Soundtrack to my Life: "Camera Never Lies" by Bucks Fizz

Artist: Bucks Fizz
Track: Camera Never Lies/Label: RCA 202/Album: Are You Ready?/Release: 27th March 1982/Highest Chart Position: 1

“Count us in, Mark...”

I have the count ready in my head. A stick in each hand. On four, they will hit the symbol above each of my shoulders and the rest of the band will join on the beat, when I provide it. My right arm will swing over to the high hat on my left and my other arm will hover underneath, over the awaiting snare. The drumkit is not familiar to me. It does not belong to me.

Actually, I am still unsure about the position of the ride cymbal to my right and I wonder if I have time to fiddle with it a little. Having only had an hour’s practice and only ten minutes of that was with the Eighties superstar I am providing the accompanying backbone to and he is now peering over the toms at me to give me his signal to start.

I get a sudden rush of power, despite my rather inglorious position. It’s all down to me.

This is my one claim to fame.

That part of your life you cue up in surprise of all of those around you. The sort of unbelievable fact you produce when you are asked to perform an icebreaker task at the beginning of some work related course or seminar. The sort of funny story you bring up at a dinner party after you have emptied the third bottle of Merlot. It’s the kind of story that hushes a conference room or smoke filled dining table, normally reducing the people listening into sniggers and embarrasing guffawing at your expense.

“Hey, Mark.” Someone would always slur. “Tell us the Bucks Fizz story...”

Yes, I was the drummer in Bucks Fizz. For about an hour.

In March of 1981, the band’s first single, Making Your Mind Up entered the charts just before they represented the country with it in the Eurovision Song Contest. This particular year it was held in Dublin and we won, despite only two countries giving the United Kingdom entry the full 12 points, Israel and the Netherlands.

Our song narrowly beat the West German entrant, Lena Valaitis, by four points. The French and Swiss entries also performed well and it was close until the very end and even though most of the contest was between the French and the hosts, we nicked it at the end like theives in the night.

The UK have always been reasonable contenders in the competition. We had won the competition twice in the sixties and once in the seventies before the Bucks Fizz win. Lulu, Sandie Shaw and the mighty Brotherhood of Man. Ah, those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end.

Oh, that was Mary Hopkin? Nevermind.

I remember that close contest of ’81 with some fond memory and some anxiety. I can picture my mum on the edge of her seat, both of my parents egging on The Fizz and especially the skirt ripping routine which made them famous and probably nicked the title for them.

In the excitement and enthusiasm you have when you are younger, I was eager to try out the routine with my slightly younger sister, just like the boy/girl foursome on TV in front of us.
In the absence of velcro in my house, I had Kerry to hold a bath towel around her and fasten it with a bulldog clip so we could play at being The Fizz. Having purchased the record and contributing to that first number one of theirs, the first of three in their career, we used to copy the routine in the living room along to the record player. The size of my sister matched with the size of the bath towel wrapped around her a few times turned her into, instead of a nimble dancer, a potential human spinning top and in the essential skirt ripping part of the song, her makeshift costume performed less of a revealing action and more of a lunge. Yes, we didn't have to worry about being influenced by violence on TV, we had light entertainment. This launched her across the room and she banged her head on the edge of the sideboard.

I got in big trouble for that but then, I got in trouble a lot. My backside felt my father’s belt as it did on many an occasion, but none more so than when I attempted the Bucks Fizz Eurovision routine. Actually, I tell a lie. My old man was a lot handier than that with the strap. It got to the point where he would only have to motion to the buckle and begin to undo it or have my mother threaten me with a beating “when my father got home.”

I lived in fear of this man and his clothing accessory for many years, but I probably deserved it. I acted up a lot, but it was mostly due to the emotional surroundings that constantly brewed inside our council-rented home. Most memories of him involve in some way him turning red faced with anger and scrambling to undo his trousers, which would always be loose around his backside while he swung his belt at us. I found places to hide though from him, although my favourite nook was soon discovered.

“Where’s Mark?”

“Have you tried the airing cupboard?”

I loved that airing cupboard. I spent a lot of time in there. I used to while away the hours in the airing cupboard when there was nothing else to do. That part of the house saved my bacon a couple of times and supplemented a growing desire for solitude, espcially away from my father. I used to read the Asterix books in there, wrapped in warm fluffy towels and and the hand me down, scratchy woollen sheets.
One thing we had in our house were lots of towels and scratchy woollen sheets. My parents really made out like bandits at the wedding on the haberdashery front.
It was so warm and inviting in there and I soon realised that as long as I could climb high enough away from my father, I could pretty much keep away from his grasp the majority of the time. He used to try and climb into the cupboard which was at a height that wasn't advisable at tackling without the aid of a stepladder after a few pints and I could always rely on him to soak himself in a lot more of that. So much so that he once tried and fell backwards flat on his ass and when he was filled with alcohol, it never took much effort to fend him off by barricading myself in my room by pushing against the door. The long hair carpets that were fashionable at the time probably did me a lot of favours come to think about it, as they aided in my struggle to keep him at bay. Then, as long as I could ignore the shouting and threats long enough he eventually gave up to often sleep off his drunken stupor or start a fight with my mother, who would be cowering downstairs.

I quite often woke to the beatings though. He soon sussed me and my hiding places out and took to biding his time till later in the evening, catching me unawares like you would in some sort of military operation. Often he would drag me from my bed and throw me against the wardrobe, in order to stun me while he started unbuckling away in the dark. He used to bait my younger sister in the bed next to me as he took his anger out on me, warning her that she would be next if she wasn’t quiet.

We were resigned to being at our most vunerable there, often waking in the middle of the night, bent over a grown man's knee, screaming with excruciating innocence. This didn’t help our sleep patterns or our moods any either. I told her not to worry, that he would concentrate his energies to me and to try and return to her sleep. I would make sure of that.

He was a wonderful man when he was sober, despite him always cheating on my mother. He loved his children and always had a lot of love for us. When he was in the house and bedtime came around, he made sure we went knowing that he loved us more than anything in his world.


It was never the same for me and The Fizz after that first album and by the end of 82, they seemed to have entered into some pre-Frankie goes to Hollywood style PVC phase. My mum bought me the single, If You Can’t Stand the Heat, probably remembering the fuss I made at their first two singles. She must have thought I was a mad Bucks Fizz fan by then. But I never played it. Not only did I not like the song, it reminded me of the Eurovision beating and the band looked silly on the cover, dressed in motorcycle uniforms. That may have been one of many times that James Dean (or the image of) was cool again. They appeared on Top of the Pops in full fetish club mode and despite appreciating that look in years to come, it was just wrong and they never reached the same dizzying heights of chart stardom they had previously enjoyed again. In fact, the UK wouldn't actually win Eurovision again for another 16 years.

In the nineties, with constant voting changes and a new breed of Eastern European entrants and Scandinavian winners, another drought for this country started until Katrina and the Waves came along in 1997 and by that time (a year earlier), I would actually have grown and ended up in a position where I could not only meet the previous winners but actually also end up performing with the band.

But how did this happen? How on earth did I (a failed redcoat and barman in a holiday camp on the south coast) end up being the backbone of one of the most successful english pop groups of the eighties? For one night only. How did a relative loser like me play with one of the greatest English pop acts?

Well, I make a great cappucino.

It was the summer of ’96, England hosted the European Football championships and it was Three Lions fever thanks to David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and a particular melodic anthem adapted from an old dockside workers protest song. Jules Rimet was still gleaming and Gareth Southgate missed THAT penalty against Germany in the semi finals. I was working at Butlins in Bognor Regis. After originally gone there to be a redcoat and lasting a matter of weeks, I ended up in the bars, or behind them should I say. But that’s another story.

Through a series of interesting misfortunes and madcap occurances, I ended up looking after the bar in the restaurant that overlooked the main showbar. That Summer, the pop group of my yesteryear, Bucks Fizz played on Sunday nights.
Bobby Gee was the only one left from the original Eurovision winning skirt ripping line up. Mike Nolan had just left and had been replaced by David Van Day, from Dollar. The two original girls, Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston had been replaced earlier by two leggy models, one of which Bobby eventually married.

Incidentally, the line-up has completely changed again since and alone Bobby holds the fizzing torch in the official Fizz. Mike Nolan actually reunited recently with Cheryl Baker and Shelley Preston (who replaced Aston) to form another Bucks Fizz. This was subject to a much publicised controversy over the name, and despite Shelley, Mike and Cheryl performing Making your Mind Up as Bucks Fizz at a 2005 Eurovision special, Bobby Gee’s group now own the legendary monkier.

Before every show, Bobby Gee sat at my bar and drank cappucino as it warmed up his vocal chords. Not very rock n’roll, I know. I’m sorry. I know I really have some scandalous tale of rock star excess at this point, but it really wasn’t like that. Bobby was curteous, polite and just sat and drank his cappucino and talked either to me or on his phone. Anyway, I didn’t need Bobby to be madcap and like some insane Axl Rose character as I got enough of that from the managers floating around the camp every night.
Towards the end of their weekly run through the Summer Season, myself and Bobby got on first name terms and I have to admit, I had gotten to quite enjoy the music. But by the 20th show, I didn’t really have much choice. I had even taken to humming the melodies and singing along to Bucks Fizz songs throughout the week, while I was stocktaking or washing glasses, which drove my colleagues nuts. But it was either that, Marilyn Manson or the favourite song of the club DJ around this time which was played at least twice nightly, Wonderwall by Oasis, so I think they got a better deal.

It was Camera Never Lies that seemed to stick in my head the most and embarrasingly had found myself being able to recite the lyrics to the songs along with the group as they performed.

The weeks had gotten so repetitive and my Sunday became so predictable, it had gotten to the point where Bobby’s cappucino was waiting for him, frothy and steaming on the bar top at exactly the same time every week, which Bobby had started to find really amusing. This took a few weeks and a few lukewarm cappucinos to perfect, but the look on his face was always worth it. The four members of of Bobby Gee’s Bucks Fizz toured alone and played their set every week and ran through those unforgettable routines with the house band from each camp.

Towards the end of that Summer, somebody thought it would be a good idea to erect a set of trampolines on Main Street. The queues for the new addition stretched down the street during the day and of course, being major purveyors of drunken lunacy that holiday camps are, people broke into the shoddy netting at night to have a bounce on their way back to their chalets.

The night before the final Bucks Fizz set, the drummer from the house band joined the other holidaymakers in an illicit bounce at 3am. He returned the next day with his arm in a cast and frantic calls were made around the South Coast to arrange a replacement for the errant sticksman. A rather perplexed and concerned Booby Gee had the news broken to him during his weekly italian beverage and chat to me. The verdict was not good. They will probably have to cancel the show due to lack of drummer. Bobby was not happy and the Entertainments Manager seemed more concerned about having to eat his words in front of me rather than solving the problem, before leaving him with a promise that he was awaiting to hear from someone suitable in nearby Brighton.

I think that had rather more to do with our previous run in with the Redcoat job. Long story short, he put a major spanner in the works that was my life when he informed me quite clearly that he didn’t want the likes of me representing his department.

“I’ll play for you, Bobby.” I joked, when the Entertainments Manager had left. I must admit, a small part of me was doing this to both seek revenge impress and make the Redcoat manager mad.

“You might have to.” He laughed. He sipped his coffee and paused.

“Can you play?”

“Yeah, I used to play in a blues band back home. My main influence drum wise is punk rock though”

Poor Bobby blinked very hard.

“We’re not exactly the blues or that punk, although I used to be.”

“True, but I have stood here for the last 25 weeks and watched your set. I know all of your cues and can probably remember the setlist, seeing as you have played the same one all Summer.”

Hours later, I was sat behind the drum stool and made my stage debut for an Eighties pop group. Eurovision Winners, no less. Camera Never Lies was the one song in the set I had been itching to play. I just warmed to the drum beat and the melody. They have this odd little off time break in the song I could really let loose on. So I did. All my friends from the restaurant broke the “No Staff in the Showbar without Permission” rule and jumped around at the front of the stage.

I milked the experience for everything I could. I wasn’t playing for the house band at some none descript holiday camp on the south coast. I was Keith Moon on Live at Leeds. Roger Taylor at Wembley. Charlie Watts in Hyde Park. Lars Ulrich at Donington. I didn’t care.

Boy, did I make those guys work.

I rocked and it was probably the fastest set they have ever played.