I Owe You Nothing. Luke Goss

close to Denis, who he regards as nothing less than his father.

      I have no sense of loss through not seeing them any more as they never figured in my childhood; but I do know how important my father has been in my life, and how vulnerable I am sometimes because of the times when I felt rejected by him, so I have a lot of sympathy for his difficulties with his own father.

      Throughout my early teen years, my relationship with Mum, Tony and Dad was fraught at times – and with my stepmother Margaret I ceased to have any relationship. She objected to the way we dressed and did not want to be seen with us. It reached the stage where we only wanted to visit their house if we knew she was not going to be there. Dad admits that he wasn’t too keen on our taste in clothes (he says we both looked like the Thin White Duke, dressed all in white with long blond hair), but he took the line that we were well-behaved, polite and had never given him any serious cause for worry, so he was not going to make an issue over the way we dressed.

      The first time that we came face to face with Margaret’s rejection of us was when we were going with Dad to a Divine concert at the Lyceum. It’s hard to know how to describe Divine: he was a fat, camp entertainer whose very bizarreness accounted in part for his success. Another large part of his success was that he was managed (until his death in 1988) by Bernard Jay.

      Bernard has been a friend of Dad’s (and Mum’s) since Dad was first a bobby on the beat in the 1970s. Bernard was general manager of the Mermaid Theatre, and one day Dad popped into the theatre, in uniform, to get out of the rain. He was on duty escorting the Lord Mayor of London to the College of Arms, and was not needed again until it was time for the Lord Mayor to leave. Bernard took pity on him and plied him with coffee and brandy, and while chatting discovered how hard up Dad and Mum were. After that, he took the trouble to invite them to every first night party at the theatre.

      They both appreciated it: it was a sparkling break from the routine of bringing up two small children on a tight budget, and the only problem they had was finding suitable things to wear. Everything else was laid on free for them.

      Bernard has remained a fixture in our lives since then. We were never christened so we don’t officially have a godfather, but Bernard has always been like one to us. After he took over management of Divine he invited us to the show at the Lyceum, and we were thrilled to accept.

      I was genuinely upset when Dad told us that Margaret had decided that she preferred not to go if we were going to be there. Although Matt and I did not get on with her, we were sad for Dad’s sake that this night out became a showdown, putting him more or less in a position of having to choose between us and her. I’m glad he stood up to her and chose us that night; it was a breakthrough, as though he were saying ‘She’s not going to stand between us any more, guys.’ I remember feeling so happy that he had made a move for us.

      Dad thinks that we were feigning being upset at Margaret’s absence, but that is not so. We felt hurt at the rejection, even from someone who we knew did not like us. I always hoped, while Dad was still with Margaret, that for his sake she would try to rebuild a relationship with us, but she never did.