Cher

I have mixed feelings about Cher.

When I was a teenager, we had one of her workout videos at home. We were pretty good at doing it daily and so we got to know every last bit of music and all the things the leotard-clad ladies said to each other whilst performing ‘the pony’.  Sometimes I would do the workout with my sister Amanda, and sometimes I would do it alone. I could probably still do it now, from memory, and still occasionally work my way through it as I try to fall asleep at night.

One weekend, we arrived home from a Duke of Edinburgh camp/hike feeling so pumped that we decided to ‘do the Cher’ as soon as we got home. We’d raised our fitness so much over the weekend that we barely broke a sweat and wanted to do it again once we’d finished.

One day, as I worked out alone (apart from being in the company of Cher and her friends) my dad walked into the living room. I cannot remember the context of his annoyance with me that particular day (could have been anything) but I do remember the steely, provocative, downright mean look in his eyes as he said ‘you’ll never be a patch on Cher’ and walked out of the room.