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LONDON - I LOVE MICHAEL JACKSON

My mum called and told me she'd found a box of my belongings that she thought I'd want to see. I went home, opened the box and found letters, poems, newspaper cuttings, concert tickets and these pictures that I lovingly drew of my childhood idol Michael Jackson…

My love of MJ started when I was 8 years old and my mum took me to see the Bad tour at Wembley Stadium in 1987. My mum knew the head of security there so we bypassed everyone who'd been camping outside the entrance and got in an hour before the doors opened. Being in the front row ahead of 80,000 people was a pretty big deal for me back then.

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I loved MJ a lot. I had posters all over my bedroom and used to practice his dance moves and everything. One Christmas, I think it was just after his Dangerous tour, my mum gave me and my brothers an envelope with a card inside that had numbers and letters on it. My older brother thought that he'd been given a car and the card was the license plate number. But no, it was a flight number to go to California. Amazing.

When we were there I made my family drive 6.5 hours through desert so that I could go to Michael's Neverland ranch in Santa Barbara. When we got there I stood at the gate and wrote Michael a poem which I posted through the mailbox. My parents actually left me there for an hour while they went to get lunch. There I was, just me - leaning longingly against the gates - and the Neverland security guard. I was sent a cup of tea. I didn't like tea at the time, but it was from Michael so I drank every last drop.

CLAIRE BARTOLOMEO

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