By Emma Clayton

I ONCE sat through a matinee performance of a tedious murder mystery just to breathe the same air as David Soul.

He was my first love, even though I was in the Brownies when Starsky and Hutch was on telly, and about 25 years later I finally got to see him in the flesh. He wasn’t quite the same as the golden-haired dreamboat I’d once swooned over, but still.

I didn’t call his name, I didn’t even hang around the stage door. I’d seen him, (and I like to think he made eye contact), and that was enough.

It clearly wouldn’t be enough for the over-excited females who’ve been whooping and whistling through Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance as Hamlet recently. The ‘Cumberbitches’, as his devotees call themselves, have been filming him on stage and gathering by the stage door, demanding selfies with the actor.

It’s not quite Beatlemania, but it does show that the lovesick teenager in us never really goes away.

York Press:

David Soul

Around the time of my devotion to David Soul, I belonged to a Bay City Rollers club. It had three members, and we met in my friend’s bedroom and sang Shangalang. Everyone fancied Les, the singer, but my Roller of choice was guitarist, Eric.

As a teenager I fell into the Duran Duran camp, but I’d already decided I was going to marry Sting.

Pop hunks come and go, but girls will always go giddy over them.

Earlier this year I interviewed Gary Barlow, who has written a musical about the Calendar Girls, and I took along my friend, a huge Take That fan since the first time around. She even remained devoted to Gary through the wilderness years.

Now a happily married mother-of-two, she still loves him and was beside herself when we met him. She now has a mug with a picture of the two of them on it.

My niece was telling me about her friend, a devoted One Direction fan, who cried for seven hours when Zayn Malik left the band. “Was Zayn her favourite then?” I asked, feigning interest. “No. That’s Liam,” came the reply. “So why did she cry for seven hours?”

As far as I can make out, she was distraught because Zayn’s departure had set off some kind of boy band eco-balance, threatening the band’s future.

We all know that manufactured pop combos have a limited shelf life – until the inevitable split is followed by an inevitable reunion tour a decade later – but when you’re young and obsessed with the cute/daft/serious/dangerous one from your chosen boy band, you think they’ll go on forever.

And, since I’m going to see both Duran Duran and the Bay City Rollers this autumn, I guess they kind of do...