by Chris Limb
Ironically the final stretch was the place I was in the most danger although I didn’t realise it at the time. At 23 Cranley Gardens lived a certain serial killer named Dennis Nilsen who at the time had already killed 13 young men whom he used to lure back to his place at night. Even as I walked past his house that night the dismembered corpse of his thirteenth victim was slowly decomposing within.
However, what you don’t know can’t scare you. I was lucky and made it back home in one piece at around four in the morning having walked twelve miles.
This ordeal didn’t put me off even remotely. I waited impatiently for my pictures to come back from the developers (can you believe we used to live like that?) and when they did come back they were mostly blurred. I didn’t mind. There would be more opportunities.
With the high profile and superlative trajectory Toyah was currently experiencing it would have been a good time to release another single and her record label seemed to realise this. However they didn’t choose another track from The Changeling as most bands would have done; Toyah was sticking to the punk ethos of not ripping people off, and releasing a single from an album after that album had already come out would have gone against this code.
Instead they released a re-recording of the track Ieya from 1980. This seemed a bizarre choice to me, but was a re-recording so at least was something new. I looked forward to hearing it…
This wasn’t as easy as I thought. Unfortunately Safari confused the issue by giving this new single the same catalogue number as the original release. They then muddied the waters still further by releasing a seven inch picture disc and both seven and twelve inch white vinyl editions of the original song at the same time, which meant that the new version was almost impossible to get hold of. In good faith the record shops were ordering the Toyah single with catalogue number SAFE28 but were ending up with the original version, which by now a lot of people already had.
I suspect this had a lot to do with the fact that the single failed to dent the top forty. Eventually I managed to get hold of a copy. The front of the sleeve was a miniature version of The Blue Meaning cover only with a red sky (The Red Meaning?) and the back showed a close-up of a horned Toyah, perhaps the same persona as that on the cover of The Changeling.
‘A’ levels were over and there was now a distinct possibility I’d never have to go back to school again. I kept myself busy with Toyah matters. I sent drawings into the fan club but never had anything printed and sent off for an enamel badge bearing the Toyah logo. Classy. Next time I met her I’d be sure to ask someone to take a picture of me with her.
One Sunday I found myself standing on the pavement in front of BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place waiting for Toyah to emerge following an appearance on Radio One’s Studio B15 show. On arrival I had joined a handful of fans, a couple accompanied by their mums, but nowhere near as many as there had been at the Hammersmith Odeon. I got chatting to a young boy who, despite his apparent size and delicacy was acting like a right little tearaway. Nevertheless, he said he’d take a picture of me with his camera and post it to me.
The white VW Golf was parked outside. I impressed people by telling them that this was Toyah’s car. “I thought she’d have a Rolls Royce!” said someone’s mum.
“Do you fancy her?” a girl who seemed to be a friend of the boy I’d been talking to asked. I was perplexed; this question was a non sequitur and seemed to have come out of nowhere. However, I assumed that as we’d been talking about Toyah that was who she meant. I told her yes – I was too confused to be embarrassed by such a public admission.
My confusion was forgotten when Toyah appeared. The pink hair had gone, replaced by orange and she was wearing a red dress; her signature necklace with its chunky ankh worn on the outside of the collar. There were too many people around to say more than just hello a couple of times but I managed to get in shot and grinned over Toyah’s shoulder into the lens allowing the boy to take a couple of pictures whilst Toyah busied herself with autographs. It was all over so quickly though and before I knew it the VW Golf was pulling away into the West End traffic. There was a little more excitement in the crowd when Kid Jensen emerged a few minutes later, but I couldn’t see the appeal myself. I didn’t like Toyah just cause she’d been on the telly. It was more than that.
It took a couple of weeks for my photos to arrive accompanied by a terse note signed “Maria”. Ah. I see. Oops.
A chance remark by a teacher whilst I’d been at primary school had led to the expectation that I’d “make Oxbridge one day” so against my will I returned to school for one last term in September 1982. It was marginally more bearable now that a lot of the Fuckers had departed. I’d like to think that they ended up as dustmen but probably some of them are now the CEOs of multinationals.
One thing that didn’t go down very well was my new hairstyle. I’d celebrated a summer of freedom by bleaching it and as a result turned up on the first day of term looking very blond. One of my teachers, Mr Adams, sidled up to me.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” he spluttered, “If I came into school with my arse painted blue it’d be all the rage in a week!”
I don’t remember what I replied but there wasn’t anything that he could do about it now. He appeared more embarrassed than anything else. I did wonder about his logic though. I wasn’t exactly popular so anyone who already knew who I was wouldn’t be seen dead copying me and as for the new intake – well as far as they were concerned I was just blond.
Also I think Mr Adams overestimated his own trend setting abilities with the whole blue arse idea.
Of course Toyah had a new hairdo too.
A few days later I was getting ready for school and was sitting in the kitchen with the Capital Radio breakfast show on. In between Word Games, Mike Smith’s banter and the live traffic reports from the Flying Eye I suddenly heard a very familiar voice singing an unfamiliar song.
“You… you… you… you! Me… me… me… me!”
A new Toyah single. Staying glued to the radio for the next few days ensured I heard it several more times and rushed up to Harum Records to buy it as soon as I got the chance. Toyah’s new ‘do was an interesting multi-bunched orange affair that set off a cape rich with thick patterns, shapes and colours to create a clean optimistic palette that reflected my relief that the end of school was in sight. The disappearance of many of the Fuckers meant that my confidence started to increase as well. One afternoon I was perusing a copy of Record Mirror in which Toyah had given an interview to promote the new single, which was called Be Proud be Loud Be Heard.
“Oh, I hate her,” said one of my peers. Even though he was someone I quite liked, I turned on him.
“Why, have you met her?” I snapped, “Do you know her?”
He seemed taken aback, “Er… no…”
“Well then,” I pointed out, “How can you hate her? You might not like her music, but you don’t hate her…”
“He’s got you there,” someone else remarked. I refrained from mentioning that I had met her and that she’d written letters to me. That information was private and out of bounds to anyone at the school.
Well of course I didn’t get into Cambridge. The very idea. Despite some of the teachers’ delusional belief that I was clever, I’d spent most of my time at school working out how to avoid the unwanted attentions of the Fuckers and had concentrated on little else. Furthermore, I wasn’t even remotely interested in Biology. It remains a mystery to me to this day how I got offered places at both York and Sussex.
I remember walking out of school on the penultimate day of term in the early afternoon and never went back. Well, what were they going to do about it? It was unusually sunny for December with a crisp coolness that emphasized my relief and reflected the weight that was falling from my shoulders as I went home, changed out of the hated uniform for the last time and caught the tube into Central London. Toyah was doing a gig at the Lyceum; I hadn’t bought a ticket, but that didn’t stop me turn
ing up to say hello. Maybe get my photo taken with her again. It felt like the perfect way of celebrating not having to go back to that place any more. Ever.
One of the first things I saw when I arrived at the stage door in Burleigh Street was a girl sporting an imitation of the Be Proud hairdo, one of a handful of people loitering. Buoyed up by the happiness I still felt at not having to go to school any more I plucked up the courage to ask this girl whether Toyah had arrived yet, and we fell into conversation.
Her name was Hayley, and we seemed to hit it off straight away. Our enthusiasm for Toyah and all things Willcoxian was closely matched and seemed to offer an instant bond - a shortcut to friendship. She had a camera and said she’d take a couple of pictures of me with Toyah if I reciprocated. I was happy to agree and we exchanged addresses. Hayley was surprised that I wasn’t actually going to the gig, but I told her I was going to the one about a week later at the Shaftesbury Theatre, which she wasn’t able to attend due to going away with her family. We promised we’d write and let each other know what the gig we’d missed was like.
Toyah arrived with Tom. Hayley and I did make sure we took each other’s picture with Toyah.
As I posed Tom warned me to “keep your hands to yourself” - as if I’d have dared do anything else! Perhaps he was half-remembering me from the encounter outside Capital Radio earlier that year and had confused me with Grant, I thought. We chatted briefly with Toyah, but our time was curtailed by her abrupt disappearance thanks to a creepy older man with a satchel who started trying to tell her all about the poems he’d written for her and of the way he was sure he’d known her in a past life. If I’d been her I’d have disappeared too.
I really wanted to go to the gig, but I couldn’t. A week later when I turned up at the Shaftesbury it was very crowded and by the time I’d arrived Toyah was already inside. Still, the gig was fantastic and I was right at the front, elbows on the stage, having clambered over from my seat in Row B.
Afterwards the atmosphere in the alleyway outside the stage door was intoxicating, a light-hearted riot with more audacious fans climbing the fire escape ladder and tapping on the dressing room window.
“I can see the bass player in his underpants!” one of the audacious climbers called down.
Two exotic looking punk boys were waiting with the rest of us; extravagantly made-up, dressed flamboyantly and completely identical it was obvious that they were twins and from the way they were signing at each other it was also clear that they were deaf. Everyone was a little in awe of them but nevertheless cheered with encouragement when together they scaled the metal ladder and tapped on the window. I don’t know what transpired, but when they descended they were swiftly invited in through the stage door to the envy of everyone remaining outside.
I felt as if I was part of something new, bold and exciting. When I got home I transcribed my memories of the gig as best I could in a letter to Hayley.
Shame the gig got such a slating in the music press. Even Smash Hits seemed to have turned against her by now. Perhaps it was the end of an era but even though I didn’t know it at the time an even more exciting era was about to begin.
As 1982 ended I had no idea that 1983 would change everything forever...
6: This fatal fascination
Even before the car had pulled over I could see that Toyah had clocked me. She continued looking directly at me as it stopped, opened the door and marched directly towards me with single-minded intent.
“I’ve just realised,” she said “You’re the same Chris Limb I used to write to years ago!”
It was the summer of 1983 so I suppose at a stretch it could have been described as years ago (two to be precise). She had indeed written me a handful of letters (probably nothing compared to the reams of drivel I used to send her) but even so... Still, it sounded good. It sounded very good. Everyone else must have felt more than a little impressed and perhaps slightly jealous.
However, paranoid soul that I was my main thought was Oh no - I hope she doesn’t remember those bits where I wrote that I loved her! Or still worse bring the letters along and read them out so everyone laughs at me!
But how had I managed to reach the point where she not only knew me but also was able to make the connection with my earlier fan letters in only a few short months?
Back then time seemed to contain a lot more room in which things could happen, and my time at school now seemed to belong to another life altogether. The current year was not even half over and had already become the best year of my life so far. It could have been thought of as my Gap Year as I’d finished school but had yet to start university, but what a Gap Year it had turned out to be.
It was meeting Hayley that previous December that had done it. In Hayley I had discovered a likeminded soul, someone who was as obsessed with meeting Toyah as I was if not more so. And yet even though the intensity of our obsession was comparable, it had a different focus. Hayley clearly loved Toyah as much as I did but for different reasons. I got the distinct impression that she almost wanted to be her. Toyah as role model writ large.
There were distinct advantages in throwing in my lot with this resourceful young woman; she didn’t suffer from the shyness that still occasionally troubles me to this day and furthermore she seemed to have her ear to the ground a lot more than me, knew what was going down, where it was happening and most importantly how to find the stage door.
The first event we went to together was the British Rock and Pop Awards at the Lyceum in February 1983 at which the previous year Toyah had received the award for Best Female Singer. We weren’t able to go inside and watch or anything, we just hung around outside waiting for Toyah to turn up.
Hayley had eschewed simple photography for a more imaginative method of chronicling the event. She brought along not only her camera but also a portable tape recorder and microphone. These days of course we’d all be recording such events on our smartphones in full stereo sound and HD vision but back then the idea of taping it seemed quite radical. Listening back to these recordings now they’re almost unlistenable, partly because of the sound quality but mostly because listening to your teenage self is always embarrassing. Luckily I was still pretty quiet back in those days too.
We waited under the portico of the Lyceum mixed in with fans of all sorts of persuasion. My heart started beating faster as a large black car pulled up… the door opened…
But it wasn’t Toyah. Nevertheless Hayley leapt in front of the flamboyant figure and stuck her microphone in his face like an aural paparazzo.
“Say ‘Hello Hayley’!” she demanded.
“Hello,” Boy George looked confused and continued walking up the steps.
“No, ‘Hello Hayley’,” she insisted.
“Hello Hayley,” he laughed before disappearing through the door being held open for him by a uniformed flunkey.
Other pop stars arrived. Duran Duran sprinted from their limousine without stopping, despite the excited shrieks of a gaggle of girls who’d been waiting for them. Buster Bloodvessel sauntered round the corner from the tube in his anorak - the flunkies were very dubious about letting him anywhere near the entrance until they’d examined his invite in microscopic detail.
Eventually Toyah turned up. I think Hayley must have got a little overexcited on this occasion; she’d brought along a ring as a present for Toyah and duly gave it to her - but in exchange tried to prise one of Toyah’s famous Great Frog “eyeball” rings off her very finger...
“Hey! You’re not having that!” said Toyah (although she seemed to take this cheekiness with a pinch of salt).
I hung around for a while longer. At one point a very drunk member of the Belle Stars ran up to the window and gurned through it at us from the inside. I had to go home before Toyah emerged at the end of the evening.
I received a full report from Hayley by telephone the next day. She also had some more exciting news – apparently in a week or so Toyah was due to appear on the Russell Harty Show, a chat sh
ow infamous for the host being slapped in the face by Grace Jones two years previously. I didn’t have any other plans. We didn’t manage to get tickets in advance; it was just a case of turning up at the BBC Greenwood Theatre on the evening and setting Hayley loose on the receptionist. There were two or three other fans around as well.
One of the security guards tried to engage us in conversation.
“Who are you here to see?”
“Toyah!” we chorused.
“Yeah, she’s a nice girl,” he nodded to himself. This sounded wrong. The word ‘girl’ just didn’t seem right to me when applied to Toyah.
“What do you mean, girl?” Hayley articulated what I was only thinking, “She’s a woman!”
Once inside we secured ourselves front row seats. This week’s show had the theme of “school days”; Harty himself was dressed in a gown carrying a cane whilst the three guests - Toyah, Willie Rushton and Janet Bloody Street Bloody Porter were seated at wooden classroom desks. The show was interesting enough, the guests regaling Mr Harty with tales of their time at school; Toyah entertained us with details of the occasion she hid an alarm clock under the stage in the school hall, timed to go off during a speech by visitor and then Education Minister Margaret Thatcher. Sadly the Iron Harpy’s reaction to this is not on record. Also mentioned was the fact that Toyah would soon be appearing in a play at the Mermaid Theatre every day for the entire summer, Claire Luckham’s feminist wrestling musical Trafford Tanzi.
After the show we waited at the stage door along with two girls who’d also been in the audience, Alison and Linda plus a somewhat nerdy young man with a very expensive camera whose name I don’t recall. Once they emerged all four of us walked with Toyah and Tom across to a multi-storey car park and to their car. Hayley recorded the sound – I had been allocated her camera and snapped photos as we went. I got the impression that Toyah was beginning to recognise me now, if only as Hayley’s sidekick. Eventually after five minutes or so of insubstantial banter Toyah drove off and we all went our separate ways, planning to meet back at the Mermaid Theatre in fifteen days for the start of Tanzi. We had no idea what we were about to embark upon.
