Blog 15

Hello, I hope everyone has had a good week. I’ve been quite busy, a very quick day trip to London to record another interview, and also a great weekend of Czech musicals… a smiling weekend!

Katie asked if Freddie would still have his moustache now.
Personally I don’t think so. He shaved it off during the filming of a video and it never really came back. There was a time he had the moustache/beard, but that was mainly as camouflage for the marks on his face caused by the x ray treatment of the Kaposi’s sarcoma he suffered. He found it easier to fully shave than to take care of the moustache.

Valeria asked about Freddie and family.
Of course Freddie loved his family, as most of us do, but to great degree Freddie’s real friends were as much family as those tied by blood. I fully understand Freddie’s thoughts as I went through the same up-bringing as he did. When you are sent to a boarding school, you sent and received a letter each week from home, which kept you close to your family, but you spent 24 hours a day for 10 months with your friends who you got to know better and had to rely on day to day. There is a very apt English saying… you can chose your friends, not your family. I know from personal experience that you can rely on friends more than family.

Misha wanted to know quite a lot of things :) .
Freddie never expressed any wish to me that he wanted children of his own. He liked children, as long as they were someone else’s! He always had time for Mack’s children, Terry Gidding’s son Luke and of course Richard, Mary’s son, but was happy to hand then back and get on with his plans for the day.

Rui has a question about the relationship within the band.
Over the course of 20 years things changed. At the beginning there were four musicians desperately trying to make music and a name for themselves. They spent many hours together and forged a very close friendship. Freddie and Roger even spent time together selling clothes in Kensington Market to make money to get by. Freddie was originally very protective of John when he started, to try to keep John safe from the burgeoning world of rock and roll. As they became more famous they spent less time together outside of touring and recording, but that doesn’t make the love of real friends any less. Like all friends there were periods of less closeness, but that was passing. At the end, they were really still as close as they had ever been.

Dennis asked about some of the meaning of the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody.
In answer to the main question, no, Freddie didn’t know he had HIV when he wrote this song. While it might have existed in Africa at that time, it didn’t start to make the news until later in the 1980s. To be honest I don’t think he contracted the disease until the early 80s, and he certainly didn’t know anything about it in 1975.

Debbie asked after many years on the road with Queen, what do I miss most now.
The camaraderie of the Queen ‘family’ on tour. There were about 50 of us, and everybody knew and talked with eachother. We would be together most evenings and also traveling during the day!

Gerry asked what I thought about Queen touring now after Freddie.
I have answered this before, so for the last time…… Brian and Roger are now and always have been musicians. They have created some of the most memorable music that still is being heard today. I for one, would be happy to go and hear them any chance I have. They still play the music with their hearts and if you see them live it shows. You don’t have to like who tours with them, but it is their choice, and they have their reasons for that choice.

Tristan asked about soda!
As just about everybody knows Freddie drank vodka and tonic. Generally we would always but Schweppes as that was the one he preferred! Advertising over for today!

Jocelyne asked about Freddie’s favourite flowers.
Freddie loved yellow freesias. Yellow was his favourite colour and he loved the smell of freesias. If they were out of season he would love stargazer lilies around the place, as long as the stamens had been removed and there was no chance of him being covered in the pollen.

Ok all, have a great week and I look forward to being with you again next week!!