|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
Regina
Hello everybody, you want to know more about me?  Well, I was born on January 19th 1964, in Gelsenkirchen, which is a town in the
coalmining area of Germany. I still live and love and work here. Once it was a
typical working man city, in the meantime coal mining is an almost extinct
branch of industriy. The city tries to convert its image to a city of management
and service, but as such a conversion takes several years, our city is still
affected by unemployment in the first place.The most famous attraction the city bore, is our football club “Schalke04”, which brought the city international attention. It also brought us the fifa worldcup 2006 which made our little city worldwide famous for about 4 weeks. In early school days I had a best friend. She was fan of a band, which was very famous and successful at that time. No pop-magazine without a report about them, no music-show on radio or TV without them. At that time schoolgirls were cut into three camps: some loved Smokie and hated the Bay City Rollers, some loved the Bay City Rollers and hated Smokie, and some sneered at such pop groups fans at all. I, for one, listened to the enthusiasm of my best friend, to her records and had a look at her magazines and belonged to the first mentioned camp of schoolgirls outright. At this time a long story of passion began. Throughout the years it assumed different forms and colours, but after all it lasts until today. The first years where affected by heavy discussions with my parents. I didn’t have enough pocket money for all the magazines I wanted to buy or for buying the new records as soon as they were released. I had to go to bed early and couldn’t watch late TV shows, so I missed several Smokie performances, and my parents didn’t allow me to go to concerts before I was 14 years old. So it was the end of 1978 when I visited a Smokie concert for the first time. Mexican Girl was the big hit of Smokie at that time. The concert was sold out with 12.000 people, this was the biggest hall all over Europe. A year later I first met my friend Ulrike on another Smokie-Concert. A friendship began, that lasts until today. This was the last Smokie-Tour in Germany for many, many years. So in the end, as Smokie didn’t come to us, we decided to go to Smokie. In June 1985 we set out on searching and finding Smokie in England. There we met Alan Silson, Terry Uttley and Pete Spencer. When we met Alan, the first thing he told us was that Smokie go on tour in Germany in autumn of that year. He told us about a charity-concert in support of the victims of the Bradford fire disaster. Smokie enjoyed playing together again that much, that they re-united. This three weeks holiday in Yorkshire and the following Smokie-Tour through Germany established a totally new Smokie-feeling. The personal contact changed it from slobbering over Smokie to feeling friendship with each of them. The very next summer we spent another holiday in Yorkshire. In the local pub we first met Terry, who had some very shocking news for us. Chris Norman had a huge success with a solo-song in 1986. We were appalled about that news. Just having our favourite lads back after so many years and now Chris was leaving. We both thought the same: This is the end of Smokie. Terry saw our faces, smiled and said although Chris is leaving, Smokie go on doing their thing and they have a new singer – a great new singer. We could see him, if we like, tomorrow lunchtime. Terry told us that he would come to meet Alan Silson and him here in the pub to go to Alan’s home studio to do some work. If we like???? And how we liked! Terry mentioned “if somebody is coming in and at the first sight you think it’s Chris coming in – that’s Alan, our new singer.” So we were sitting in the pub next day’s lunch time. A man came in, but it was not Chris Norman - the only common thing I could realise was blond hair. It was a small, slim man, in black leather jacket and black trousers. Soft flaxen hair fell on his shoulders. In my eyes, an extremely good looking guy. The way he moved, the way he smiled – it just took my breath away from the first sight.  In late summer of 1986 another Smokie-Tour through Germany started. It was the
last tour with Chris Norman. During this tour I met a very nice girl from
Netherlands – Jeanny. We became friends at once. She ran the Dutch
Smokie-Fanclub at that time. As Chris success was really huge, and Smokie went
on, she had to part the fanclub into two. But after all it was too much work to
manage two fanclubs, so I suggested to help her with making the
Smokie-Fanclub-Magazine. So I did until spring 1988. We had some different
opinions towards the Fanclub work – so we stopped doing this together. From that
time on there was no Smokie Fanclub at all.In May 1988 the German Smokie fans first saw a concert with Alan Barton. So did I and had a chance to talk to him for the first time. After this concert a time when Smokie were in Germany nearly constantly began. After about half a year, it happened that I talked to John Wagstaff an evening long, and this conversation led to the fact that he talked me into running the “Official Smokie Fanclub – wordwide.” And many of my friends sitting at the same table said to me “do it – do it – that’s it.” But I couldn’t manage a fanclub like this alone. So in the end, my friends agreed on doing this together with me and I could say “ok, we will do it”. So that’s what I did during the following years, beside normal work. At the meantime, I worked in a company for public transports, since I left school. I still work there, making concepts for tariff provisions, terms of transportations, throughout charges and stuff like this. The fanclub work was hard work, but a very loveable work, because I always had the biggest motivation a fan could have: Alan Barton worked together with me all the time. I will never ever forget the first time I answered my phone and it was Alan on the other side – calling me…. I think, we did good work, because we always worked so close together with Smokie, as well as so close together with Smokie’s fans, as we were Smokie-fans also. After some time, I got a new job in the same company, more responsibility, much more responsibility, and I had to take it seriously. This was the time, when Bigs took over my job in the fanclub. I couldn’t do it anymore that intensive, I had to work about 10 hours a day, and did a lot of learning on my new work after that. So I reduced my job with the fanclub to printing layout of the magazine. In 1992 I got to know my later husband. He didn’t like me doing all those things, I think he was very jealous of everything concerning Smokie or Chris Norman. I stopped going to concerts, stopped relations to Alan, Alan, Terry and Chris, and even the relations to all the friends I had. I got married in 1993, my beloved daughter was born in 1994, I parted from my husband in 2003, I was divorced in June 2005 and now I’m free again. So here I am, helping Marybaby with her brilliant project as good as I can, trying to do some good work for Alan and Dean Barton’s online presence. Make it a place to meet for all the fans and friends of the man who deserves all our love and make it a place for all fans and friends of his son Dean, for information about him, his music, his band and for all the love we have for him as a brilliant musician as well as a very lovable guy. So let’s do it – cheers to everybody out there, yours Regina |
 |
Copyright 2006. All Rights Reserved. Webmaster: Marybaby Ðàçðàáîòêà ñàéòà: Ïðèâàëîâ Âÿ÷åñëàâ |