As Take That play Wembley, how a teen magazine editor discovered them

By Morag Prunty

Last updated at 10:56 PM on 30th June 2011

You get to a certain age and time divides itself into separate lives; my life before and after college, marriage, motherhood. In my case, in a former life, before I became a middle-aged mummy and novelist living in Co. Mayo, Ireland, I more or less ‘discovered’ Take That.

It was the early Nineties and I was working in London as the editor of Just Seventeen, a leading teenage girls’ magazine. In those pre-internet days, we teen-mag editors were pretty much the arbiters and guardians of all teenage desires and fads.

Along with the record companies and PRs, we were the ones who decided who was Top Of The Pops — and who wasn’t. There were no YouTubes or Justin Biebers; those were the years when Brother Beyond and Curiosity Killed The Cat were the pull-out poster pin-ups, and we thought that Chesney Hawkes’ career would last for ever.

On song: Take That as they are today

When I was editing the magazine, for the first time in ages there was a dearth of hunky boy bands. Dance music was the new big thing — Bros and New Kids On The Block were old hat and, frankly, none of our girls were getting hot under the collar about Shaun Ryder from Happy Mondays.

Not even back then.

We needed some sexy young men to put in our poster pull-outs or sales would fall.

Then along came one Nigel Martin-Smith to a Just Seventeen gig at the Hammersmith Odeon with five of the most perfect teen-idol natural young hunks I had seen in a long time. They were all jeans and T-shirts, clean-cut looks and charm, and I thought if they can sing — hell, if they can do anything — they’re on my next cover! ‘Meet Take That,’ he said.

Write stuff: Morag’s Just Seventeen magazine could make or break a boy band

The venue was packed with thousands of excited teenage girls, the audience a heaving mass of hormones. It was one of the first big gigs the lads had played. Their manager asked me to go backstage to the dressing room and wish them luck.

When I got there I found these gorgeous young guys dressed up with whips and leather thongs. I smiled and wished them luck the best I could, then took the manager outside and tore his head off. ‘What the hell have you got them dressed like that for?’ I said. He gave me a look like it was none of my business and that I must be joking. I wasn’t.

‘They won’t get a teenage following dressed like that,’ I said. ‘They don’t need leather and chains, they looked perfect when they came in and now they look like a fetish strip act! Sort it out.’

Then the lads came on stage and performed a really catchy pop tune to a really slick dance routine — but the outfits! I was fuming.

The following day Nigel had the boys’ first promo video sent to the office. It featured them naked, skidding about a studio having a jelly and ice-cream fight. It was a disaster — but although I thought their manager was a half-wit, I wasn’t giving up so easily.

Very early days: Take That at the Majestic Ballroom, Reading, Berkshire, in May 1991

Chest great: Howard Donald, Jason Orange, Robbie Williams, Mark Owen and Gary Barlow in Manchester in October 1991

We needed them as much as they needed us, and I was determined that Take That would bring back the boy-band culture to the hunk-free lives of our readers. ‘I’ll do a piece on them,’ I said. ‘We’ll push them as the next big thing, but the fetish angle has got to go!’

At around that time the docu-movie In Bed With Madonna came out, so we did a skit piece called In Bed With Take That which involved a photoshoot of me in bed with the boys. The session was done in a photography studio around Old Street in central London.

It was also filmed as part of an audition I was doing as a presenter on a rather raunchy but perfectly ghastly youth TV show called The Word (a role I didn’t get — thank God!)

We were there most of the day and the boys weren’t a bit shy (small wonder after the video they had appeared in) but I was mortified. Typically, I had thought it was a hilarious idea in theory, but the reality of being in bed with five young guys was a bit much.

Revving up their career: Take That in 1993

Smiles better: A Take That photocall at the Conran Hotel in Chelsea Harbour, London in 1993

I camped it up wearing a winceyette nightie and curlers like an old woman, but I was only in my early 20s at the time so had to really hold myself together and not get silly about it.

I was developing a crush on Jason — he seemed slightly older than the others and more mature and he was, in my mind, breathtakingly handsome. The flirtation seemed to be coming from him, although I would never have pursued it in a million years.

As a magazine editor I was always suspicious of hunky male models or pop singers taking an interest in me. I wish to hell that I’d had the confidence as a gorgeous, slim woman in my 20s that I have now as a middle-aged tank!

The boys were all such fun. More than any of the other bands and pop stars I had met in my time, I really liked them. They were not drama-school boys and they seemed not to be interested in fame as much as having fun.

They didn’t have the annoying egocentric me-me-me attitude of so many young people who are flung into the fame game and are easily fooled into believing they are ‘special’.

Discovery: Morag first saw Take That at the Hammersmith Odeon – now called the Apollo

The lads were thrilled to be on the road to becoming pop stars, but they were more like a really likeable gang of lads than a band. Gary was the serious musician, Robbie the big personality, Jason was the sensitive thinker, Mark was shy and Howard seemed to stay in the background.

I remember them all teaching me a dance routine during my first interview with them. I also remember that they repeatedly thanked me for backing them, and I realised that no ‘celebrity’ had ever said that to me before. It made me want to help them succeed more.

After their first single, Do What U Like, Take That got a bit of a following going. They worked hard, touring schools and small clubs. As the months passed, a hard-core gang of fans started to follow them everywhere. We promoted the band, and they did interviews and photoshoots for us at the drop of a hat.

My fondest memory is picking three Wigan schoolgirls out of a makeover shoot we were doing — all of them fans of the fledgling pop stars — and taking them across London in a taxi to where I knew their heroes were at a photoshoot. The lads were amazing.

Robbie stands out for me as the biggest character although, having watched them over the years, they are so salt-of-the-earth that I can honestly say they all appear to me now as they did then.

They hugged and greeted those little kids and made them feel so special. On the way back to their makeover, one of the girls said what the others were thinking; ‘This is the BEST day of my life. I’ve met Take That and it’s my first time in a taxi!’

Not for the first time I felt what a privilege and responsibility my job was being the spokesman and minder of young teenage dreams.

In many ways, that was why I wanted Take That to succeed. They were really great role models. Funny, talented, driven and so down to earth, with no pretensions or rubbish in any one of them. Not even the genius young songwriter Gary. They were just all so nice, so deserving.

I made the move to Ireland in 1991 and left the world of teenage dreams behind, became the editor of Irish Tatler and started a whole new life.

‘Biggest character’: Robbie Williams

Take That were hovering around, not quite making it. I didn’t think about them again until 1993 when my brother, a schoolteacher in London, rang me one day and said ‘Guess who is massive here?’

I was stupidly thrilled, and tried to get in touch with them through their press office in London. Not a hope. They were untouchable superstars, beyond my reach. I didn’t mind. I was pleased they had made it.

I followed their careers over the years, particularly Robbie and lovely Mark when he was in the Big Brother house. It’s strange to me, how enormously famous they all are and strange, too, watching them on TV and thinking how we knew each other once.

I am always thrilled to see how successful they have all become, and even more thrilled to see them all back together as a group.

Our lives have taken radically different paths. As a novelist living in the countryside writing historical fiction and the odd newspaper article, I have very little interest in pop music or celebrity any more. Yet, despite my efforts to hide it, I still feel vaguely maternal towards Take That, and secretly proud of the very small part I played in giving them a start.

A few years back, I went to a Robbie Williams concert and, while I loved the show, I found myself feeling very depressed by the idea that I couldn’t just go up and say ‘Hi’ and give him a hug, as I would have done in the days when he was starting out. It was like going to a school reunion and finding all your old friends behind a glass screen and not being allowed to talk to anyone.

For the same reason, I won’t be going to see Take That on tour now. It would make me feel sad, I think, reminding me of the passing of so many years.

My Take That story ends there, except for two other incidents.

Superstars: Take That went on to become a global phenomenon

In the mid-Nineties I was in Miami, working on a fashion shoot. Walking along the Palm Beach thoroughfare, I saw Robbie at a shop front across the street.

‘Morag!’ he called across. ‘Where did you get to? You just disappeared — you never said goodbye, Jason was gutted!’ I was flattered that he remembered me, but then I knew he would. They were nice guys then and I know, even now, that won’t have gone away.

My experience in the world of celebrity taught me that fame can cause personal problems, but it doesn’t fundamentally change who people are. Famous people who are arrogant, egocentric idiots are the same as arrogant, egocentric plumbers.

On song: Take That as they are today

Besides, it’s usually not the stars themselves who want to be protected from ordinary life, their old friends, their pasts — it’s the celebrity machine that operates around them.

That’s the nature of showbusiness, which insists on separating the entertainer into the realm of the ‘extraordinary’ and away from us ordinary mortals.

I am thrilled Take That are back together. Best of all, I can tell in interviews that, with time and lots and lots more life experience, they are still, fundamentally the friendly, funny young men I met more than 20 years ago in the Hammersmith Odeon.

Older, wiser — but they haven’t changed in the ways that matter. 

One other incident I remember happened just after Take That’s first coming was winding down. John Reynolds, the club promoter, knowing about my experience as a teenage magazine editor, took me out to lunch to ask my advice about going in with Louis Walsh who had asked him to back a boy band called Boyzone.

‘Forget it,’ I advised. ‘Too hard. One band in a million makes it — and Take That were the exception to the rule. It looks a lot easier than it is, John, but I guarantee you’ll lose your shirt.’

Take that’s album Progressed is out now. Their live tour is at Wembley Stadium until July 9, for further details log on to seetickets.com