Broadcast on the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, BBC Radio 2 on 28th February 2019
The excitement of having an actual Spice Girl on the show today got me thinking back to the girl group two friends and I formed back during our first year at secondary school.
We were called – don’t laugh – ‘Pink Tinge’, for the life of me I can’t remember where we got that from. We cared deeply about harmonies and dance routines, less so about plagiarism (it was a dark day indeed when one band member tried to pass-off a B-side track from a big single at the time as one of her own compositions.)
Our most cringe-worthy moment was covering The Corrs, ‘So Young’ to serenade the residents of an old people’s home my Dad was then chaplain of. Never has the lyric, “‘cos we are so young now, we are so young, so young now” been quite so inappropriate.
Pink Tinge is, alas, no more. But I’m ok with that. After all, I’m older. Writing Pause for Thought scripts is now more my style as opposed to, ahem, catchy tunes. And such is the ebb and flow of life: relishing the different chapters, knowing that the full book they create is a goodun.
Sometimes I can stress that things aren’t happening at the time or pace I’d hoped. But on a good day I try to trust its timing – relishing the best bits, trotting along through the vanilla and quietly mumbling ‘this too shall pass…’ during the difficult.
There’s some good poetic wisdom in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible that says; “to everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose… a time to plant and a time to pluck up what’s been planted… a time to weep, and a time to laugh… a time to break down, and a time to build up…’
So maybe you’re out there now starting up a band or maybe you’ve long since broken up. Perhaps, like Geri, you’re reuniting! (ladies of Pink Tinge fame, I hope you’re listening!) but may the particular life episode you’re at now be enriching the full box set that is you.
I always remember what the ever-wise Oprah said: “You can have it all. Just not all at once.”