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Blast from the past

9th March 2012 by Helena 1 Comment  

My friend Floss just left today, she has been staying with us for the past week. When I first met her some 30 years ago at a pizzeria in the King’s Road there were two things that differentiated her from everyone else. One, she had a red mohican, and two, she was an utterly obsessive Chelsea fan. One of those things remains the same.
We were best friends all those years ago. We did everything together. We lived close to each other, she was still living with her parents in Sloane Square, and I was renting a room nearby from a long-suffering girl called Angela whose life was about as far removed from ours as was possible. Floss and I spent all our time together, at my place or hers, and going out.
We used to go to night clubs a lot; the Camden Palace, the Mud Club, Crazy Larry’s. We were backing singers once for Steve Strange and my other claim to fame is that I was once told by George Michael that Andrew Ridgeley fancied me. But back then, before they were famous, they were known as ‘the wallies from wham’ and I wasn’t interested. Of course I was also in love with ‘Heathcliff’ as some of you might remember him, who by a strange coincidence was here last week, missing Floss by just a few days.
Floss and I lost touch when I went to university and she went around the world. A couple of years ago my friend Marco told me he had seen her.
“She’s just the same,” he said.
“What? She’s still got a red mohican?” I asked. (Floss is on the left below)
He put us in touch and she came to my book launch in London. We then swapped lots of emails, mainly about Chelsea, until she asked if she could come and stay. I didn’t know what to expect really. Thirty years is a long time. I really thought it would be a bit like having a stranger in the house. But it wasn’t. The amazing thing is, that she really is just the same (apart from the hair-do) and I felt like we’d never been apart.
I don’t know if it’s a significant thing or not, hooking up with people from when you were young, maybe it’s totally irrelevant. I suppose if nothing else it’s good to know that people who knew you so long ago still want to hang out with you. And that some things never change.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2012


Filed Under: Chelsea FC, Life, blog --> Tagged With: blast

One thought on Blast from the past

  • ringing sound in my left ear says:
    3rd January 2013 at 9:04 pm

    Great article. I will be dealing with a few of these issues as well.
    .

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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