George: A Memory of George Michael. Sean Smith

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       Yogi

      The boy who would grow up to become George Michael had an unruly shock of black curly hair, a sensitive nature and the weight of parental hopes on his shoulders. He was much loved and indulged, in keeping with his status as the only male child in a Greek-Cypriot household, but was aware of his responsibilities from a young age. He needed to make something of his life.

      His mother and father toiled long hours to give their family the best possible life. He witnessed his beloved mum endlessly scrubbing her hands to rid them of the smell from the local fish and chip shop where she worked extra hours to help provide for her son and his two elder sisters. Their labours eventually paid off and by the time George was a teenager, they lived in an affluent neighbourhood and he could treat his girlfriend to a drive in his dad’s swanky Rolls-Royce. That luxury had been a million miles away when he was born Georgios Panayiotou in a modest house in Church Lane, an unprepossessing street in East Finchley, North London.

      His beginnings were only relatively humble, however, especially when compared to his father’s start in life as one of seven children sharing a house in the rural Cypriot village of Patriki on the north-eastern Karpas Peninsula of the island, about twenty miles from the fishing port of Famagusta. In 2004, George released a song called ‘Round Here’, a nostalgic contemplation of his origins. It began with the memorable line: ‘My daddy got here on the gravy train’, which suggested his father had an easy time of it, making lots of money for very little effort. Perhaps he was having a gentle joke at his father’s expense, because that certainly wasn’t the case.

      Patriki was not a place for an ambitious young man like Kyriacos Panayiotou to make his fortune. There was no easy money to be had in Cyprus where, traditionally, the men rolled up their sleeves and worked as farm labourers and fishermen while the women stayed home and raised often very large families. In this conventional community, the father of the house was very much the boss.

      Nowadays, Cyprus is a wonderful destination for tourists, thrilled to sample its rich history and legends, its fabulous Mediterranean cuisine, to gaze at calm seas, olive and lemon groves and bask in the countless hours of warm sunshine. This, as the tourist guides will tell you, is Aphrodite’s island, where in Greek mythology the goddess of love was born in the sea foam and drifted to the eastern shore in a seashell. One of the most famous paintings of all, Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, depicts her arrival.

      Cyprus, historically, had always been vulnerable to military aggression. It was a gateway to both East and West and therefore of great strategic value. The island was still part of the British Empire when Kyriacos was growing up. In the early 1950s, when he left school and started trying to find work, tensions were tightening between the majority Greek population and the Turkish communities.

      When he was eighteen, Kyriacos took the bold step of seeking to establish a new life overseas. He chose to try his luck in Britain. In the post-war years, the United Kingdom was suffering from a chronic labour shortage and sought to recruit workers from Commonwealth countries by encouraging immigration with promises of a better life.

      He found an ally in his cousin, Dimitrios Georgiou, known to his friends as Jimmy, who was an apprentice tailor and looking to build a career abroad. Kyriacos had little training to fall back on – just the work he had been able to pick up as a waiter back home. Jimmy’s son, Andros Georgiou, explained, ‘Our fathers came off the banana boat together. Though they didn’t admit it, part of the reason they came was to flee National Service. They arrived in London with less than a pound in their pockets.’

      Although the comment is slightly tongue-in-cheek, it’s true that the young men avoided being called up for two years in the military, which was the law at that time. Leaving such a tight community was a wrench for both of them, and they would always try to send a few pounds back to their families from the little they earned in London. They arrived in Britain in 1953 at a time of some optimism that a new age was beginning, best epitomised by the Coronation in June of the new Queen, Elizabeth II. At Epsom, Gordon Richards finally won the Derby and in August the Ashes were regained. And rationing was coming to an end at last.

      The cousins headed for the burgeoning Greek-Cypriot community in North London where they could find cheap lodgings. Jimmy found work as a tailor’s assistant in South London while Kyriacos made do with menial jobs in shops and restaurants. They both enjoyed the freedom of their new adventure. Aware that his name was a mouthful for prospective employers, neighbours and, most importantly girlfriends, Kyriacos Panayiotou decided to call himself Jack Panos. He worked hard and played hard, having no shortage of female admirers around the coffee shops and dancehalls of North London.

      The age of rock and roll was just beginning, when the sound of Bill Haley & His Comets and later Elvis Presley made going out so much more fun than it used to be. Jack revelled in his new freedom, far away from the disapproval of his father. He also looked the part with a fifties-style quiff and chiselled movie-star looks. ‘When he was very young, my dad was very handsome,’ recalled the adult George in his autobiography, published when he was still in his twenties.

      At one dance, Jack met a radiantly pretty local girl called Lesley Harrison, who lived at home with her family in one of a labyrinth of then depressing and poor streets between Archway and Highgate. Lulot Street was a typical example, consisting of a line of Victorian terraced houses with outside toilets that George later described as ‘very working class’. His grandfather, George Harrison, had worked for the Post Office as a telephone mechanic. The street itself was demolished in the 1970s to make way for modern flats. In ‘Round Here’, George was perhaps more accurate in his description of his mother, saying she had a ‘real bad start to the game’.

      Lesley was always well spoken with a soft and easy manner – she never sounded as if she should be behind the bar of the Queen Vic. According to George, it was only when her own mother – George’s grandmother, Daisy – died that she discovered she was half Jewish. Apparently, she had been disowned by her wealthy Jewish family for marrying a gentile.

      The families who lived in her neighbourhood of North London were back then very old-fashioned in their views regarding immigrants. Greeks were placed firmly in the unwelcome category. George would later hear stories of those days from his parents: ‘There were places that would say, “No blacks, no Irish, no Greeks, no dogs” kind of thing.’ That attitude failed to deter Lesley, who fell in love with her dancing partner. ‘My parents were rock and roll dancers,’ George explained. ‘They met at a dance and my father used to throw my mother all over the show.’

      They were