One Chance (14 page)

The evening of the competition came around quickly. To say I felt uneasy would be an understatement. Not only was there
the singing, but I had to come up with a costume. I had the tuxedo that I used to wear to Bristol Catholic Players concerts, but by now this was way too big for me. I'd started going to the gym after taking up football and had lost three stone (about forty-two pounds) in less than three months. The tuxedo was now hanging off me, so I had to borrow a couple of cushions and stick them up my shirt to give myself a huge belly.

The next problem was the beard. I went to the joke shop in central Bristol and bought a fake beard. The shop had run out of PVA glue, which is what is used on stage to stick on false beards, so I had to use what I could get hold of. The glue stick I used might have been great for gluing photos and cuttings into a scrapbook, but it was hopeless at sticking a false beard to a face.

That night the pub was full of colleagues from Tesco, and they hadn't come empty-handed. As I took to the stage, I could see
bagfuls
of tomatoes at hand, ready to pelt me if I was rubbish. As I started to sing, I could feel my beard beginning to slip down my chin, and by the end of the performance most of it had ended up on the floor. The singing aspect of my performance, thankfully, was far more successful. To my relief, the rotten tomatoes stayed in their bags: my co-workers were shocked and surprised that I could sing. I didn't end up winning the competition—it was judged on singing
and
costume—but that didn't matter. I had found my calling.

That joy was to be tempered with shock over the coming two weeks. The next day, I was due to start jury service. I had done jury service once before, while I was a verger at St. Mary Radcliffe Church. I'd found it a fascinating experience, although I
had hoped to serve on a more interesting case than the road rage incident we got, and which failed to have any convincing evidence.

How I was to regret wanting to have a more “interesting” case. I had spent a day or two waiting to be called, when I and fourteen others were ushered into the courtroom. I was one of twelve chosen in what was to be a tough case for me to deal with: the sexual abuse of an eleven-year-old girl by her father.

The girl was now thirteen, and because her father had pleaded not guilty, she was forced to give evidence against him. That she gave her evidence via video link made it an even more harrowing experience. The interview from the prosecuting barrister was kindly, but still all too revealing, with graphic detail of the abuse she had endured—abuse from someone who should have had nothing but love for her.

It angered me when the defence barrister started to question her on behalf of the girl's father. To me it seemed as if the daughter was on trial, not the accused. The defence barrister tried to suggest she had invented what had happened. If she told the court she had made up the whole thing, the barrister promised she wouldn't be in any trouble. His tone wasn't unkind, but you could sense the determination with which he wanted to have his client acquitted. His constant suggestions that she had been lying made me feel uncomfortable.

I could see that the daughter was telling the truth. I recognized the signs. I could tell by how withdrawn she was, and by the pain in her eyes. There was no way that she was telling lies, and there was no way that what her father was accused of could have been an innocent misunderstanding. He had made her perform a sex act on him; it was not a case of a disputed kiss.

I found myself in a difficult position. I
knew
she was telling the truth, but I couldn't tell my fellow jurors why I knew it. Watching that slight little girl bravely give her testimony made me feel like a coward and a weakling. I had never reported the abuse by Burton-Barri, and I could see more reasons to never go to the police. Seeing how strong she had been in the face of the accusation of lying by the defence barrister, I was unsure I would have been the same.

The judge told the jury that in the absence of physical evidence, the case would come down to whom we believed the most. The girl's bravery in taking the stand and speaking about what she had been through had impressed me. The whole jury unanimously found him guilty. There was satisfaction that we had put away the bad guy, but I didn't feel empowered. I knew I wouldn't have had the courage to do what she had done.

As difficult as the case had been, nothing was to prepare me for what happened next. With my jury service not yet over, I returned to Bristol Crown Court the following week and waited to find out when I would be called again. As it could be quite a long time before a decision was made, jurors were encouraged to bring with them something to read or listen to. On Tuesday, I finished the book I brought to read and picked up a discarded copy of the
Bristol Evening Post
.

As I leafed through it, my heart skipped a beat. Accompanying one news article was the photo of someone I could never forget: Victor Burton-Barri, the Sea Cadet leader who had abused me ten years before. As I read the article, it became clear that I wasn't his only target. Burton-Barri had pleaded guilty to thirty-three
charges of indecent assault and obscene images and three charges of indecency with children, and was now in prison. The report stated that he had been jailed for his offences, for a total of fourteen and a half years.

I tried to take this information in. I should have felt relieved: Burton-Barri had been locked up and couldn't abuse any more children. Instead, I felt the opposite. As with the sex abuse case I'd been a juror on, I felt like a fraud; like a coward. The other victims had come forward and been able to tell their story. I had simply absorbed it inside myself, perhaps never to tell what had happened. I had done what I had always done when faced with a problem I felt I couldn't cope with: I had run away. I had told myself that if I didn't admit it had happened, then it really hadn't.

I didn't just feel powerless and weak; I also felt the firm vice-like feeling of guilt. It had been twelve years since the abuse from Burton-Barri started. What had I said to him? Nothing. What had I said to anyone else? Again, nothing. I had passed him on the street in Fishponds some years before. Had I pointed the finger at my abuser? No! I had gone on pretending it had never happened, because admitting it would be like admitting I was worthless.

The “what ifs?” started in my mind. How many other children had he abused after me? If I'd had the courage to come forward, how many other children would have been spared abuse at his hands? I blamed myself, not just for allowing him to touch me, and not just for being unable to defend myself. Through my own inadequacies, I had enabled him to abuse countless other children.

It was my fault. I'd known it all this time, and yet I had remained silent. It was in the past, so I couldn't change it. God
knows, at that stage in my life I had wanted to scream “STOP IT!” To report it and see him punished for what he had done to me, and to stop him from going on to abuse other children.

I remembered that poor girl in court having to take the cross-examination from the defence barrister. How would
I
have coped with that? Would I have wilted? I didn't know. All I could be sure of was that because I was a coward, other children would forever be blighted by abuse that could have been avoided. I feel that guilt even today, although now that I'm older I realize that I was his victim, and like many victims, I was simply too terrified to come forward.

There was one silver lining to the dark cloud I had been under during jury service: the ITV quiz show
My Kind of Music
was doing local auditions for singers. I had missed the Bristol date due to jury service, but when my service ended a day early, I had another chance: I could use my unexpected day off to go up to London and take part in the next audition.

My Kind of Music
was a mixture of game show and singing competition. I had been uncertain about applying, but some of the other karaoke singers at the Horn and Trumpet encouraged me to audition. After much pushing, they got an application form and made me fill it in. They then sent it off on my behalf, to stop me from “not getting round” to posting it.

On a dull, dank day, I got on the National Express bus bound for London and headed down to the auditions, which took place in a Brixton dance studio. There was a pianist there, and a panel of three to sing in front of. I performed “Nessun Dorma” again, using the same backing-track CD I had used in the Horn and
Trumpet (although this time I left the false beard at home). The panel's response was difficult to gauge, and I started the long journey back to Bristol with no idea whether or not I had been successful.

A few days later, however, I got a letter saying I had been selected to perform at the next level. This time it wouldn't be in a private room in front of a handful of people: the next audition was to be held in public, in a shopping mall: Merry Hill Shopping Centre in Dudley, in the West Midlands. To add to the tension, the TV company would be filming the auditions, with only a select few going on to the final stages of the competition.

Being typically last minute, I still hadn't memorised the words to “Nessun Dorma.” As my audition time crept closer, it dawned on me that I was going to look an idiot standing up there with a book in my hand. Sometimes at karaoke I'd bring my own tracks with me, so I was used to singing without the words coming up on the screen. Usually I listened to the sample vocal supplied with the backing track. I would listen to the track repeatedly, and then the words would embed themselves in my mind.

In the familiar surroundings of the Horn and Trumpet, the method was fine. But this was completely different. The shopping mall was packed with thousands of people, and there were cameras all round to catch any mistakes. A researcher came over and told me I needed to make my way to the sound desk in the next ten minutes. That was all the time I had to learn the words!

As I made my way to the stage, it wasn't just the audience I was nervous of, but also the host of the show. Michael Barrymore
was one of the hottest properties on British TV at the time. He was incredibly tall, towering over me as I took my place, and had great charisma. He'd enjoyed a string of successful TV shows, a well-known catchphrase in the form of “Awright?” and held audiences in the palm of his hand. He was also well known for being unpredictable. As I was waiting my turn, I watched him trying to distract the other contestants, much to the delight of the audience.

I didn't have to wait long to find out what he had in store for me. The very short introduction to “Nessun Dorma” didn't give me much time to settle, and as I sang (in very bad Italian indeed), Michael grabbed a baby from a mother standing close by.

“Do you mind?” he shouted at me, to huge laughter. “You've woken the baby!”

I did my best to keep my composure. Thankfully, Michael didn't disturb me at all after that. I got to the end of the song and was met with a great reaction from both the audience and Michael.

“That was incredible, Paul,” he said. “I'm sure we're going to hear more from you.”

To my delight, I was selected for the final stages of the competition, which took place in a TV studio in London. The setup of the show was that each singer teamed up with a friend or colleague. Each duo answered quiz questions and demonstrated songs for the other to guess. I thought carefully about my choice of partner, and asked Steve Lenton, the brother of a work colleague. He was very successful in local quizzes and had appeared on one or two TV shows before. Steve was clever, quiet, and very
easy to like. We spent the evening before the recording testing each other on quiz questions.

It would be some time before the show was broadcast in the spring of 1999. When I performed “Nessun Dorma,” Michael Barrymore was amazed by the power coming from my small body; at the time I weighed under ten stone (about a hundred fifty pounds).

“Can you believe THAT came from that little body?” he said to the audience. “Incredible!”

I was reasonably happy with my singing, although I was acutely aware that I didn't understand the language I was singing in. The show itself only gave me a limited amount of attention. In fact, in its review of the show, the
Daily Mirror
got me mixed up with my quiz show partner. They described “Steve Lenton's” performance of “Nessun Dorma” as amazing!

The lack of fame didn't bother me; that wasn't why I went for it. It wasn't really a talent show as such, but a quiz show with singers. Here, Steve and I complemented each other well. To our amazement, a few of the questions we had tested each other on actually came up during the quiz. This included the final question in the jackpot round.

“Who wrote the song ‘Lady'?” Michael asked.

Steve and I looked at each other. We knew it was Lionel Richie, even though Kenny Rogers had sung it first and made it famous. To our delight, and to cheers from the audience, we won £16,000 between us.

There was quite a discussion at work about how the money should be split. Many of my Tesco colleagues felt I should take
two-thirds, as we wouldn't have made it on the show at all without my singing. I was adamant, however. We were a team, and therefore we would split it equally. I knew exactly what I wanted to spend my share on. I wanted to start taking singing lessons and also do something about my teeth.

My luck, it seemed, was beginning to turn.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Singing Abroad