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Daydreamer

Georgios was thrilled to have his own room at last at the back of the house, overlooking the garden and, beyond, an old overgrown tennis court that everyone called ‘the field’. The patch of green would prove a happy hunting ground for a young boy interested in nature or just wanting to while away some time picking blackberries or kicking a ball around with friends.

While Georgios did not particularly like his next-door neighbour on one side, a woman he regarded as a ‘real old cow’, he got on famously with the O’Reillys. They were a large Irish Catholic family who lived on the other side. He would often play in the field with their son Kevin and was happy to be watched by Mrs Maureen O’Reilly if his mum was busy. He called her ‘Auntie’. In the Greek-Cypriot community, boys would refer to other mums that way as a mark of respect and regard. Georgios would always do that. Maureen thought Yogi was a lovely little boy with his black curly hair and little glasses. She still recalls him knocking on the front door one day. He had a big grey cat in his arms. ‘Auntie, my cat is dead,’ he told her mournfully, gazing sadly at the motionless creature. ‘Oh, Yogi,’ said Mrs O’Reilly, ‘I am so sorry. Is your mother in? Why don’t you go and tell her?’

In the 2005 documentary A Different Story, George remembered living in the house. He would lie in bed each morning waiting for the sun to come out so that he could go and explore. One summer day, he rose early, crept out of the house and was nowhere to be seen when his mother called him down to breakfast. A frantic search followed until he was spotted in his pyjamas in the field, collecting all manner of bugs that Lesley might not have welcomed into the house. In some ways, Yogi was much more like a young Gerald Durrell than a budding Elton John.

Redhill Drive was one of those streets where everyone knew each other. Yogi made friends with another little boy called David Mortimer, who lived a few doors away. Their mothers had started chatting in the street one day when they were walking with their sons. It turned out that David was also at Roe Green but was a year older, so they saw little of each other at school but in the evenings would play together; it was the start of a lifelong friendship.

As he grew up, leaving the infants’ and moving on to the junior school, Yogi grew in confidence. Michael Salousti recalls, ‘He looked quite eccentric with his curly hair and glasses. He had quite a funny sort of fuzzy hair but, always, a really nice happy smile. He was sensitive though and was very conscientious about teasing other children.’ Yogi was always quite stocky and big for his age, so, while he would never get into scraps at school, he was perfectly happy to stand up to bullies if they were picking on another boy. Michael adds, ‘We were both bigger kids and would stop kids being bullied. We weren’t heavy-handed about it. It was more a case of trying to explain to another boy, “Why would you want to bully that youngster?”’ It would be stretching the point to suggest that Georgios had a social conscience at such a young age, but he did show kindness, particularly to one boy who was smaller and always the target for the class tormentors.

He thrived at junior school under the watchful eye of his form teacher, Mrs Anne Ash. These were the days when pupils had to show their teachers the utmost respect. In return, Mrs Ash treated the boys and girls with consideration: ‘She was a lovely teacher,’ recalls Michael. ‘Things may have changed now but there was no rudeness back then. There was no talking while she was talking.’ Georgios was a very polite boy. Every morning he would greet his teacher, ‘Good morning, Mrs Ash’, and she would respond courteously, ‘Good morning, Georgios.’

He joined the school choir and sang in the Harvest Festival and Christmas concerts in front of proud parents, including Jack and Lesley, who would crowd into the school hall. This was not, however, the start of a golden school singing career for Georgios. The teacher in charge of the choir would not stand for any indiscipline and she was very tough on any talking. On one occasion, Georgios forgot the golden rule and was whispering away to Michael at the back of the class when the teacher pointed them out and dismissed them from the choir there and then. He was not particularly upset: growing up, Georgios had shown very little interest in music. He didn’t care for the Greek folk music his father would insist on playing around the house. Indeed, Jack’s only artistic talent seemed to be an ability to balance a plate or a drink on his head while dancing.

Georgios wasn’t the least bit sporty, although he could run fast as a boy. He was more of a geek, read a lot for his age, was articulate, and useful at arithmetic and algebra. He was always a bit lazy academically, bright enough to do the minimum and still pass all his exams. He was never much of a team player, didn’t follow a football team and didn’t join in the games of rounders or French cricket at break times or in the park after school. His principal interest was still nature until an event occurred, one he later described as ‘very strange’: he fell down the staircase at school when he was running for lunch. It was his Damascus moment.

He told Greek television, ‘I had a very bad fall, cracked my head and, in the year consequent to the accident, not only my interests but my abilities seemed to change. Before the accident, I was very interested in nature and biology. I was a fairly good mathematician and obsessively read books all the time. But after the accident, literally within two weeks, I brought home a violin – unfortunately a violin – and within months was obsessed with music. I had lost the ability to do any maths and lost my interest in nature and bugs, insects and stuff. So, my interests changed dramatically after that event. Not my personality though. But I have to believe that I wouldn’t have been a musician. It is possible that a flight of stairs contributed to musical history.’

Interestingly, in that particular interview George Michael was asked the questions in Greek but responded in English. As a boy he joined his sisters for Greek lessons at weekends but didn’t enjoy them, mainly because they were held on a Saturday when he had far better things to do aged seven or eight than to learn a very difficult foreign language. Every weekend a ‘crappy little van’ would collect them and other local children and drive a few miles to Willesden, where they would sit in a classroom for private lessons. Georgios gave the impression of making progress, but in reality after two years he could speak only a few words, although he did understand more than he let on. He was at a disadvantage compared to his friends at school who had two Greek-speaking parents. Lesley never bothered much with the language and she always spoke English to her children. It might have been different if Jack had been able to spend more time at home with them when they were growing up.

Jack’s determination to provide a better life for his family was beginning to pay off in terms of the presents he could buy his children and the holidays they could now afford more easily. Georgios loved the bicycle he was given on his seventh birthday. It was purple and blue and his most prized possession. He could now cycle up the road to see his pal David, who had actually moved to another house further up the same street, to the ‘posh end’ as George would later laughingly describe it.

You can often tell how well a family is doing by the things they chuck away. One afternoon after school Georgios was messing about in the garage when he came across an old wind-up gramophone that his mother had thrown out. It was the sort of retro piece of equipment that would be highly desirable now, but then it was just a dusty old antique. The record player became his principal preoccupation, especially when his mum gave him three old 45s to play – two tracks from The Supremes, the premier sixties girl band, and one from the leading British vocalist of the age, Tom Jones.

He would come home from Roe Green and, instead of dashing out to the field, he would hide away in his bedroom with his music: ‘I was totally obsessed with the idea of the records. I loved them as things and just being able to listen to music was incredible.’ George Michael would never have much in common with Tom Jones, the epitome of Welsh masculinity, but some of the later dance tracks of Wham! would have an affinity with the easy soulfulness of Motown. Lesley would have loved to dance to them if she hadn’t been so busy in the chip shop. At least Tom and Diana Ross were much cooler early influences than the Julie Andrews songbook.

For his next birthday, his parents bought him a cassette player with a microphone and he was able to tape the latest hits from the radio. He loved recording things; he and David became ‘The Music Makers of the World’, the name they gave themselves, and prepared to take pop by storm from the comfort of their homes in Redhill Drive. They also started to make their own tapes, of funny moments and little sketches that would have them howling with shared laughter. It was a pastime that Georgios continued to enjoy through much of his life.

Georgios had never bought a record. That was to change on the annual trip to Cyprus when he was ten and splashed out on ‘The Right Thing to Do’ by Carly Simon, which was a minor hit in the UK in 1973 when it was the follow-up to her best-known track, ‘You’re So Vain’. Carly Simon was one of the hugely popular group of female singer-songwriters of the early seventies that included Joni Mitchell and Carole King. They combined catchy melodies with heartfelt, introspective lyrics that often told a story of damaged love. She was the perfect choice for a sensitive boy like Georgios Panayiotou who, regardless of any future image, was always in touch with his feelings. ‘The Right Thing to Do’ was a song about Carly’s relationship with her then husband, James Taylor, another acclaimed musician of that age. The sentiment is a romantic one – ‘Loving you’s the right thing to do’ – but there’s a tinge of realism, of fading attraction and the need for reassurance … ‘Hold me in your hands like a bunch of flowers’.

This particular trip to Cyprus also marked the second time Georgios received a scolding from his father. He was with his cousin Andros when they developed a taste for nicking things from a local shop. They began by stealing sweets, some they ate while others they hoarded. Eventually their thieving got out of hand when they made off with a carton of Dinky toy cars. The shopkeeper realised it was them, found their stash and told their parents. Jack without further ado smacked his son around the legs, which effectively prevented Georgios from becoming Cyprus’s most wanted.

At least Georgios paid for ‘The Right Thing to Do’. Carly Simon had a touch more credibility than his other favourite record of that year: ‘Daydreamer’ by teenage heart-throb David Cassidy, who made a successful transition from television actor to pop star. David first found fame as Keith in the popular early seventies sitcom The Partridge Family. He sang lead vocals on a number of hits as part of the TV cast, including the number one ‘I Think I Love You’, before breaking through as a solo artist with hit singles ‘How Can I Be Sure’ and ‘Could It Be Forever’.

For a while, when ‘Daydreamer’ was at the top of the charts, Cassidy’s face stared down from the walls of a million adoring young teenage girls. He was blue-eyed, with immaculate teeth and hair, and, most of all, he was non-threatening; he was clean-cut and safe. Georgios liked both the song and the image of Cassidy. He never forgot the first time he saw the American star on television, heading a football on the roof of the LWT building on the South Bank. The camera panned to the ground below and there were thousands of girls screaming at him. He saw the adulation that Cassidy’s fame brought him and, although he was only ten, realised he wanted that for himself. Georgios longed to be put on a pedestal and adored from afar – famous but untouchable.

For a while Cassidy seemed to be on Top of the Pops every week. The long-running programme was essential viewing on Thursday evenings, and the following day it would be a major topic of conversation in the playground. He would join his friends to sing along to most of the chart hits, as did boys and girls all over the country.

On one rainy autumnal day the weather was too dismal to go outside, so everyone had to stay in the classroom for break. At that age, the boys tended to stick together at one end of the room and the girls would be grouped at the other. Georgios and Michael Salousti sat underneath a table and proceeded to give a rousing rendition of ‘Daydreamer’. ‘We were just singing away, minding our own business,’ Michael recalls. ‘You can imagine the scene – a bunch of kids making a lot of noise. We thought we couldn’t be heard amongst all the chatter. We didn’t notice, however, when it all went very quiet. Mrs Ash had walked in and there we were still singing, “I’m just a Daydreamer, I’m walking in the rain …”

‘Suddenly, all we could hear were the other children laughing away. And there was Mrs Ash looking down at us, trying her best not to chuckle away as well. You could tell she was desperate to burst into laughter. So we had to creep out from under the table completely red-faced and embarrassed.’

Georgios didn’t regard this as his first public singing performance, preferring to remember the less awkward gang shows that he took part in as a member of the local scout troupe. They used to meet in a hall near the school and he would wander down every week with Kevin O’Reilly from next door.

Mostly, his musical tastes were very much middle-of-the-road and focused on the charts and what was playing on Radio 1. This was an age of flamboyance and the rather feminine world of glam rock, where pop stars seemed most worried about blow-drying their hair and pouting for the camera – and that was just the men. Image ruled as acts such as The Sweet, Mud and Gary Glitter hogged the charts. There was little room for autobiographical contemplation in the lyrics of hits like ‘Tiger Feet’ and ‘Blockbuster’.

The ten-year-old Georgios Panayiotou was impressed, but the three acts that had most impact on him then were Queen, Roxy Music and Elton John. They had much more credibility among music critics. Queen first appeared on Top of the Pops in March 1974, performing their debut hit ‘Seven Seas of Rhye’. Georgios became an instant fan, much to the amusement of his friend Michael, who would tease him about it: ‘I used to laugh at it. I would say, “Queen are rubbish, Georgios. Who likes Queen? Nobody likes Queen.”’ Surprisingly perhaps, he did not choose a Queen track when he appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2007, although he didn’t forget all his childhood favourites. He picked ‘Do the Strand’, released by Roxy Music when he was ten.

None of his friends were particular fans of Elton John. He was never an artist that inspired great devotion, but over the years he was a huge influence on the music of George Michael. The melodies of the suburban superstar from Pinner were a pleasure best enjoyed in quieter moments. He liked the catchy hit ‘Crocodile Rock’ and could often be heard singing, ‘I remember when rock was young, me and Suzie had so much fun’ in the garden. He much preferred it to the more aggressive ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ that often ended Elton’s shows.

The man born Reg Dwight had become one of the biggest superstars in the world despite a less-than-promising appearance. He was chubby, short-sighted, with an ongoing fixation with his hair, or lack of it, but was an aspirational figure for an impressionable ten-year-old boy from the suburbs – who was chubby, short-sighted and struggling with his hair.

At that age, Georgios pretty much liked everything in the charts, and that even included The Wombles; they featured in a school project he devised. ‘He could be very inspirational about certain things,’ observes Michael. ‘In our last year at junior school, we were put into groups and had to come up with a social project. So Georgios had the idea that we should all be Wombles. They were really popular at the time, clearing rubbish and keeping Britain tidy. The idea was to make things from the rubbish you collected. Georgios was very much the lead and took it upon himself to do the whole thing. He decided he wanted to be Orinoco, who was basically the most popular character. I had to make do with Uncle Bulgaria.

‘The best part was devising banners and posters with Mrs Ash that explained why you should keep the school tidy. We put them up around the school. It was such a success that we got commended by the headmaster in assembly.’

Once Georgios felt comfortable, he had the confidence and ability to take control and make something a success. It was one of the traits he inherited from his father.

Before he left Roe Green, further evidence of the precocious artistic nature of Georgios Panayiotou came to light. He contributed two poems to the junior school’s 1974 yearbook. They demonstrate a highly developed and mature sense of rhythm and imagination in someone so young. Neither is particularly cheery. The first, ‘The Story of a Horse’, is signed by Georgios Panayiotou, 4S. It began:

Once there was a lonely horse, weeping on a stack of hay

The gun was ready, the bullet was hot, the horse had broken a

leg that day

The second, entitled ‘Sounds in the Night’, was a freestyle verse signed Professor WhatsIsname (Alias G. Panayiotou 4S):

… Now what have I forgotten to tell you, I’m sure something slipped my

Tongue. Ah! Now I remember, you’ll guess what I have

To say to you … I am BLIND!!!

Georgios didn’t have far to go when he started senior school at Kingsbury High: it’s next door to Roe Green. He would not be settling in for the long haul, however. Jack had plans to take his family up to the next stage of middle-class Englishness: he wanted them to move to the countryside.

In January 1975, Jack bought a house on Oakridge Avenue, Radlett, that would be the family home for Georgios throughout his teenage years. The detached four-bedroom white house was simply stunning, although it required a great deal of initial building work to convert it into the spacious, stylish, open-plan Mediterranean-style mansion that Jack had set his heart on. It was at the end of the road; just green fields lay beyond, with trails that were a dog walker’s paradise. The back route into the centre of the pretty Hertfordshire town and its railway station was a brisk ten-minute walk.

They couldn’t move in immediately, so had to live in the flat above the restaurant in Station Road for a few months. Being able to eat in the Angus Pride all the time wasn’t ideal for his waistline and Georgios, who was prone to gaining a few extra pounds, was on the chubby side when they finally moved.

The restaurant was proving to be a great success. Some people found Jack Panos a little brash and extrovert, but his son was very gracious about what he called his dad’s ‘heroic effort’. Inevitably, Georgios was the product of both his father and his very English mother. Jack was an astute businessman; material wealth mattered to him. Lesley was a kind and generous soul who cared little for money. Georgios, too, was never motivated by money – much easier not to be when you have some – but he had his father’s strong will to succeed. He was, however, raised in very much a female household, spending most of his time with his mum and two sisters. The two girls also had a profound and underestimated influence on him: Yioda was thoughtful, serious and contained. Melanie was much more flamboyant and extrovert; she was also something of a mother hen where her kid brother was concerned. Georgios would prove to be a mix of both personalities.

The sisters had it much tougher than the son of the house, although he was indulged rather than spoiled. The girls were not even allowed to have boyfriends. And if they went out together, perhaps to the ice rink, then their younger brother would have to go along, too. A close friend observed that the sisters did have some difficult times dealing with their tough, patriarchal dad, particularly during their teenage years. As a boy, Georgios felt guilty that he always seemed to get his way whereas his two ‘wonderful’ sisters never did. He recalled, ‘I was always the one who was going to get the easy ride.’

Georgios would have to change schools when they eventually moved. As part of Jack’s master plan of social improvement for his family, he was keen to send his son to private school, but this was not greeted with any enthusiasm. In an early indication of his stubbornness and resolution, Georgios refused, feeling he would be more comfortable in a state school. He would soon be an adolescent teenager with the usual anxieties of that age; it would be hard enough in any new school but particularly one where he was concerned he would feel out of place: ‘My friends would have called me a sissy. Plus I would have been intimidated by it and I really didn’t want to be with those kinds of people.’

Faced with his son’s immovable ‘force field’, Jack relented and let Georgios have his way. Instead, he was enrolled in Bushey Meads School in Coldharbour Lane, Bushey, five miles away from his new home. There, he would soon meet someone who was to change his life.