I've never been single for more than a couple of weeks. It's not that I'm needy-needy, I just like male companionship. With Triple M out of the picture, I went out with a guy who owned a tea house/restaurant in Marlow. It didn't last long. The two most memorable things about that relationship were: one , we shagged on the table in his restaurant; and two during the sumer he took Geri and me to the Henley Regatta. We dressed up posh and play-acted all day.' I say, do look at that punt over there!' It was hysterical.
One night while he was away on holiday , Geri and me went to the cinema with her lawyer friend James and his brother Richie. They both have terribly posh accents. After the film I said to Richie, 'I quit fancy you,' and he said,' Yeah ,I fancy you too.' So when Marlow Man (Double M!) got back from his holliday I told him I'd met someone else.
When I started going out with Richie,James asked 'How did you manage to get her then?'
'I don't know , she's just hounding me,' Richie said.
As it turned out, Richie was very grounding for me. A jewellery engraver , he came from a solid , loving family, was a nine-to-fiver and liked cooking dinner.(Somewhere in the back of my mind I'd set myself the goal of being woth someone who wore suit to work.I was fascinated by the idea , because in Leeds I rarely saw people in suits apart from the odd teacher.)
He was a fantastic boyfriend and really helped to keep me centred when everything kicked off for the spice girls a bit later fown the line. Most of all he gave me a loving , understanding relationship. His parents were lovely and very welcoming . His father made me kaugh because he was always going on about his teeth and how he was convinced that one of them was going to fall out. His mum was Australian and I used to have very interesting conversations with her. She was a brilliant , powerful family woman.
Richie lived in St Albans and sometimes came to stay at the house in Maidenhead. He got on well with the other girls , especially Melanie , who cooked us some fantastic dinners. By this point the group was seriously considering leaving Bob , Chris and Chic. Our idea about which direction we should go in just didn't match theirs. They wanted to dictate what we wore and the material we sang. We wanted to write out own songs and wear what we liked. Incompatible isn't the word.
The showcase had been a turning pint in more ways than one. It had  made us realise how good we were , but it also brought us together with several songwriter/producer. The first writer we worked with was an American called Alan Glass, who had a small studio in his house just outside london. It was our first taste of co-writing together we came up with some good R&B numbers, pretty much copying the style of Eternal, our favorite girl group of the moment, although the vocal arrangements were different. From the start we shared out the singing between is - one person sang the first verse, someone else sang the bridge and we all came together for the chorus-which set the pattern for the future. Our month with Alan also have us our first experience of recording and we loved every minute of it, even though he didn't give us much control over the musical side of things.
After Alan came a writer named Roger, a tall black guy who had a studio in his flat on a little housing estate in London. The studio equipment was in his front room and you sang on the landing ,in an improvised 'vocal booth'. Things didn't work out with Roger. When the demos came back they sounded terrible because he'd added his voice to all harmonies!
The two mist significant people we met at the showcase were Matt Rowe and Richard 'Biff' Stannard, a song writing team that went on to have a massive influence on the spice girls sound. We got on with Matt and Biff from the very start. Instinctively they seemed to understand what we were about and soon the set about incorporating the spirit of five loud girls into great pop music. They weren't in the least bit patronising or superior, although they had every right to be. They were experienced writers and producers who had done a lot  of work with east 17, whereas we were absolue beginners.
We may have been naive but we weren't short on ideas and the great  thing about Matt and Biff was that they listened. How, I don't know, because quite often all five of us would be shouting at once , but between the lot of us we created some fantastic songs in The Strong Room , their studio in Curtain Road, EC2. Although we didn't  have much experience of writing , we were always listening to music. We had music coming out of our cars and rooms constantly and were into all the newest clubs, tunes and porate stations.
'Let's write a ballad today!'
'Yeah!'
'What about ?'
'Is there anyone you want to slag off ?'
'I've got one! This boy really pissed me off once...'
The one rule was that we would'nt write a love song. Our mission was to tell men what we wanted from them instead.
I thought Matt was a complete freak when I first met him but I instantly gelled with him. We had a special relationship. He's a highly intelligent guy-a;most yoo intelligent for his own good , in each and every area- but with a nervous energy that takes a while to get used to. He's got a bit of a stutter and sometimes seems as though he's just been told that World War Three is about to break out at any minute. We got into a lot of debates and I really enjoyed talking to him. When he and Geri started making eyes at each other I knew what was going on, even though they denied it. I knew them both too well for it to be a secret from me.
Matt was the main music guy and Biff worked on the lyrics, but they used to swap and change and mix it all up. Biff ( please Biff, do not be offended) is exactly what you would think a Biff would look like. His name is so perfect- and I mean that in a good way. He's a big , cuddly man with that newborn baby look.There's no one else like him. He's incredibly open and you can learn a lot from him. You always felt liek you could say anything to Biff. Sometimes he seemed just like one of the girls , other times he was quit fatherky, passing on advice and warnings about the way the music industry works. There was never a ruck between the five of us when Biff was around . He could spot trouble a mile off and knew how to keep things smooth.
The fact that things were working out so well with Matt and Biff made it harder to make decision about the contract. Would they still work with us if we left Bob and Chris? It was a risk we were going to have to take, although we delayed for as long as we could. Inevitably, though, there came that point when we knew it all had to end. Chris and Bob and Chic were hassling us to sign and we ran out if excuses. it was time to leg it.
We did a midnight flit from the house. Well it was more of a 9 p.m. flit but that doesn't sound as dramatic. Vicky and Emma both went off home and Melanie beaded back to Sidcup. Geri and me were the last to leave. We really played up the drama of the situation and acted like B-movie criminals.
'Quick, get in the car! is anybody looking ? Let's get out of here!'
Just them I half expected the Starsky & Hutch theme tune to start playing out of a music system in the sky. Off we went to stay at Rrichie's house in St Albans, where Geri had to sleep on a bed framce that had no mattress. I didn't feel guilty about leavnig Bob and Chris. We were just going in different directions.
We phoned Matt and Biff.' We've left Bob and Chris. Will you still work with us ?'
'No problem.' said Biff.' Of corse we will.'
Thanks Biff, we needed that. Now we knew for sure that we'd done the right thing. It was a crucial confidence booster.
A couple if days later we were  due to be working with a writer called Elliot Kenedy at his studio up in Sheffield. Elliot had worked with Take That and obviously we didn't want to miss the chance to write with him too, but the session had been organised by Bob and Chris and none of is had a clue how to get gold of Elliot. Or whether he would agree to work with us now.
So Geri and I decided to drive up to Sheldffield and find him. After talking it over , Melanie , vicky and emma agreed to catch the train up the next day. Melanie had just come into some money- a family inheritance of about 300 or 400 (pound)- and she offered to pay fo the petrol and fares to Sheffield as will as a wek's rent in a cheap bedsit. It was typically generous of her- she's always been very giving- but I think it's fair to say that any one of us would have done the same if we'd had the money. We were in this together , all for one and one for all. ( Sorry Mel , I think that to this day we've never paid you back.)
Halfway to Sheffield we were bombing down the motorway, werving all over the place, when we saw a phone box on the slip road. Screeeech! We looked through the yellow pages and found nine Kennedys in the area. The thirs number we called was Elliot's.
'Hi!it'sMelandGerifromSpiceandweneedtotalktotouwe'reonourwayuptoSheffieldcanyoumeetustongiht?'
This was urgent, man. The words came out so fast that they almost had a heart attack. Elliot was 'the guy'. Mr Big. For the whole journey up from London we had been consumed by one thought: Will he or won't he work with us ?
'Hello MelandGeri,' said Elliot warmly. 'Look , I've got to go and see a violinist about some recording work. Meet me there.'
Geri wrote down the address and at around misnight we found ourselves driving along a bumpy winding country read in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Uo ahead loomed the shadowy silhouette of a huge country mansion, all leaded windows and turrets. Two massive Alsatians met us at the gate, barking ferociously. We looked up at the house. There weren't any lights oon and not a noise could be heard. Was anybody in ? I cought Geri's eye. I could tell we were both thinking the same thing. This is really fishy. We knew virtually nothing about Elliot, after all. I think we both felt a bit frightened deep down..
The house was in almost complete darkness. On the first floor we saw a light under a door, so we knocked and went in. We walked into the room to find a tall chunky guy with dark redish hair and glasses,sitting on a sofo with a girl with long hair. She looked young and fresh and gooey-eyed.
'Uh, hi,Elliot?'
'Ah. You must be MelandGeri! Come in.'
Elliot seemed pleased to see us so we told him our story there and then.
'Look, we've split with Bob and Chris. We've got the money together to pay for the studio. The otheres are coming up tomorow. Will you still work with us this weekend ?'
'Yeah fine.' he said  with a friendly shrug.
'Oh my god!' we gasped, our knees practically buckling beneath us. We were on a high for weeks after that.
The first sing we wrote with Elliot was' Love Thing', which is one if the tracks on 'Spice', the first Spice Girls Album. A far cry from that  Bob and Chris wanted us to sing, it set a precedent for the spice sound (and message) with its punchy melody and assertive lyrics. Elliot had already set down a beat for the sinbg and sketched a melody; the rest came together in a kind of jam.Geri and I made up the rao ib our second day.
God help the mister,yeah gold help the mister! That comes between me and my sisters. At that point in our lives boys and love were second to what we had as girls together and most of our early songs reflect that. Girl power was partly about getting what you wanted out of a relationship pr a friendship with a boy,and not pandering to the male ego.

There's no room for lovin' stop that push and shovin' yeah,
Don't wanna know about that love thing,
Give me what I'm needing you know what I'm dreaming of

Being without a manager seemed to energise us. It didn't matter that we were broke and pratically homeless, we were on a fast track to...Somewhere! As we sat in Elliot's vocal booth recording our first proper song, it was truly amazing to think that Take That had been in the very same studio in the very same studio a couple of months before us. We were so impressed.
Elliot very kindly let us stay at his house, which was a little semi that used to belong to his mum and dad. Most nights Ii dragged Emma back to Leeds with me and we'd go off to Charlotte's house or Maya's. Maya was-and is- another very good Leeds friend . I drove my mum's litle Polo between Sheffiels and Leeds, constantly paranoid that I'd get caught because I wasn't unsured. The others stayed at Elliots's , in his mum's old bed. In the evenings they'd change into their nighties and pyjamas, go downstairs and watch TV with him. He was mad on Star Trek, a proper anorak.
Whenever I stayed at my mum's she'd moan,'What is this bloody group anyway ? You've got no money, no work, no manager.'
I'd been 'borrowing' money off her for months now and it infuriated her that I'd auditioned for a film about a year previously and suddenly they wanted me to fly out to America for the shoot. Then a German record company executive rang up and asked if I would be interested in discussing a deal. A few offers came and went- for all of us- but we stayed firm. We were in the group and that was that.
'We're going to make it no matetr what,' I told my mum.
'But what's the next move? How long is it going to be before you start earning some money?' she complained.
My mum's car would never have got her to London, so while we were in Sheffiels I said, 'Right, I'm going to bring the others down this weekend and show you.' So I took them all home. We did a mini performance in the kitchen, told my mum and dad about our plans and recited quotes from all the people at the showcase who'd told us that we'd got what it takes. My mum and dad were amazed at our performance 'Og my god!' Suddenly they understood. That night all my aunties came round and we had a slap-up dinner, watched TV and got completely smashed. Welcome to the mad brown family , girls!
Ithink we'd all have liked to continue working with Elliot, but with 'Love Thing' finished it was time to go down south again. Back in The Strong Room with Matt and Biff we wrote another new song. It only took about twenty minuted to write in a sydden creative frenzy, but we instantly had a feeling that it was something special. Matt and Biff were incredibly excited. Matt stayed up all ngiht working on the track abd Biff found him sniggled in a sleeping bad on the vocal booth floor next morning. There was apost-it note stuck to the decks saying. PRESS PLAY.
Biff cranket up the volume and Matt woke up to the sound of the openin gbards of what was to become the first ever Spice Girls single, 'Wannabe'.( Me and Geri shouting!)
Now we had two fantastic songs it was tiem to find a new manager. We were in a strong positon to conquer the world- we knew that. All we needed was someone to help us come uo with the master plan.
We thought about the artists we admired and why we admired them, then it was Geri's job to find out who looked after them. She made loads of phone calls and soon had a long list of potential managers. She also enlisted the help of Mark Fox, a music publisher at BMG Publishing who'd been at the showcase. We became very friendly with Mark, who'd been the drummer in eighties band Haircut 100 and looked a bit like Morten Harket from Aha (Another eighties band).He took us to dinner at places like Julie's in Holland Park and was very well conencted,helping us with names and numbers and arranging interviews with record companies and managers. Sometimes he'd be our spokesperson when we went to meetinfs ,other times we went alone.
Geri's car was our think tank and her Filofax our computer. We bombed our way around london, exploding into the offices of agents,managers and record companies- well, the ones that let us in, anyway. A tape of 'Wannabe' would be shoved hurriedly into the music system , then I'd shout' C'mon!' and jump  up on the table while Mel dod a back flip, Victoria flashed her legs and Emma jumped up and down. We all bounced around like maniacs for a couple of minutes, singing and dancing, then Geri would introduce us and explain why we were there. It was great. They didn't know what had hit them. I think it's safe to say that no one we have ever 'Spiced' has forgotten the experience.
The others became used to seeing me write my diary. Wherever we went, one of my little notebooks always came too. 'The group as a whole is a magical joining of forces' ,I wrote at the time. 'It's so poweful that on a good day it blows your mind away.'
One of the managers on Geri's list asked us round for dinenr. We were so skint that we decided not to eat all day and then stuff ourselves when we got to his house. In the car on the way we started fantasising about the meal to come.
'I hope it's a chicken!'
'Or a stir fry!'
'Lots of salad!'
'Chocolate cake!'
The first thing he did when we arrived was pull out a big plate of doughnuts, which he handed to me first. 'Oh no thanks.' I said. 'I don't want to ruin my appetite. I'll wait till dinner.'
'This is dinner!' he said.
Oh no.
We  might have considered him after some chicken friedrice, but a lardy plate if doughbuts just wasn't doing it.
We met up with another potential manager in his basement office in central london. 'Hi! We're the spice girls,' we annouced as we piled in and introduced ourselves in our typical all-singing, all-dancing, over-the-top way. Well , you could tell he was impressed. If he'd been a cartoon character we'd have seen the pund signs ring up in his eyes as his mouth dropped open and gold coins came pouring out. He was frothing with glee and rubbing his hands together like Scrooge in front of a teasure chest.
It was his turn to talk and he turned it on big time. Ug-oh. As I sat there listening to him doing this old 'I can   take you girls to the top of the charts, bosh-bosh' spiel, I thought, Oh My God. Please no.
We came back out onto the street looked at one another. 'Actually he was talking a load of bullshit. wasn't he ?' I ventured.
'Total crap,' said Vicky.
Phew! All together now in a Dalek voice:'Eliminate!'
It was Geri's job to tell people when we weren't intrested. To our amusement, some of them went ballistic adn really took it to heart. The rest of us would listen in as she broke the news. 'Sorry,we're going to look elsewhere. You don't quit fit what we're looking for in a manager at the moment.'
One guy took it so personally that she had to hold the receiver away from her ear as he ranted on at her. It was hilarious; we laughed our heads iff. These were grown men who'd been in the business for years and years and they were behaving like two-years-olds. It felt good to be telling them where to get off. It made us feel like proper power chicks. But as the weeks passed and we still didn't have a manager, we started to get a bit anxious. All our potential candidates had been crossed off the list.
At least we knew what we didn't want- no controlling , please-with-himself, greedy, tightwad manager was coming anywhere near us. We needed someone with brilliance and integrity. Now who was it to be ?
Meanwhile Mark Fox had introduced us to Paul Wilson and Andy Watkins -Known as Absolute - another team of writers/producers. Paul was thin, tall , quite young-looking and alsmost Harry Potter-ish with his round glasses.Andy was cooler, a bit more London, with a street edge and very short hair-baggy jeans vibe. They made a good match- sensible and kind of not sensible- and we started working with them around April 1995. Their studios were miles away in Twickenham. We'd have to park the car, cross the river by bridge and walk for ages until we came to a massive cul-de-sac containing a scrap yard, some lawyers offices, the Absolute studios and a cafe. The cafe did fantastic toasted egg-mayo-bacon-ketshup sarnies.
Paul and Andy were more old-school soul than Matt and Biff. They were into the funk vibe- more Angie Stone than Bananarama. We wrote 'Something Kinda Funny' with them and they also went in to produce the two songs we did with Elliot, 'Love Thing' and Say you'll be there'.
When Paul and Andy mentioned that their manager was in partnership with Simon Fuller, Annie Lennox's manager, Geri wrote his name down in her filofax. Before she had a chance to call him he phoned and asked to meet us. He'd listened to 'Something kinda funny' and he was curious. 
Well, so were we.
Simon Fuller had been a publishing scout for Chrysalis Records in the mid-eighties, then left to set up a company of his own. He called it 19 management because 19 was most definitely his lucky number. His first big breal came when a young produver he was managing- Paul Hardcastle- put out a best selling single in 1985. An anti-Vietnam War sing called, you've guessed it , '19', it sold bucket loads and was number one for  weeks.
Next he discovered Cathy Dennis. I particularly remembered Cathy because of the red catsuit she'd worn in one of her videos. She was a pretty singer/songwriter who we all admired. As well as having had a successful career as a solo artist, Cathy is a respected writer, responsible for tracks like Kylie's 2001 hit, 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head'. Simon also managed Annie Lennox. Well, I had a special connection with Annie Lennox because my dad used to play her music all the time when I was living at home.
The offices of 19 Management were in Ransome's Dock, Battersea. We were quit giddy as we went up in the lift- as we always were- wondering what this guy was going to be like. Stepping out into a large,light0filled open-plan office, we instantly clocked that it wasn't a stressed working environment.Everyone seemed chilled. I don't remember seeing any men working there, it was all women, and quite classy women too.
I'd become accustomed to seeing into this kind of environment and I did regilarly notice that black and mixed race people and people of colour were nowhere to be seen. This didn't bother me outwardly but became more and more of an issue deep inside,even though I didn't express it at the time.
Simon Fuller's office was in the cornevr of the room. It had smoked-glass walls so that you could see out but not in, and blinds. In my fantasy world I'd dreamed of a beach house with those kinds of smoked-glass walls.
We waited for what seemed like ages, although it was probably only a few minutes, our gazes flicking over the many gold discs hanging on the inner walls of the office. Could Simon Fuller be the one ? We'd interviewed so many managers and been disappointed so many times. We generally made up our minds about people on impluse, within the first ten or fifteen minutes of meeting them, so we'd soon know if Simon was right. I had my fingers crossed, desperately hoping he would be. 
When Simon finally walked in we collectivelt held our breath and waited. It wouldn't be long now.
It only took a few sentences.
'What do you girls want ?' he asked. 'I'm here to listen to your story .I know your music already, so tell me what you envisage for the future.'
If you're stuck for conversation, always ask a question! It breaks the ice every time, because who doesn't like to talk about themselves and their experience?
My first impression of Simon was of a small bit stocky man with black hair and a tan, who had the presence of a knowledgeable teacher. He seemed very in tune with our vision as we played him our songs and told him all the things we wanted to do.
'We want to be an international band. We want to take over the world. We want to make a film!'
'We want to be a household name, bigger than Persil Automatic!' saod Vicky.
'Most importantly we want to be ourselves,' we said.'Kids can see through bullshit.'
Simon seemed to take every word we said seriously. Instead of immediately imposing his own ideas he said,' Well yes, we could do that in this way or in that way.' or 'What I suggest is this...' He was very understanding and very calm- not too clam to appear blase, but interested, relaxed and gentle. He used his hands in an incredibly expressive way and spoke in the softest of voices. He instantly inspired our confidence.
This was the manager we'd been looking for.