Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Martin Kemp Returns!

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

This week Emily and Ray went for a stroll with Martin Kemp in Battersea. They chatted about his years in Spandau Ballet, the pressures of fame that came from his time in Eastenders and his new book, Ticket to the World: My 80s Story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Was it about a pair of jeans? Because I did Spandaulde ballet split up because Gary said to Tony Hadley, what are those jeans you wear? Let me put it into context. This week on Walking the Dog, I went for a walk in London's Battersea with the fabulous Martin Kemp. Martin and his wife Shirley have got three dogs, Iris and Pops, the adorable poodles, and Luna, the gorgeous Doberman. gorgeous Doberman. Shirley had to wish them off because Martin had a busy day ahead, but I got to

have a brief cuddle with them and Shirley before Martin and I headed out for our walk with Ray. Martin's well known for being one of the nicest men in showbiz, and the reason for that is because it's true. He's just incredibly sweet-natured and humble and really lovely company. We chatted obviously about his years and spand-a-ballet, the pressures of fame that came with his role in EastEnders, and the importance of his family life with Shirley and his son. Roman and daughter Harley. Ray fell hopelessly in love with Martin and I know you will too. Do by the way check out his brilliant new book, Ticket to the World, which is a fascinating collection of his memories about the 80s and the culture he experienced. I'm going to stop talking now and

hand over to the man himself. Here's Martin and Raymond. Hi. Hey, my beautiful. Let's put your lead on. He is a beauty that one. Do you think so? Did you have him last time with me out? Yeah but he was covered in mud. Yeah that's right yeah because we went over Hampstead didn't we? We went to Hampstead and he was by the end of it. Yeah. Surely your wonderful other heart was getting really worried because she's so polite, sweet and she was like, he's covered in mud he's got twigs in him and they're never going to come out. Yeah. Yeah because we walked into that mud patch didn't we? I remember that down the bottom of the hill. It must have been about the same time of the year but it had been raining non-stop. Yeah it was

So this is beautiful. I'm so glad you've got me out here. So we're in... Battersea Park? Battersea Park. Battersea Park. This, for me, is like, brings back such memories. Because over here, well, I used to live in Islington when I grew up when I was a kid, but over here was where I used to come with all my mates where we, where my big day out was to buy a red bus rover ticket. You know the red rovers? Yes.

But you got in a bus and you could go anywhere. back in the day. And my trip with all my mates was over to Battersea Park to go on the fun fair. So this has happy memories for you this area? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's all about the fun fair for me here. But what I love about it now is they've taken away the original fun fair. That went years ago. But they've left little remnants of it. They've left little bits and pieces. and so every time I walk past it, it takes me right back to being a kid. Well, we should say we're with my boy Raymond, who you've met before.

Yeah. And I'm going to be completely honest, so I prefer to be honest. Yeah. We did have, I have been lucky enough to spend some time this morning with your two dogs, Lola and Pops. Yeah. But Shirley had to take them off. She's chaperoning today. So we are with Raymond on our own.

But we've got Raymond. I know. And he's making up for all of them. Here, so talk me through all your beautiful dogs there. We have Lola, who is the newest. She's a doberman. That, so we have a little flat on the river. But when we come into town.

And there was a woman down on the same building that had a doberman and said to Shirley, I can't cope with it because, you know, it's too big in the flat. But now we have a dog that's too big for our flat. So Shirley took this open and said, yeah, you want to, we'll rescue him. So he's great when he's in our house in Hufffish here, she is, you know. She absolutely loves it, you know, in all the fields and stuff. She loves that. Yeah.

But when we come to London, it's a little bit of a squeeze. But listen, I don't mind, you know. We have me and Shirley have grown up having dogs all our life. And we had a doberman when we were really young. When we first got together, we had this doberman called Emma. And Lola is the spitting image of Emma, our first dog. Really? Spitting image.

So, I mean, if you put the two side by side, then we'll take your breath away. Even though that's quite difficult now because Emma went a long time ago. but she is the spitting image. So it kind of takes us back. And so there's Lola. Lola, I've got Pops. Pops I met before. You brought Pops on this podcast before and Pops.

Pops is my toy poodle that kind of like runs the house. She's in charge of everyone. You know, she's the cleverest out of all of them. She knows when she's done wrong, when she's done right, she knows she will sit and stare at everybody else being stupid. you know, I'm playing their games. And so she's in charge of it all. But then I have my little special one, Iris.

That's like your Jose Marino, special one. She steals my heart. She was a rescue from China. So Shirley is part of this dog charity that rescues dogs from China that are being taken. towards the meat market there for people to eat. And so there's no nice way around putting that, but that's actually what happens.

And Iris was on the wagon. So she got taken off the wagon. And when you say on the wagon, what? So they were taking it to be to the market to be eaten. And she was rescued off the wagon and not like she was on the wagon, stopped drinking or anything, but she was taken off the wagon and she was taken off the wagon. And she was, Shirley and her charity rescued them and brought Iris home. And we've had Iris for the last couple of years now.

And she is absolutely beautiful. Well, I've seen her in Gogglebox. She's in her on Gogglebox. And you and Roman and Shelley as well. She gets spoiled ridiculous. Does she? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

She's beautiful, Marl. And is she, as a result of being, you know, going through that. What an awful start she had to her life. It was a terrible start. How do you've saved her? Can you see signs of that? Is she fearful sometimes?

Or did she take a while to trust me? You can see when she runs that she's had her back legs tied up. So she's got a weird kind of gate. But apart from that, now she's like left all of that behind her. She is absolutely my little baby. Well, I'm so excited to be.

with you today and we're going to be talking I've just read your book yeah which I loved it's so brilliant it's called Ticket to the World yeah yeah and it's essentially kind of a really lovely journey back into where it all started it's kind of it's a memoir but it's also tied in with the 80s and the culture that was going on around the time yeah what it's meant to be really is that it was the idea that I will tell you about my story through the 80s through that decade but it will also reflect on your own story. You know, because everybody that lived through the 80s, what it's about is anyone who lived through the 80s,

it's jogging your membrane and reminding you of how it was and what it was like to be there. And for anybody who didn't, it's about telling you and explaining to you what it was about. So I've kind of like, I find a funny thing nowadays, you know. I think, I mean, what am I now? I'm 61 now. Stop.

Yeah. And when I look back... Martin Kemp? You're 61. 61. And then... But when I look back now to me being a kid, we've Spandau ballet and all that and all through that 80s,

it feels like a different person. It feels like I can look back at it from the outside and give an honest opinion. And not just one that is made for the press or made for me to give some kind of... of like Spandau or Kemp propaganda, you know. So I can give an honest opinion. And that's what it's about.

And I can tell my regrets as well as being proud of other achievements, you know. And there's lots of regrets that you realise that you wish you hadn't gone through when you're older. And it takes time and I think it takes kind of life experience for you to realise that. Because last time you were obviously on with your lovely wife Shirley, and now I've got you, just you, Martin's solo. So I thought it would be really interesting because it sort of ties in with the themes of your book as well. Just to go back to Junior Martin

and how it all happened really, you were born in, let's go back to the Martin Kemp Origen story. You were born in North London. You grew up in North London, didn't you? With your brother Gary, obviously. And is it Eileen and Frank? Eileen and Frank, my mom and dad, yeah.

But, you know, when I say I grew up in North London, I grew up in Islington. But Islington, a very different place to how it was nowadays. You know, nowadays it's very kind of... Keen law. Yeah, very kind of... The really middle-class houses and expensive houses, but mixed with council that are still there. They haven't tried to separate it at all. Because those houses down there are so beautiful.

You know, when we live down there, I remember in the early 70s, that when the council was selling all the houses off, you know, to people so they could buy them. I think they were asking ridiculously low money. I think they asked for how, like, Georgian Terrace House, something like 25 grand. But 25 grand in those days, no one had that anyway. So it could have been a million pounds. You know, when I grew up, it was kind of like post-war. There were still bomb sites left over.

And the way you grew up with your family, was it, you didn't have, much money, did you? Your dad was... No, we had nothing. Not much money. It was nothing. We were, we were a family just completely on the breadline. And, you know, what my dad earned, we spent. And I remember several times with my mum in tears because she couldn't afford to put meat on the table or, you know. What effect does that have on you, Martin? Do you think that makes you think I want to make this okay for them and drives you, it makes you ambitious? Well, at the time you don't, see anything different. You just think that's how it is.

You know, with everyone, you think that's how it is. But I think in the end, it makes me incredibly proud of my mum and dad that they got through, you know. Because, I mean, I want to look back. I don't know how they made Christmases like they did. We had next to nothing, but they still saved all year so they could buy, you know, the special kind of like cans of drink or some, a few toys for me and Gary.

You know, the effort they must have put in to do that. The work must have been incredible. So it makes me incredibly proud, I think. And Gary Kemp, as we say, is your brother. And you and him were always super close, weren't you, growing up? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get the impression he was kind of more outgoing than you. Yeah, I was a shy little boy.

You know, I had a shyness that was almost debilitating. You know, I couldn't even look at some of my friends without. I tell you, if I was one side of the street and I was with my mum, and my mum would have collected me from school and I saw my friend over the other side of the street, I would just hide behind my mum's buttocks, you know, bury my face because I was so shy. That's who I was. And it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to us

Was that across the road from us There was a block of flats And in the block of flats There was Like a community centre And this lady called Anna Sher Opened up a drama club there Which my mum put me in

Not to me into an actor But to get rid of my shyness And it works a treat for me it was the best thing ever changed your life well I went to Anna's did you

my mum was an actor she was like I don't care if you go and do it professionally it will just teach you how to be with people that's right and she was always I remember there was a kid

who wanted to do adverts or something and she left because Anna said I don't want to put kids forward at this age because you're not old enough to decide

that's right that's right can you imagine most drama having that sort of integrity she would never let anyone do adverts. Let's walk back. Should we go this way? To find a bench. Oh lovely Martin. Let's find a bench. So, so you end up,

little shy Martin decides to join his brother's band. Well, it wasn't not so much I decided to join it. I wanted to join it, but my brother, you know, was, he was two years older than me. So he had a band that was working in, like they were rehearsing in, the school music room and going out at weekends to play in front of like 50 of their friends in a local pub or something like that, right? So I used to, I used to carry the equipment. So I was the roadie. It was like I wanted to do it because I wanted to be involved in it, you know. So I used to carry the equipment for him, but I can't tell you how much I wanted to be in the band. You know, it was kind of like I used to dream about it.

And so I was desperate to join here. And I was at a party one day, one evening. And I was standing next to this fellow called Steve Dagger, who was the band's manager. He was just a friend of Deserts from school, who was managing the band. And we were both drunk. And he said to me,

Martin, if we ever get on top of the pops, I want you to be in the band. I want you to be with us. So it kind of like, it was one of those moments in my life that just changed everything. You know, it just opened up the door. It was, I think in our lives, you know, we only get a certain amount of windows of opportunity

that open up, maybe four or five, right, in a whole of your life. And this was definitely, for me, the first one that ever came along. But you were working as a printer, because that's what your dad did. Yeah, I was in a print, yeah. I was an apprentice. Apprentice, but you know what?

Been there for about nine months or something. That was a stable job. That was security. You might have had a pension out of that and you know, you knew you could train. A lot of people would have said that's too big a risk. Yeah. So what is it about you that made you think, no, I'm going to go for this? Well, listen, I think it's handed down to me and I think it came from my dad because it was my dad who got me that job in a print. He was the first one, you know, that job, I put it right, you know, in Islington where I grew up, I left school, I probably had two O levels.

to my name, you know, that job, that apprenticeship in the print at that time was a really good job. And my dad got me that. And so when I wanted to leave that job and going to the band full time, I had to go back to my dad and ask my dad to get me out of the job. He wrote the letter and he put down like, dear sir, can you release Martin from his apprenticeship contract because he wants to become a pop star. And it wasn't, my dad wasn't having fun with that. He was, he said it because he actually believed it.

You know, and I think it's his belief that I take on for my kids. Yeah. You know, carried with me. I just hope my kids will do the same for theirs. Because my, when my dad wrote that letter, he had no money. You know, they were, they were broke. They could have done with me and Gary going out to work. work so that we could bring in money to get towards the house because that's what kids used to do

in those days you know but it's interesting that your parents yeah they had that they wanted better yeah yeah you know and so and it's that confidence that you give kids you said because a lot of kids are i sort of brought up to think why you what's special about you yeah whereas the way you've brought up your kids and it seems like your parents brought you up is why not you but listen i am I understand how difficult it is to give your kids a chance when you've got no money and how hard it is. You know, it's much easier for me to stand here today saying, yeah, I gave my kids a chance. I gave him a couple of years to find out what they wanted to do. And that's because I could financially afford that.

But I understand how difficult it is. But when I look back to my dad, my dad had no money and he let us do that and believed in us. So it's something that I'm always feel like I'm paying my dad back for, always. Even talking about it today, touches me. That's so lovely. And so you joined the band. And one thing that you talk about a lot in the book, which I loved personally just because obviously I experienced all that myself in the 80s.

Yeah. It's the club culture. Yeah. So I'm interested in the culture that your band, which was not called Spandau Ballet originally, it was called Gentry. Well, it was called Gentry before we were part of that whole pop culture. You know, early 79, we were still called the Gentry. But in the middle of 79, we started to go into clubs like Billies and the Blitz. And we would...

It was a whole new pop culture that exploded. at that point, you know, we'd come out of punk that was really dark and dirty and everyone believed there was no future and no ambition in anything. And what usually happened with any pop culture is they turn on their heads. It was all about everybody with incredible ambition, everybody wanted to be able to do everything. It was all about there was a future after punk's no future. So, and it went from punk being all in kind of black and white with, you know, the, the, the, leather jacket uniform that they used to wear and the magazines like Enamee and Melody

Mellie maker that were all in black and white to an explosion of absolute colour. Your band was almost, Mandad Ballet was all part of that, as you say, it was new Romantics it was called, wasn't it? You got to remember when the 70s went into 80s was when most people got a colour television for the first time as well. You know, I don't think we had a colour television in our house until 70. So the whole world was turning into colour. What's interesting is that but the way you dressed, which was quite out there.

Yeah, yeah. Did you not, did you worry about your friends taking the piss out of you? Well, in the Blitz itself, there was only probably, what, 150 people. And we should say what the Blitz, so the Blitz was. The Blitz is a, was a wine bar that happened that Steve Strange turned into a club on a Tuesday night once a week. and it was a bringing together of all the art students that used to go to St Martians and Com Garden around that way and so they were coming in in all the clothes that they'd made

those previous few weeks and put on display which completely over the top and then it would be the North London contingent which is us and so the two did come together. The North London boys. Yeah and the two came together. Back then it was You didn't need money It was like a sort of it was about all coming together

Because you were like-minded and you were into art and design And it's creativity wasn't it Yeah I mean well it used to be like on the Tuesday night The Blitz happened but for the rest of the week You would organise what you were going to wear for the following week So you'd go to Lawrence Corner where they would sell like old army uniforms for next to nothing and you would find stuff in Oxfam shops, old men's suits that, you know, probably the last time they've worn them was, you know, to someone's wedding or something. Of funeral.

Yeah, a funeral. So you had to be, I think because you had no money, you had to be, your imagination had to work, which is the best thing. And you did end up joining the band. Gary was reluctant at first. Yeah, he didn't want me in the band, that's the fact. But I went to my mum and I told my mum, my mum said, put him in the band. So it was my mum who got me in the band. No one ignores either.

Yeah, yeah. My mum got me in the band. She said, if you're going, he's going. And which, you know, it's the sort of thing I think Shirley would do as well, you know. But it feels like it happened pretty quickly. For the band. The band was like a rocket ship. You know, I think in, I joined the band in late 79

and then on my 18th birthday, I signed a record contract and then within three months we had a hit record that was number five in the charts. And was that to cut a long story short? To cut a long story short, yeah. You learned to play the bass though on your first day in the band, which I love that you admit that, as honest. It's a little bit of a myth, that, right?

Because I could play guitar like three or four chords. So I knew how to hold a guitar and was comfortable with it. Because I used to play in a punk band at school called the defects. Of course, they were called the defects. We used to rehearse in some old dry cleaners, you know. And so I played a little bit of guitar. And then Gary said to me, if you're going to be in the band, you've got like four weeks to learn 13, 14 songs.

But when you want to be in something, when you want to do something that bad, as much as how badly I wanted to be in the band, then nothing's a problem. Also my brain was a lot younger then. I think if you ask me to learn it now, it'd take me months. I'd have to bail out before. I find it interesting that you've said,

the fame that you had with Spandau Ballet, was actually much easier to handle than the fame that you had with EastEnders. Why was that? Well, because when you're in a pop band, you're playing to kind of a small bandwidth that are listening to you, probably like 17 to what, 35,

but when you're in something like EastEnders, that bandwidth is huge. It's from really young kids to really old people. So you're kind of like tripling the bandwidth of people that know who you are. So the fame in EastEnders just swamped everything. You know, in some ways when I was in EastEnders, I used to look back at the days in Spandale and think, yeah, I had a bit of freedom then. Really?

Yeah. Back in the day with EastEnders, you know, when I was doing here, it was 20 million people that an evening were watching that show. It was humongous. even to the point where you know you had people that loved you and people that hated you and I remember once I was walking along Tottenham Court Road yeah and this fella came out of nowhere and just punched me as hard as he could in the chest absolutely winded me like I was doubled over and he ran away and he said as he punched me he said Steve Owen and as I looked

up then he hit me and it was like just kind of summed it up really and at that point I really did question it whether or not I should be in that show was it it worse it you know because the fella could have quite easily had a knife or something you don't know but the fame was huge in these tenders yeah yeah huge and I and it's interesting with the going back to Spandau I found it so interesting reading about your experiences because it did you've described it as Was it five guys going to Benadonk? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.

Did it feel like, yeah, was it just the best ride of your life? Did you wait? Did you think, oh my God, I can't believe we're getting to do this? Oh, yeah. Yeah, for the first five years, we were travelling around the world. We were travelling on Learjets. We were doing the whole, you know, playing to football stadiums full of people. And it was everything that I dreamt of doing when I was a young teenager.

when I used to sit in my geography classes, daydreaming of being in the Who, or being in the Rolling Stones. It was everything that I'd ever wanted, everything. And we loved it. But it is strange how it works out that it doesn't matter what you do. In the end, it becomes boring. Because you're repeating it again and again and again. And you're going on to doing the same show again and again and again for 10 years. you're giving the same round-the-world ticket for 10 years again and again and again and in

the end when you get your round-world ticket you're going oh fuck I want to start home you know and that's that's the truth of it you know so it not everything you do you've got to bring variation into life haven't you you know that's right now I tried my artist to make sure that I do so many different things as well as writing or as well as so I can use my imagination as well as my body acting you know I try to do so many different things because I've been through that stage where I had everything I wanted when I was a kid everything when I was in Spandau everything I wanted from being in a band to a pop-style girlfriend with Shirley and I had everything but it doesn't

matter what you have in the end especially when you're young you want to move on and get something else did did you ever because of the point of being a postage is that you're supremely confident you're in control you're in charge particularly when you're on stage and did you have moments of thinking like I suppose imposter syndrome those moments thinking what am I doing you who do I think I am did you oh absolutely everybody does but everybody on the planet does you know I would tell you I used to have this same conversation with George Michael who had exactly the same imposter feelings.

We used to talk about it. And he used to say, yeah, sometimes I question myself, am I good enough to go out there and do it? And he had the best voice in the world. And he was still questioning himself. But even when I was in the band, you know, I always had this struggle with believing that I wasn't good enough to be in the band.

And I always had this thought that the only reason I'm in this band is because the way I look. And that's not a very nice thing to think that's all you're worth. is all I'm worth, you know, the way that I look to be on a magazine front cover when I was a kid. And, you know, that kind of like sometimes really got me and really depressed me. And I used to think, I'm not very good at playing a bass. I don't write songs. All I am is a picture on the front cover.

And as much fun as that was, it still wasn't fulfilling who I wanted to be. But I can talk about it. Now, you know, it took me a while to talk about that and to accept that. and have this conversation. But that's what I'm saying now, you know, I'm a 61-year-old man now and I look back and I think, and I can look at it from outside of the situation. I look at it from outside and I can see.

And when I look back at Spandau, you know, we were five young guys, really good looking young guys who wrote really good song, pop songs, who played their instruments really well. And no wonder we were a hit, no wonder it happened, because we had all the cogs in the, the cogs in place, you know. It was a slam dunk and it was. First record comes out, slam dunk. And obviously you and your brother were incredibly close but I can imagine even that relationship

was put on the strain working together all the time. Oh my goodness, yeah. Well Gary and I, we were like the pressure point. You know, we were, we were the two guys in the band that were able to release the pressure. So it always builds up. In any, any job you're in, you spend so much time with you. people especially in being in a band you know you're you're living in each other's pockets you're not just work during the day but you will go out to eat with each other you'll hang out with each other in the gym during the day you're sitting each other all the time so when there was a problem in the band it would

all be always be left to me and Gary to kind of go into a room have an argument and sometimes literally a fistfire with each other we were rolling around on the floor with each other and that happened once or twice and we would walk out And as being brothers, we forgot about it because we were always that close. And we forgot about it, but as I will tell, I could cut the atmosphere with a knife because everyone thought, this is the end of the band, you know, they were panicking, you know, they were just had a fight. But it wasn't. For me and Gary, it was just another fight that we had. But that's so fascinating to me that in a sense, I wonder if, you and Gary, it became your job to have the fights.

Because actually if you two have the fights, it's unconditionally. It's unconditional love. You can say to your sibling, fuck off you, wanker, slam the phone down. They go, hi, how are you coming in the match? Yeah. Whereas if you'd have had that route with Steve. It would have lasted for him.

It would have split the band up. Yeah. If you had that, if I was rolling around on the floor with Tony having a fight, which I wouldn't have liked to because he was always too big. But if that happened, it would have all been over there and then. But with me and Gary doing it, it was something that we could just get over and work our way around. You know, but, you know, it's all good things come to an end as well. It came to an end quite oddly, though, and was it about a pair of jeans?

It's found out ballet on the top because Gary said to, Gary Kemp said to Tony Hadley, what are those jeans your way? Let me put it into context. That was a, that is the truth, right? But it took a long way to get there. It wasn't really about the jeans, right? It was about everything else. Yeah, but Martin, I really need to know about the jeans. Well, I'll come to the jeans.

But even before, you know, even before we made the last record, Heart Like a Sky, the album, Gary didn't want to do that. You know, me and Gary had gone down to see my mum and dad in Bournemouth, and we were walking along the beach and Gary said to me, I'm out, I don't want to do it anymore. and which shocks me, absolutely shocked me. And all of a sudden I had this incredible fear of what am I going to do next, where am I going to go?

What's going to happen to my life? What happens to the Learjet when it's not flying around with Spando in it? Who parks it? But I had this incredible fear of I didn't know what was going to happen. And so I taught Gary into it of doing that last album and I should never have done looking back on it. Why? Because it was just a horrible atmosphere.

It didn't work out. It was the first time Gary had walked into a rehearsal room with a bunch of songs already made as perfect demos and said to everybody practically, just copy this. So we'd reached that point where it was common sense we shouldn't have made it, but we did. And so it kind of fell apart. And so all those arguments, the arguments over making the last album, you know, practically copying Gary's demos and getting to that point. We were making the video for a single called Raw. And there was the argument about the jeans. What happened?

I can't remember. I'll tell you. Tony Hadley was wearing a pair of jeans. Yeah. From Gap, I think they were. Because didn't Gary say, what are those jeans you're wearing from M&S? In a disparaging way? And then Tony said, excuse me, they're gap.

Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. But at the time, because of the moment we were in, it was a huge thing to Gary. It was the worst thing you could have said to Tony at that time. You know, and so everything was waiting to implode anyway. It could have been, you know, who bought me that ice cream?

You know, I like an ice lolly. You know, it could have been anything. And it was the jeans that kind of like, it was the jeans split us up, I reckon. Gap. Put you down a gap. But you, and you obviously owe your career to, that's how you met Shirley, because you were sitting at home watching TV. I've gone back and subsequently watched this clip so many times

and I thought, oh, I can see why he liked her. That's not even my preference. You know, I'm straight. Tell me when you got obsessed by Shirley. Wham were doing young guns. Just released it, brand new band. Not been on television before. And I was at home one Thursday evening with my mum and dad

because I was still living there at the time. And I was sitting on the, I remember it well, sitting on the carpet with my back up against the arm of the sofa watching some of the pops. And Wham came on. And I was absolutely obsessed with Shirley. You know to the point where you can't see anything else on the television?

But I'll be honest, it had happened to me before. that and I fell in love with Silla Black when I was about six through the television and I told Silla and she wasn't very happy about it When I saw her what did you see? I jumped into her at a party and I told her yeah, I fell in love with you when I was six I think it made a bit old feel a little bit old and she wasn't very happy hearing it So surely you met at a play called yacketyak, yeah, yeah You gave her your card. She called you. Except she didn't really call you because it was George Michael that dialed the number.

Yeah, yeah, George, he died the number. Well, she didn't call me for three weeks. And then, so George was at home with Shirley and he said to her, obviously, you know, you want to call him, you know. He's going to think that he would move on. And so anyway, Shirley, he dialed the number, gave her the receiver. And he spoke to my mum and said to him, he's my mother. and said, it's Martin there, and then gave Shirley the receiver. And so Shirley and I got together, you know.

But he didn't just do that. He also turned up on the date. Yeah, it turns up on the first date as the spare will. Shirley wanted a wingman, you know, what he's like. But when you're a young man, the worst thing that can happen is that your partner or the girl that you're going to go out with brings our mate, you know. Especially when that mate is George Michael. Well, he wasn't George Michael as we know him now.

You know, he was Shirley's mate. And so, but I remember in the Camden Palace spending all evening trying to get rid of him, all evening. He could not, he would not leave our sides. So there were moments that me and Shirley had sneaks off, we sneaks off down the back stairway of Camden Palace to have a little snog, you know, on that date. And he still turned up. He still found us. But it's a lovely memory

You know lovely When I look back now You know I miss Yog Dealey You know He was such a lovely lovely, lovely man So generous

Not just with his money But with his time And his emotions You know That he would give you He was just the loveliest man He was so Incredibly lovely

And supportive To my kids You know Coming around Christmas days With presents and just supporting him. He supported Roman. You know, my biggest memory of Yorg sometimes

is sitting around the dinner table and there'd be like 10 others and we'd all drifted away and it would just be Yorg and Roman left there. And Roman was only young, maybe like 13 or 14, but he was always incredibly articulate, always. And Yorg and Roman would not stop arguing.

That's all they used to do, one of the ones. all they used to do, one end of the time, everyone would walk away and leave them. They're not arguing, but debating something. Because Roe, he's always been super articulate and always loves debating about anything. He still does. That's why he's in the perfect job for himself at the moment. But we would always walk away and leave him.

But Yogg was one of the loveliest people, I think, that I will ever meet. Oh, well, I'm so sorry, what an awful thing to lose a friend. Do you know what? I sometimes think we're in church. Well, we all lose friends, don't we? We do, but... Along the way, we get to this age and when I look back, the friends that I've lost over years, you know, whether it's Steve Strange or George or Pauli Ate's, all big characters,

all the big characters leave your life. And that's what comes with getting older. And you mention your lovely son Roman And obviously you have Harley Your gorgeous daughter as well And Harley works in music, doesn't she? Well she's a musician She's really good

You know she loves country But that I speak to her a lot about this You know, it's very difficult to make a living Like it used to be in music nowadays You know, it's very difficult So Harley runs as

it's hers, but it's a successful business of running, making television averts. So she does that, she does commercials. And she came out of school. She didn't have that many grades, but she wanted to be a photographer. So I said to her, I'll tell you what I do, the money that I would spend on university, let's put it into equipment and instead of that trying to start off on your own

rather than going to university to learn out to do photography because I wasn't sure that was the right thing and I gave it money to buy a nice camera so she started taking pictures and then she became a photographer but as photography died

because everyone could do it as soon as digital photography came in she stopped doing that and she opened up her own company making small commercials but now they're at a point where they're making television commercials for everyone and obviously

your son Roman everyone knows your son Roman as you pointed out not long ago I've come to do a show with Roman he gets dressing room one I get dressing one too yeah yeah which I don't mind I love it to be honest

as a dad what do you want you know when you have kids The whole idea of it is that they do better than you. You know, it's not for them to do as good as you, it's for them to do better than you. That's what you want. You want to see them. That's what you want.

Do you think all parents are you? I think they should. I think they do, you know, deep down they do. You know, it's that lovely moment when your kid first beat you at FIFA on your Xbox and you know that he's going beyond you. You know that. But, you know, it's lovely not just to see that on your Xbox, but in life you want him to be happier. You want them to be more successful.

You want them to go on and have an incredible life. When you look at your relationship with your kids, what do you think, say, for example, Roman, what has he helped you with? How are you better? What have you learnt from him? A lot, to be honest. He, like I said, he's incredibly articulate. And the way that he presents himself is incredibly well. And I think working with Roman, I think some of that rubbed off of me.

Where before, I was always slightly shy. You know, always, I always had that little shy kid that was Martin Kemp, young boy inside me. And I think Roman just pushed that to one side. So, yeah, I think he had. help me, right? Isn't that lovely? Well, I think also, but I can see what that is, though, Martin, because as you said, it's so interesting to me. And I think it's great when men talk about that, because it's always women saying, I felt I was just judged for my looks a bit, and that's all people, and actually, that's really makes sense to me. It's a difficult thing for me to talk about,

because it makes me feel like I'm not being very humble, or it's not me, you know, because, but the older I've got and you lose all those young boy looks and it was somebody else you're talking about because there's this lovely oh I'm sorry Raymond he'll put a bottle on his head but there's this lovely thing

that I read a while back and it's that every seven years you've changed every cell in your body every cell is like regenerated right so you've lost who you were completely There's not one piece of you left. And so for me sitting here today at my age, it's kind of like I've seen about five or six different versions of Martin Kemp

since the days of VH1 and since the days of MTV. So I can look back at it as an outsider. I get that. But you're a grafter, you're a yes person. And it's interesting. Some people would have been in that band and thought, I've been in a band. Yeah.

I'm, I'm, it would be easy to kind of live off that for the rest of your life and not try anything new. I think it was so interesting to me that you were like, I'm going to try this and you, you and Gary had got the part in the craze. Yeah. Around the time Spandau was wrapping up. Yeah, yeah. You went to see the craig. Did you go? Well, Ronnie, I went. You went to see Ronnie Crane. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the, the craze was always kind of like the springboarding.

to the next part of my life. You know, I knew the band was coming to an end and the craze was kind of on the table as the band came to an end, which was, it was one of the reasons that the band did come to an end, I think, because it scared everybody in the band. Because as soon as Gary and I spoke about doing the cratering movie, they thought,

everybody could see, yeah, this is gonna make a move on, right? And eventually it did. So it was kind of the springboard, but making that movie was something that I suppose I felt this strange idea that I was representing the part of London that I came from. And there were so many people looking at it, thinking, oh, Mike and Gary are going to be rubbish in this, they're just pop stars. But what I don't think people understood at the time was that Gary and I had both gone to Anna's for Anna Shurs for eight years or something. And when you learn something like acting when you're a kid, the way that Anna tools taught us, right, without scripts or anything, it was just purely improvised.

it becomes part of your personality. So it's not that you're switching on or trying to do or trying to act. It's just acting is you. That's who you are. It's inside you because she built in part of your personality. It's muscle memory. But I went in to meet Ronnie in Broadmoor. I couldn't meet Reggie, the guy that I was playing because he was category A.

And so I went in to meet Ronnie because Ronnie was in Broadmoor. Brawmore's a hospital, right? So they were all wearing her own clothes. And Gary and I sat down with Ronnie, who was wearing this immaculate black suit, white shirt, black tie. And he looked like Ronnie Craig. Even in the prison he was?

Yeah, yeah. And he looked like Ronnie Cray that you'd read about. And we sat down with him, but there was a huge surprise because when I sat down with him, no one warned me, right, that Ronnie had a really high-pitched voice. You expect him to sound like Danny Dyer.

All right, Mark, come and sit down, come and have a cup of tea. But he didn't. He had a really high-pitched voice. And it was all I could do to stop from laughing. All, you know, because you're built up anyway. You've got all that, you know, that tension. And all you want to do, really, sometimes, is laugh. And it was a strange situation.

But when he started speaking to me, he was like, where's this coming from? I thought he was putting it on. And you, as I was saying about you, always trying things, you know, you did EastEnders and it was huge and again, that's, did you ask to leave? Did you feel I've had enough of this level of fame now? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd done it for three years, three and a half years. And your kids were quite young at the time as well.

Yeah, yeah. So that must have added to the pressures. Yeah, but I knew where I was going as well. I knew that ITV had asked me to go over there and do this golden handcuffs. deal with them for a couple of years so I knew what I was going and I went in and I told the producer then that I'm going to leave and he said yeah I'm out whatever you want you know you've been a big character here you you will always leave the door open for you because you know you've been a big character here so I said okay that's great so I'll go back in a few months later and he said

where are you going after you leave and I says well actually I've got to deal with ITV So when I go back in and I read my final script, I get blown to pieces. They believe me to pieces because I was leaving. And as much as they deny it, that's exactly what happened. It's all gone to bit Ronnie Gray. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, it's so lovely as well, seeing you working with Roman now, and that relationship is just, it's really touching.

I think people love it. People love that relationship. Yeah. Why do you think that is? You're really seeing us. You're seeing, we're not acting, you know, we're putting on something, we're letting people see our relationship that we've had all our lives,

even when Roe was 10 sitting on the sofa. And we've always had that relationship where we'll sit there taking the Mickey out of the television and taking a Mickey out of each other or winding each other up. It's just that the older Roma's got, the better he's got out of it. That's the trouble. And so I think that's what people enjoy.

look inside mine and one's relationship. And we don't make it out it's anything different than it is. You seem like you handle fame well, Martin. I ignore it. I ignore it. Because I think if you recognise it too many times, it would send you mad. It's something that's really unnatural for you to walk past people

and for you to have to keep your head down all the time. And I went for a stage of that where I was always keeping my head down and trying to wear a baseball cat and your sunglasses. And now I say, fuck it. You know, you just, if people say hello, they say hello. And you get on with it because it can disturb you completely if you live life, you know, under a pair sunglasses and on a hat. So it's something that I live with now. You know, it's been part of my life since I was just. just turned 18 in different forms.

And so everybody's been and raided every part of my closet over the years and they've seen what's in there and so there's nothing else to reveal. So I just live with it now. And it's so nice that you've been able to, I suppose, educate Roman about that and he's grown up with it. So he's, you know.

Well, Rose's grown up with it. You know, he's like, you know, like I say, go back to that story when it was, just Roman and George sitting around at the dinner table arguing the odds over nothing, you know. It is grown up with the most famous people in the world around him. So fame doesn't mean much to Roman either, and he knows how to cope with it. And I've always said to Roe what fame is inside this business. You should never look at it in any other way than it is a ticket to get a better job.

It's a ticket to your next job. And that's why you need fame. but it really is just a ticket for your next job. Well, you once said to, I think you were being interviewed by Piers Morgan Young, Good Morning Britain, and I never forgot this. He said, which is a standard argument, to be fair, he just said something about Love Island.

And he said, oh, what do you think about this kind of fame, though? It's not proper fame, and people shouldn't get famous this way. And the standard response when someone says that is to say, yeah, you're right. You didn't. You said, we're all entertainers. Well, we are. We're all entertaining everyone on television. It does not matter how you get to that point. Whether you take the quick route round or you take the route where you have to sit in the back of the transit and do a million gigs to get onto top of the box. It doesn't matter. This day and age, if you can get there, who's going to turn it down? Right? You're going to say, no, it's all right? I won't take that a million pound because it'll be bad for me later on.

It's a job, you know, it's a job. And if a good job comes to you. you don't turn it down you take it and you grab it we are we are incredibly lucky people but we are working in a business that really is our hobby that's what we do for a living we've turned our hobby into into a job and if you can do that it's a conversation about with my kids a million times if you can turn your hobby into your job that's success and above everything above money above everything that's success Martin, I have loved our walk. Well, I was so knocked out by your book.

I think it's absolutely brilliant. It's called Tickets to the World. Have you enjoyed seeing Ray again? Oh, beautiful. He is the prettiest little guy that I've seen for a long time. He really is. He's beautiful. Aren't you a big boy?

I really hope you enjoyed listening to that and do remember to rate, review and subscribe on iTunes.