Column
It’s a funny old world
THIS WEEK’S COLUMNIST Singer and presenter Cheryl Baker
I can’t quite believe that my twin daughters Natalie and Kyla are turning 30 this year. I was doing a lot of presenting when they were young, so they assumed that all mums were on telly. They didn’t know any better until they went to primary school, aged four. They came home and said to me, ‘Mummy, you lied to us. We know your real name is Cheryl Baker!’ I said, ‘No, my real name is Rita!’ – which it is. I then had to explain it all to them.
They didn’t know anything about Bucks Fizz because I didn’t ever sit down and say, ‘Look, this is what Mummy did in the 80s.’ I had to go through the whole thing, and show them videos and interviews.
When they saw the video of Bucks Fizz performing Making Your Mind Up at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981, they were shocked when our skirts came off. It’s funny that it is still shocking to some people now!
From then on, the twins wanted to listen to all our music, and they love both our old and new stuff. In fact, when we play a gig at Indigo at The O2 later this year, they are going to be our backing singers.
Kyla came out to my husband Steve and me as gay when she was 20 and uses the ‘they’ pronoun. I was relieved and happy that she felt able to be so open with us.
In the 80s, if you were a gay pop star, you had to pretend you were straight and single so fans liked you more. I’m so glad the world has opened up, but there is still prejudice and people can be rough with their tongue. Kyla has had a few negative experiences.
Kyla has created a musical called Public, which was the hot ticket at Edinburgh Festival last year. They wrote the music and Natalie helped co-write the lyrics. It’s touring this year and I’m so proud. Natalie is also a dance teacher, so I think my husband and I have rubbed off on them.
They grew up in a very musical household because Steve [Stroud] is a bass player. He plays with The Fizz now, but he worked with Cliff Richard for 20 years. We’ve got guitars in every room of the house, as well as a studio, so during lockdown we were like the �
