was really concerned and there was one point when we thought we'd maybe go to America to get... Because in England they said, we don't know what... It's inoperable the second. So my instincts were, just go to America.

36:02Gabby Logan: They're far more advanced. And George was like, yeah, we'll just go take you to America. So I knew that I had him to...

36:08Martin Kemp: In your corner.

36:09Gabby Logan: Yeah, in my corner, which helped. And, you know, we relied on Marty's mum and dad, my mum and dad to help. But also I cut myself off from my friends because I'm not the type of person to say, pull me or ask for help. So I just found, like, when I'm not in a good space, I don't really want to see people because I have to fix the problem. But it took me a long time to, you know. And also I became more spiritual. I grew up an atheist. but the whole thing shocked me to the core. I felt like there must be a reason. Why has this happened? What have we done? So I kind of went on the whole of the 90s on the biggest spiritual search after the Lillianus Morissette album.

36:52Gabby Logan: And, yeah, I did do shamanism and I did Reiki healing because I just had to find the answer. And did you find an answer? Yes, I did, actually. Well, there was a lovely book that I read, Louise Hay, Heal Your Life. Now, she really was a guru of kind of that self-help in the early 90s. And the back of the book says about why you have ailments and what affirmations you should do. I mean, even for me, so I looked up why did I get endometriosis and it said denial of the femininity. Now, that's interesting because I was a tomboy. I worked around horses. So when I had periods, I didn't want them. My body was rejecting it.

37:30Gabby Logan: And so, you know, when I looked up brain tumours, it said repressed ego. So I'm thinking, how am I going to tell him he's got a brain tumor? So I had to think about that and I had to think, OK, so Martin's talented. He acted and he's got a lot more than just being a bass player. And so I was thinking, that's what he needs to do. He needs to come out of himself. And then after the brain tumour, he got EastEnders. And I just felt like watching him become Steve Owen, I thought, this is good for the ego. This is feeding the ego. And I kind of felt that was a healing.

38:07Martin Kemp: Yeah. And did you let him know?

38:10Gabby Logan: I can't remember. I remember thinking, how are we going to get around this? But I just boosted his ego. I just tried to boost him as much as I could. Did you know your ego was repressed at the time? Did you?

38:21Shirlie Kemp: I didn't realise it. It must have been.

38:28Martin Kemp: The kids are, as I mentioned before we start recording, I think anybody who's got kind of kids who are either adults or heading into adulthood, the thing that doesn't matter what you do in your life, the thing that you want the most is for your kids to be happy and also to feel that when they're in company without you, that people enjoy their company and that they're good people. And I think everybody who watched Race Around the World could see you've produced two lovely humans. I've been lucky enough to work with Roman. I haven't met Harley Moon, but you could see that they've got a great relationship.

38:56Martin Kemp: And you must have been incredibly proud watching them on that show.

39:00Shirlie Kemp: It was wonderful. But there is nothing nicer in the world than when your parents and people come up to you and say, oh, I love what your kids do and I think your kids are so wonderful. You glow. You know, you absolutely are filled up with pride when people say that. And it's the nicest thing anyone can ever say to you. But I am really proud of them. And, you know, they've grown into two really nice people. And that's all I can want. You know, when you're a parent, I think the whole idea of being a parent is to give your kids all the information and all the armour that you've ever learned and let them try and grow from that, you know, become better people than you are.

39:44Shirlie Kemp: You know, because they've had all that information that maybe you never had at the beginning.

39:48Martin Kemp: But your kids were, you know, in a unique or fairly unique position, though, with the parents that they had. And we see so many families, don't we, struggle with that, where, you know, the parents obviously are in the limelight and the kids are by kind of definition, therefore, in the limelight, even if they try and keep them away from it. And it's not always an easy journey.

40:07Shirlie Kemp: No, it was difficult. I mean, Harley and Roe were really different. You know, Harley struggled with me and Shirley being well known. and people coming up to me in the street. Because it was pretty much the first time she realised that I think that I was well-known was during EastEnders. And so she kind of struggled with it a lot. But Roman quite enjoyed it, you know. I'll tell you a little story. You know that moment when you're at school and the fire engine comes into the school playground and the fireman gets out and he goes, this is my ladder. it will go up three stories and all the kids clap, you know.

40:48Shirlie Kemp: And he gets out the hose and he goes, this is my hose. It is 200 foot long and all the kids clap. And so the fireman's doing that and Roman stood up in the middle of the playground. He goes, you might think that's cool, but my dad is Steve Owen. But he was only in the fair. He was only in the fair. He was only about six.

41:11Martin Kemp: Imagine the fireman just went, I'll put it away then.

41:16Shirlie Kemp: He was only about six or so.

41:18Gabby Logan: But he was very proud. He was proud, yeah. He loved it, whereas Harley had to change school a couple of times. Really, because she just didn't want people to know. No, she was horrified, absolutely horrified.

41:29Martin Kemp: But it's also that thing of knowing that people have, because I grew up with that, with my dad being a footballer, constantly thought that we had friends everywhere. Everybody seemed to know him. It took me a long time to realise that these people coming up to him didn't know him, but he was giving his time to them. He was always very gracious with it. and I think that's the thing that you have to do if you are in the public eye.

41:49Gabby Logan: And how you react to people and you're polite to people, the kids see that and that's brushing off. They've never seen us be rude to someone. We've always said to them, you do a job, you do it the best you can and you're always kind to people.

42:03Shirlie Kemp: Yeah, it's about respect. I think that's what you want to give. That's what I always felt like I wanted to teach Roman and Harley. It's about respect. You respect everybody's life. about you respect everybody else's feelings and you respect everybody else's things and who they are and let them be and let people be who they are. You know, I think Shirley and I were really lucky growing up in that point at the beginning of the 80s when sexuality in nightclubs that we were going to, like the Blitz, all those clubs around the, you know, that change in a decade, sexuality was completely ambiguous. you could be who you wanted to be you could dress who you wanted to be like and I think that was really nice grounding for me and Shirley acceptance who people what they wanted to be and let people be whoever and I think that was nice for us and it was one of the nicest things I had passing it down to Harley and Roe bringing home my friends like Steve Strange I knew you were going to say Steve Strange Steve Strange comes into the house and he's wearing a Robin Hood outfit you know and Roman and Harley are looking at him thinking yeah that's all right yeah you know and so it it was nice yeah and you can see you he obviously enjoys working with you as well I

43:25Martin Kemp: love you too on Gogglebox and actually it made me laugh a conversation you'd had which my kids get really well my son in particular is like oh mom stop talking about your sex life because my husband had prostate cancer and it's come up a few times uh kind of you know I call it functionality and And there's that conversation where you were talking about holidays and I was in hysterics. Which one? It was the one where you sang what you do on holiday with Shirley when you go on holiday. Oh, I love that.

43:49Gabby Logan: I haven't seen one. Oh, it was brilliant. It was about having a lovely long lunch.

43:53Martin Kemp: Oh, I knew you. And he was like, Dad, Dad. And it just made me laugh. It was so a real father-son over.

44:01Shirlie Kemp: Raymond and I, I think we say things to each other and no father and son should say to each other. They do have bandwagon.

44:06Martin Kemp: Well, that's what I was doing at Kenny and Reuben. And I kind of, you know, when I saw that, I thought, oh, it's other fathers and so on. That's good. That's good. But you two were doing it on Gogglebox.

44:14Shirlie Kemp: But do you know where I think what brought Roman and I really close together was he was never allowed to swear in our house. You know, we never used really bad language with the kids and we never swore in front of kids. But when I started taking Roman to football, right, on the North Bank. Different language. And I used to say to him, if you want to swear, get it all out your system while we're here. You can sing and shout and do what you want. And Ro used to look at me and go, yeah. And at that moment, we were on one level. So Arsenal, different dynamic. We were both mates. Do you still go to Arsenal together?

44:50Martin Kemp: Yeah, yeah, sometimes.

44:51Shirlie Kemp: Not as much as we used to. Are you going to be in the league this season? He goes every single week. He's addicted.

44:57Martin Kemp: He's pretty much, I mean, he's working in celebration now, isn't he? That's been his dream since he was young, though.

45:02Gabby Logan: The two things Ro could talk about for hours and hours was either music or football. Once Martin and Roman start talking football, I'm just left out. I just... Just going and prune some roses. It's like, are you going to talk to me? Does anybody want to watch the Australian Open with me on the television? They want to do this.

45:19Martin Kemp: Yeah. It's been so lovely chatting to you. And I feel like anybody who listens to this episode will get some pretty good ideas about what it takes to be a healthy, well-balanced couple in midlife and takeaways from your lifestyles and your respect and love for each other,

45:36Shirlie Kemp: But, you know, whoever listens to you, we also appreciate how lucky we've been. It's not just, oh, yeah, this is our life. Look at it. Oh, you get that. We have been very lucky.

45:49Gabby Logan: I think it's being really conscious about the choices you make and listening to yourself, you know, listening to your truth and your gut feelings are very important.

45:59Martin Kemp: And you obviously have really good dialogue between you as well. really kind of open and honest with each other, which I think, you know, that's why you're heading towards your 40th anniversary. You must be starting to think about what you're going to do for that now.

46:11Gabby Logan: We never celebrate our anniversaries. That may be the answer. 40 is a huge anniversary. Maybe that's the answer.

46:15Shirlie Kemp: We don't celebrate. We're not a celebrating kind of family, really. I think what happens is that you're so... We do. We're not really, because I think what happens when you, and you'll know this, when you're an entertainer, you seem to celebrate so much that goes along. Let's celebrate the start of a new show. Let's celebrate the end of a new show. End of a show, yeah. Let's celebrate this and that. And so when it comes to you, you say, you know what? Low key.

46:42Gabby Logan: Just low key. Yeah. Shepherd's pie. Yeah.

46:44Martin Kemp: So nothing, basically. It's going to be 50, is it? We'll have to wait until your 50th. Yeah, no. Maybe you'll be on a stamp for your 50th. Thank you so much. It's been so lovely. It's been worth the wait getting you in here. it's been lovely thank you thank you thanks so much