Celebrity stares

If you had asked me this time last year which celebrities I most disliked, I would have said Piers Morgan, Kerry Katona and Jade Goody.

I stand by my opinions of the odious Morgan and the talentless Katona. But casting aside my desire not to speak ill of the dead, my opinion of Jade softened during her heart-wrenching battle against cancer.

After her embarrassing antics on Big Brother, like most people, I soon dismissed Jade as an ignorant – but harmless – chav. But her appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, when she revealed herself to be an aggressive bully (and, some would argue, a racist), sent her soaring to the upper echelons of my hate list.

A few months later, I stood next but one to Jade, in a queue in the Loughton branch of Abbey. She was braying into a mobile at the top of her voice, with no consideration for anyone within earshot – which must have been half of Loughton. My opinion on her had only been reinforced. The thug she was dating and her foul-mouthed mother provided more fuel to the fire.

But as it became apparent that she was terminally ill, I started to see her in a different light. She was clearly a devoted mother and the fortitude with which she was battling her cancer was admirable. Yes, she was common and ignorant. But was she not just a product of a traumatic childhood and poor schooling? However ‘stupid’ (if a woman who made more than £5m in five years can be called stupid) someone is, they don’t deserve to die at the age of 27.

The day before her funeral, I decided to visit Jade’s house. I had a day off work, and I thought the three-mile walk through Epping Forest would be a pleasant way to spend a morning. I even took my camera with me – to take pictures of the woodland life, rather than anything more morbid. When I arrived in Upshire, I had to ask an elderly lady for directions. We had a conversation about what a tragedy Jade’s death had been.

Outside Jade’s house was a group of three middle-aged men, leaning against the bonnet of a car making small-talk. Paparazzi. As I looked at the rows of cards, flowers and poems, I was approached by a young woman and a man with a video camera. In a heavy accent, she asked me how far I had come. I said not far. She then asked me whether I would be willing to talk on camera about why I had come.

I was horrified. Of course I’m not going to appear on TV talking about the death of a woman famous for asking whether ‘East Angular’ was abroad. I made my excuses and left, with the camera crew looking disappointed (visitors were thin on the ground).

As I walked away, I tried to persuade myself that I had declined the opportunity because, like Chris Moyles or David Mellor, I have got the ‘perfect face for radio’. After all, I had twice been asked by Sky in the mid-1990s to talk about the all-too-regular crises at West Ham – a subject I can speak far more passionately about than I can on Jade Goody – and both times had refused. But the truth was, I was embarrassed to be outside Jade’s house and certainly didn’t want to advertise my presence beyond my immediate social circle (although this blog entry might seem to contradict this). What if someone I knew had seen me, however unlikely it was that anyone I had ever met watched cable TV in southern Europe.

It dawned on me that, although I did sympathise hugely with Jade’s family, my fascination by her death was curiosity that the sleepy corner of Essex in which I have spent the past 38 years was one of the focal points of the UK news. Jade met Jack in a nightclub half a mile from my flat, her boys went to the pre-prep school in Loughton that I attended in the early-1970s and her funeral was to take place at a church a couple of hundred yards from a school at which I spent seven years.

Consequently, the following morning, my mum and I were two of the first people to take our positions on Loughton High Road, opposite the beauty salon that Jade part owned, to watch the funeral procession pass by. We were surprised by how few people were on the streets, with only 30 minutes until the cortege was scheduled to pass through. We clearly weren’t the only ones fascinated by the event, though, as 20 minutes after the hearse was due to have passed by, the streets started to throng with people (the journey was being screened live on Sky). The police shut the main road, a helicopter buzzed overhead and TV crews and photographers appeared from nowhere. The crowds were soon five deep. Loughton had never been so busy.

As the hearse appeared in view, I had a sudden lump in my throat – funerals always remind me of the loved ones that I have lost. The crowd surged forward, as people threw flowers at the hearse and fought to take pictures of Jack, Jade’s mum and the rest of the party, as they walked solemnly behind the lead car. Although it was hardly a national outpouring of grief – I didn’t see a single person shed a tear – as I watched the cavalcade of cars carrying wreaths and mourners, the only comparison I could draw was with Princess Diana’s funeral.

Michael Parkinson was right when he said: ‘Her death is as sad as the death of any young person, but it’s not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di.’ He may well also have had a valid point when he described Jade as representing ‘all that is paltry and wretched about Britain today’. But when I have the chance to be present at what was, rightly or wrongly, the lead item on the evening news, like thousands of other people, I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity. I just hope that no one I knew saw me on the footage.