Читать книгу Welcome to My World - Coleen McLoughlin - Страница 23

For a lot of events I’ll take my best friend, Claire, with me. Over time, I’ve become a bit wiser to the way things work.

I can go out and enjoy myself, but I have forever got to be on my guard because there are always journalists hanging around trying to catch well-known people out, either doing something they’re not supposed to or even if they’re talking to someone that might make a story. It sounds paranoid, but I’m always aware that journalists might be ear-wigging my conversations, or they’ll try to take advantage of Claire if she’s standing on her own and start asking her questions. I’ve come to understand that it’s possible to be at a different party from the one that’s reported in the newspapers the next day.

I found that out very early on. I had my eighteenth birthday party at the Devonshire Hotel in Liverpool. It was quite hard arranging it because of the football fixtures and fitting dates around Wayne’s schedule. In the end, we sorted out a date and it was fantastic. I’d just left school and everyone was there, family and friends, the place was jam-packed. Everyone was up dancing from the beginning. I was given a three-tier cake, decorated with shopping bags from all my favourite stores made out of icing. However, in the end it was a fight that made the headlines the next day. They said there’d been a scrap between my family and Wayne’s. That wasn’t the truth at all. At the end of the night the bouncers were clearing the room and asked one of Wayne’s family to move to a different area. It wasn’t a big fight, it was a small argument which turned into a scuffle. Within minutes the police appeared and the whole thing was blown out of all proportion. It was like someone had been ready to call the police and the press, because no sooner had it started than everyone appeared and the story was in the newspapers the next day. I still can’t understand how the press and the police were so quick to arrive on the scene. It makes you wonder.