Have you ever had a schoolmate like this?
May 15th, 2008I did my A-Levels at Felsted School, a private school in England back in the 80s. And no, I didn’t have a privileged upbringing, I was just an ordinary kampung boy who somehow ended up there (will talk about that in another post).
In the same school, a year my senior was a certain Sheila Nicholls.
In May 1989 Nicholls, then 19, was suddenly a hot topic at the school due to her exploit: performed cartwheels while streaking at an England versus Australia cricket match at arguably the world’s top cricket pitch, Lord’s Ground in London. Yes, she was totally naked then live on TV.Pashmina shawls were not on her, definitely.
I can still remember the front page of The Sun: HOWZAT, with Nicholls and a smiling Sir Ian Botham, one of cricket’s greatest ever players, in the same frame. The video footage was apparently then included in the video Streaker, narrated by George Best.
The Sun is the UK’s top tabloid newspaper, the largest English-language daily newspaper by circulation, in fact it has the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world, with millions of copies being sold daily, so you can imagine her fame in our male-dominated school then.
Back then, I could see how skilled and how determined the tabloid pros dig for dirt. Somehow they romantically linked her to one of our science teachers. It was quite unreal to see his name being mentioned in the paper. If I remember correctly, he disappeared for a while, presumably to let things cool down before returning to the school to teach. Needless to say, usually rowdy classes went very quiet when he first made his reappearance.
Later in the year, against her family’s wishes, Nicholls went to the US and began performing with her band, Sheila Nicholls and the Splendid Frock, and achieved moderate success.
Her song “Fallen For You” was included in the 2000 Hollywood flick High Fidelity which starred amongst others, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cusack, Jack Black and Tim Robbins. In promoting her album Brief Strop which contained that song, she toured extensively, and even had several gigs alongside k.d. lang.
Now based in LA, in 2002, she released her second album, Wake. The following video is of that album’s first single, “Faith.” It made the charts.
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sometimes i wish i can be friends with “unique” people, just to dig what motivates them to do what they do - and in this case, being a streaker.
so, Ben, moral of the story is that if you wanna be famous singer (sic.) one day, learn how to obtain it at a younger age, albiet in a different way?
Well… she’s not really *that* famous, is she?
what??? this is nothing mannn… during my school days - i sat next to madonna, and on my right was john lennon, on my left was jimi hendrix, in front of me was tina turner and right behind me was rock hudson!!! and the class monitor was BOB MARLEY!!!!!!!!!