Cheryl Baker of Bucks Fizz fame speaks to Ed Holt about growing up in Bethnal Green and how her upbringing kept her grounded during her meteoric rise to fame.
Cheryl Baker is part of an exclusive club that only has five members. The only British acts to have won the Eurovision Song Contest in its 56-year history are Sandi Shaw, Lulu, Brotherhood of Man, Katrina and the Waves – and the 1980s pop sensation, Bucks Fizz, which included the young Baker in its line-up. It’s now been nearly 26 years since the last British win, but with Eurovision returning to Liverpool in May, Baker is excited: “Everyone should have Eurovision on their bucket list. It’s a big love-fest, it’s just fabulous, everyone should pay a visit at least once.”
Cheryl Baker and the rest of the newly formed Bucks Fizz joined the winners club in 1981 with their song “Making Your Mind Up”. The band’s rise to fame was rapid and their life changed in an instant. “I had gold discs on the wall and limos picking me up,” she says. Bucks Fizz have since become among the most iconic winners in Eurovision history.
Following their success, Baker lived two lives; one as Cheryl Baker from Bucks Fizz and the other as Rita Crudgington from Bethnal Green. “I’d come back to my flat and talk about this Cheryl Baker who went around the world as if it was someone else,” she says. Growing up in Bethnal Green is what Baker believes kept her grounded and is why she has always kept her public and private lives separate: to her family and friends she’s still Rita from Bethnal Green, “that is my name,” she insists. “I wear Cheryl Baker to perform, I’m not her.”
Baker was born in 1954 in the front-room of her parent’s council flat located off Roman Road. Her Father was a shoemaker, her Mother was a housewife who looked after Baker and her four siblings. Baker says her childhood was “fantastic”. She grew up in a close-knit community. “My best friends lived directly above and below me the neighbours weren’t my Aunties and Uncles, you just called them that. I even called one of them Granddad. I felt really safe there.”
Growing up, Baker knew she wanted to do two things: “My friends when asked ‘what you want to do’, would say they wanted to be a teacher or nurse. My dream as a child was to represent my country, first in the Olympics because I loved running” she says. “Then when I saw Sandi Shaw win Eurovision, I thought, ‘I want to win Eurovision’.”
“I’m still waiting on the Olympic medal” Baker says laughing.
By the time Baker left school, however, she had settled on a career as a secretary: “Being in Bethnal Green, you’re one stop from the City; it was an obvious career choice in our area to train to work in the offices.” Her aspiration to be a singer became “a pipe dream”.
Then, in 1975, 21-year-old Baker auditioned to join her first band, Coco, and was accepted. Her parents were “fully supportive” of her career change, though they were surprised by it. Baker admits: “Mum and Dad would’ve been happy for me to keep working in the City earning a regular wage. They were very Victorian in their ways, it was about earning a living, having a family, that was their mentality. They expected me to be like them and their world was Bethnal Green.”
When she joined Coco, Baker adopted her professional name. “They asked me ‘what my name was’ and I said Rita Crudgington. They said: ‘That will have to go!’, so I changed it. I don’t remember where Cheryl Baker actually came from.”
Coco entered Eurovision in 1978 and finished in a disappointing eleventh place. Following one top-20 single, Baker left the band in 1980. That summer, she started working as a secretary again, this time at Mayfair Studios. What followed was, according to Baker, a mixture of “luck and serendipity.” In November 1980, at a party, Baker met an old acquaintance called Nichola Martin. “Shortly after, she rang and said she was putting this band together for a Song for Europe (a contest to decide who the UK entry for Eurovision will be) and asked if I wanted to join. That was Bucks Fizz.”
The 1981 Eurovision Song Contest was a close race; Bucks Fizz beat runners up West Germany by only four points. Bucks Fizz had won, but Baker immediately thought of Bethnal Green. “I rang home and my sister Sheila answered the phone. She said: ‘Reet you should’ve been here. It was amazing, everyone came out onto their balconies and they all opened their windows’. I thought then, I don’t want to be in Dublin. I want to be in Bethnal Green with my family and the people I love.”
Baker acknowledges that the area has changed significantly since then. “All the places I knew still look the same but, the people who live there have changed. The old East Enders have moved out. The new East Enders have got a bit of money and they work in the City.”
Baker moved out of Bethnal Green in 1984, “We were offered our council flat for £11,000 during Right to Buy. I don’t know what it’s worth now, at least half a million.” Her parents did not buy the flat in Bethnal Green, instead Baker bought her parents a house in Basildon, an area she described as popular with old East Enders. Baker instead moved to South London.
Bucks Fizz has since rebranded as The Fizz, following a legal dispute over the trademark. They’re still performing all-year-round will be in Liverpool during the contest, “leading up to the competition we’ve got things on in and around Liverpool, we’re going to be on The One Show.”
Despite her success and fame. Baker is proud of her roots and her heart will always be in the East End: “I want to thank everyone I knew in Bethnal Green because they made me the person I am.”
The Fizz will be performing at Indigo at the O2 on 31st March.
I too was born in bethnal green in my mums council flat in the old grey flats next to bethnal green tube station. We went down the tube station during the war and was the lucky ones in the crush, many killed and injured Went to work in Holborn by train to my office job at 16. £4. a week. That was in 1959. Married at 17, I now have 3 grown up children. I live now in Lincolnshire. I lost my dear husband 7 years ago, here in Lincolnshire.
My mum was also at the crush as a child.The family lived in prefabs totty street no linger there .The palm tree pub still stands my grandad usrd to drink in ther.
I am a few years older than Rita so as I lived 2 doors from her I used to take her to a dance and drama school every week, where she loved being on stage! She wasn’t bubbly from Buck’s Fizz, she’s always been bubbly even as a child! She might have been about 8. Her older sister was always singing too! Was just watching her on the chase,!