Learning to Fly: The Autobiography - Softcover

Beckham, Victoria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141003944 ISBN 13: 9780141003948

Verlag: Penguin, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

From the time when, as an eight-year-old girl, she saw the movie Fame, Victoria wanted to be a star. There was a line from the title song that stayed with her - 'I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly'. With this extraordinary book she gives us the chance to follow her on her journey from lonely teenager to international star; to fly alongside her. At heart is an uplifting story of tenderness and passion, but kidnap threats and media lies have often turned the dream into a nightmare. Incredibly frank and told with coruscating humour, Victoria's autobiography describes her extraordinary life as it really is. LEARNING TO FLY is more compelling than any novel.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Victoria Beckham is a member of the Spice Girls who have sold over 30 million records world-wide. She is married to Manchester United footballer, David Beckham, and they have a son, Brooklyn.

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'Daddy! I'm going to be killed.'
'No, you're not, Victoria. I'm right behind you. I'll look after you.'
I can't see him. We're too close together, jammed in by the crowd. But I can feel his hand on my shoulder, and his hand and his voice are just enough to keep me from screaming. Calm, in control, like he always is. Not like my mum who lives off her nerves. When people say, who do you take after, I say, my dad. But when I panic like this I know I'm like my mum.
Another lurch from the crowd. I need space, air. I'm being pushed, my dad behind, me in the middle, the bodyguard in front, so big that all I can see is his back, wet with sweat. I can hardly breathe. Only one thing is louder than the roaring of the crowd and that's my heart thumping in my ears. Even when I'm about to go on stage it's never this bad.
Without my glasses, I'm half blind. But I can sense the crowd towering up on my right. painted faces that loom up from nowhere, red, white and blue. A hand reaches out and pushes my baseball cap down over my eyes. I'm shaking.
'Over 'ere, Posh, Posh.'
They're drunk. I can smell the beer. Laughing and shouting. Their hands sticking out, jabbing their fingers in some drunken impression of Posh Spice.
'Oi, Posh.'
'Get yer tits out.'
Don't make eye-contact, one of the Spice Girls' security once told me. That's why celebrities wear dark glasses. Like me today. So head down. A flash of a camera. Little red lights everywhere, infra-red autofocus. Like they have on guns. A lens pokes through the wire fence on my left that separates the crowd from the pitch. There are people the other side. Fingers are poking through the wire trying to touch me. That fence shouldn't be there. Haven't they heard of Hillsborough, these morons? The semi-final of the 1989 FA Cup when ninety-six people were killed, crushed against the wire? Only this week they'd had the pictures on the television again. A court case was just starting against the two policemen in charge.
'We love you, Posh.' Then laughter. 'Only kidding!'
We're on the strip of concrete that runs around the pitch at Eindhoven trying to get back to our seats. I know it's concrete because I saw it on our way up; now I can't see anything. Just a blur of bodies and arms reaching out. Trying to touch me.
It's Monday 12 June 2000. The Football Association had organized everything as they always do for all England away games: a chartered plane from Stansted to Brussels, then a coach to Eindhoven. The driver parked in some backstreet, so we'd had to walk a good twenty minutes to the stadium. But we'd still got there two hours before kick-off. Our seats were about five rows from the front, in the middle, opposite the tunnel where the players come out and when people saw me sitting there like a bloody lemon, out came the cameras. Some of them were press: Sky zooming in on my face. some were just ordinary people, taking a snap to show their friends. Show them what? A moody cow with a baseball cap pulled down over her eyes. I felt a complete idiot, just sitting there with hardly anyone else about. Wasn't there somewhere we could go until kick-off, I asked my security. I mean, what were we supposed to do for two hours. Read the programme?
It was then that we heard about the VIP lounge. We asked Ted and Sandra, David's parents, who were in the row behind if they wanted to come along, but they said no thank you, they'd rather stay.
It was the other side of the pitch, but as the place was practically empty getting there had only taken five minutes. They'd got us champagne and we' d been so busy chatting with Doreen, my mum 's friend who was over from Athens and had never been to a football match in her life, we hadn't noticed the stadium filling up. Now with only ten minutes to go the place was absolutely rammed. Thank God I'd decided not to bring Brooklyn. He was safely back at my mum's house in London with my sister Louise.
I'd never wanted to come to Eindhov

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0141003944
• ISBN 13: 9780141003948
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 528
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Terminal Video; n.pederzini@terminaldistribuzione.com; ; Via Bruno Buozzi, 24/26,; Granarolo dell'Emilia BO,; Italien