I'M A COLUMNIST WINNER Fire up the Quatro for a Rock Chick (From Bournemouth Echo)

I'M A COLUMNIST WINNER Fire up the Quatro for a Rock Chick

7:00am Friday 3rd July 2009

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When Suzie Quatro sat astride a throbbing motorcycle and urged us to go down to Devilgate Drive, I knew that was the address I wanted to be at.

Not only that, but I desperately wanted to wear the full leather cat suit with that zip up the front and be a Rock Chick.

Life tends to never be quite what you hoped for though and being married at an early age and with two young sons left little space, or money to fulfil my fantasy. I had dated a leather jacketed Rocker with long greasy hair, a motorbike and a reputation as one of the “Stapehill Stallions” for which my brothers warned me off – perfect! Had to go out with HIM then! Was not prepared really when a John Lennon lookalike in a Beatle suit awaited me at the end of an aisle late one September as I walked towards him and gave this stranger a suspicious look.

Turned out he had always wanted two kids, a field of cows and me, who just happened to own a field! His motorbike swiftly became a Land Rover.

Undaunted, I weaned my sons, not to gentle strains of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, but Freddie Mercury and Queen belting out rock full blast; the mighty Meatloaf and Abba – yes, I know, but I liked them! I suppose the “Abba thing” should have given me a bit of a clue that I was never going to be a proper Rock Chick but hey, I was young and dared to be different. Also, with hindsight, I guess my first ciggie making me literally sick and alcohol making me fall over, were other signposts to my potential failure as a rising Rock Chick, but undaunted I dreamed on.

Friends sowed wild oats with curly haired hippies – I planted potatoes. Friends were tramping through the mud at Glastonbury – I bought pigs. Friends were wearing lycra and going to aerobics – I was wearing jeans and cleaning out cow sheds. The years flew past.

Now here I am, soon to be sixty, and although I still dream of the leather cat suit with the zip up the front, it’s my genes that need an iron now. My hot flushes would almost certainly turn me into a squeaky, sweaty, itchy heap like Ross in the famous episode of Friends when he attacked himself with copious amounts of talcum powder.

I never did have the throbbing motor bike and the wind rushing through my hair.

My car isn’t a Thelma and Louise convertible – it doesn’t even have a sunroof. The handsome giants I reared are older than I think I am and very respectable.

I am a grandmother – or should that be, we are a grandmother?

Is it too late to fulfil my dreams? Well, no, not quite. At the end of September John Lennon and me will have been married for 40 years.

We are planning a celebration with a night of Queen and Abba at full pelt, our sons who still know every word, and the very friends who also became respectable over the years. OK, maybe the leather cat suit with that tantalising zip will not be on the fashion walk that night, or indeed ever, but the Rock Chick inside lives on.

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