I’m in Earls Court gym, getting undressed. I open my locker, place my jeans, my sweatshirt, my shoes, carefully inside. I padlock the door. Turn. And stop. Standing in front of me is Marc. Marc Almond. What is he doing here?

When I was a kid Marc Almond was God. And whenever he released a single I’d rush into town to buy it. I’d start with the 7” vinyl from WH Smiths and then, as the weeks progressed, I’d trawl Weston-Super-Mare High Street looking for the extra formats. I’d go to Woolies and Boots and Pete’s Record Shack (where I was touched up by one of the assistants). I’d buy the ‘picture disc’ version, the limited edition ‘gate fold’ version, the 12”, the ‘picture disc’ 12” and, finally, just in case there was an extra track on it that I didn’t already have, the cassette tape. Only when I had all six versions of the same Marc song could I relax.

But buying the six different formats was just the start. With each new Soft Cell single there’d be interviews in the music press. So the NME and Melody Maker would have to be bought and any snippet of information that I could glean would have to be carefully cut out and added to my scrap book (one for each 'Marc year'). The tv listings would have to be gone through each morning in case Marc was making an appearance (there were no video recorders back then so I’d take a Polaroid snap of the tv screen). Then every Wednesday and Sunday night I’d sit nervously in my bedroom, my little tinny transistor radio by my side, waiting for the Top 40 run down, a blank cassette tape at the ready so that I could record his chart placing for prosperity, my finger hovering over the ‘pause’ button in case the DJ Mike Read talked over the intro. How I hated him for doing that. How dare he talk over Marc’s records! In fact, just last month, when I read that Mike Read had been made bankrupt, I thought, Ha! Serves you right for talking over Bedsitter in 1981!

In 1982 I moved to London. If that was where Marc lived that’s where I had to be and I found an attic flat in Pimlico, in one of the tall Victorian houses on Alderney Street. I was paying £12.50 a week rent and I decorated my small room with Marc Almond posters, crucifixes, Divine postcards and a framed, dead tarantula. My neighbours included an alcoholic air hostess who would stagger in each night (minus her stilettos) and a Greek waiter who would shag his girlfriend for hours on end, her orgasmic screams echoing up the stairway. But none of that mattered. I was in the same city as Marc. I was in Heaven. 

Actually it was in Heaven that I first spotted Marc. It was a Wednesday night. The club night was called Asylum. It was known as the ‘alternative’ night and it was full of goths, punks and New Romantics. I, of course, was a goth. Punks didn’t wash their hair, New Romantics washed it too much, but goth’s got the balance just right. I’d crimp mine, back-comb it and then spray the whole sorry mess until it was so lacquered it repelled rain. Anyway, this particular night I was sitting in the upstairs bar at Heaven, sipping my lager top, trying to look demure, caked in Estee Lauder’s Long Wear: Stay In Place Foundation (which the air hostess had dropped in the hallway the night before), when in he walked. I almost passed out. Of course I was too shy to approach him and, so I thought, too cool to be caught staring. I was a Londoner now. The city was littered with stars. This wasn’t Weston-Super-Mare where you’d get Lena Zavaroni at The Playhouse for the Summer Season. I would have to act like a Londoner. I would have to pursue him carefully. So, for the next two hours, I followed him around the club. Casually noting what he was drinking, how he was dressed, how high his hair was. All the important details I would need to memorise if I was going to copy him. Because the great thing about Marc back then was that his look was so accessible. Not for him the pastel silk suits that Duran Duran pranced around in. No. Marc’s look could be bought at the Great Gear Market in Kings Road for under a tenner. And, luckily, as I was only taking home £45 a week, that was just as well.

What I also noticed though, and this was something I hadn’t prepared myself for, was that Marc had a following. Strangely, that hadn’t crossed my mind. I thought it was just me. I thought I was his only fan, that I was the only one who danced in their bedroom, copying every camp gesture, lip-synching to his songs in the mirror. But there were others and I’d have to share him. I was shocked. Not that I fancied Marc. Oh no. Not at all. I fancied men. And Marc wasn’t quite a man. Which is why he was so fascinating. He was occupying a strange space. A space that wasn’t manly, but, then again, wasn’t womanly either. I wasn’t quite sure what that space was but, whatever it was, Marc was in it and I wanted to be in it too. Besides, my love for Marc was too great to be spoiled by spotty teenage wanks. No, I didn’t fancy Marc. I wanted to be Marc. Or if I couldn’t be him, then at least be his best friend. And the only way I could get to be his friend was by hanging around the places I’d most likely bump into him. Soho.

At the time Marc was living in Brewer Street and so, every weekend, I’d stand outside his flat in the hope that I’d catch a glimpse of him. Sometimes I’d read in the press that he was on tour and my heart would sink. What would I do? Luckily video players had just come out so I bought my first VHS tape: Soft Cell’s Greatest Hits. It was incredible. Here I had 90 minutes of Marc that I could play over and over again. No more fuzzy 30 second snatches of Top of the Pops footage for me. No more trying to peep over shrieking fans at concerts. Here I could pour over him, rewind him, learn his lines, copy his nervous laugh, all in glorious detail. 

It was around this time that I took to hanging round his recording studio in St Anne’s Court. This was the Trident recording studios in which Bowie and Bolan had recorded. Not that they meant anything to me. They were dinosaurs from the past. And it was outside this studio that I, tentatively, made friends with other Marc fans, the Gutterhearts as we were known; Tony ‘Rent Boy’ Diamond and Paul Hunwick. Paul was ‘someone to know,’ the envy of all Marc fans as he’d just been on one of the tours selling tee-shirts. And he and Tony introduced me to a new club scene; the Pink Panther on Wardour Street, the Bat Cave on Meard Street, The Bell in Kings Cross; and to the drug scene; speed, acid and grass. 

But then something strange happened. I can’t quite put a date on it. I think it was sometime in 1985. Stories of Johnny had just come out and someone asked me if I’d bought the new picture disc. I hadn’t. I had the single and that was it. They looked at me, wide-eyed, and I could tell what they were thinking. Call yourself a fan? But, for the first time, six formats weren’t that important. Then a concert would go by and I didn’t buy a ticket. An appearance on tv that I hadn’t bothered to record. What was happening to me? It was worrying. But of course what was happening was that I was forming my own identity. I was in a band. I was in a relationship. I’d found my own space. My own Tainted Love.

And now, many clubs, drugs and high hair styles later, here I am, in the gym and Marc’s standing in front of me. But what is he doing here? This is no place for Marc Almond. This is Earls Court gym for God sake! Smelly changing rooms. Cheap hand weights. £50 a month on direct debit. It’s like spotting the Queen fingering ‘sell by’ goods in Aldi.

Anyway, we exchange a few pleasantries; my friend Martin is his pianist so Marc asks me about my play and if I'll be doing more dates. I mention the song Lavender he and Martin have just recorded and tell him how much I like it. Then we (Say Hello and) wave goodbye. I walk upstairs, pound away on the Stairmaster, Marc takes a bicycle nearby, chats with his personal trainer and, in this sweaty, grubby little room, just above a Big Mac on Earls Court Road, a little bit of my childhood fades quietly away.