Where Do You Go To My Lovely? 1969

Croydon. 2020.

It’s so weird knowing there’s this version of yourself out there, all naked and public and exposed, all exaggerated and twisted and distorted. I used to wonder if this was how Dora Maar felt when she looked at Weeping Woman, or how Pattie Boyd felt when she heard Layla, or how Lee Miller felt when she saw Man Ray’s photos of her. The first time I heard the song, I took no real notice at all. Why would I? I lived in Croydon, always had. I worked in Budgen’s. I did a Pitman’s shorthand typing course. I’d never met an Aga Khan. I didn’t even know what one was. I didn’t like the Rolling Stones. I loved Motown, didn’t really like boys’ music.

Pete used to follow me around like a little puppy, telling me to listen to Jacques Brel, begging me to go to Paris with him, even though he didn’t have any money. I thought he was a bit intense but nice. And a bit snobby. I remember sitting in my mum’s flat once, reading a magazine, and asking him where Juan-Les-Pins was. I pronounced it ‘Jewann Lez Pinns’ and he tried to laugh but I could see he was appalled.

All my friends thought he was a bit creepy. He used to look at me - stare at me - and they all said they thought I shouldn’t let myself be alone with him. But he was harmless, I knew that. And I sort of loved him.

And then he recorded the song and it became a big hit and he stopped coming round, stopped phoning. I’d see him on telly, hear it on the radio constantly. I wrote letter after letter but he never contacted me again.

I was nineteen and so, so hurt. So I decided to change my life. A few months after I’d last seen him, I borrowed fifty quid from my boss, fifty from an old boyfriend, and flew to Rome and then down to Naples. I didn’t stay there long - it was horrible (he’d guessed right about that) - and I made my way, taking my time, to Paris. En route, I discovered I was an excellent pickpocket and that drunk men in bars are stupid. When I finally got there, I met up with some Irish hippies and moved into a squat in the 11th. I started stealing some nice clothes, some perfume, shoes, got myself invited to parties, openings, exhibitions. After a few months, I left the squat, rented a flat off the Boulevard St. Michel. The more I acted like the woman in Pete’s song, the more I became her. I drank a lot of Napoleon brandy, getting my lips wet every time (I’ve still no idea what he meant by that line). One weekend I went to St Moritz with the new lover and twisted my ankle on the slopes. They flew me home in a private jet.

It was great. For three years, it was great. But gradually it started becoming more and more dull and then more and more claustrophobic and I began to miss home - really, really miss home and, around Christmas 1972, I came back, moved in with mum, got a job in a typing pool in Caterham.

And now I’m seventy and I have my memories and my husband and my daughter and my grandchildren and I can still pronounce Juan-Les-Pins better than anyone else south of the river. I never did discover the scar that Pete thought Croydon had left on me: I love it here. And I still sleep like a log the minute my head hits the pillow, like I always have. I think he’d be disappointed, actually.