Alleyn's, in Dulwich. Florence was ten or 11 and she was
playing the lead female part of Blousey Brown.
At school productions, parents are usually interested only
in the efforts of their own offspring, but when Florence
sang, the whole audience was suddenly fully engaged. I
remember thinking: 'Cripes, she's got a voice - this is
serious.'
It wasn't just her perfect pitch - she had the essence of
phrasing and timing which makes a good singer great.
On the basis of her phenomenal performance she was coopted to sing a rather obscure and difficult Gilbert And
Sullivan song at my father's memorial service at St Bride's
in Fleet Street in 1997.
My father, Colin, was a journalist and satirist who had
been deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph and a
parliamentary sketchwriter for the Daily Mail, so the
great and good of Fleet Street were there. Florence sang
brilliantly in front of scores of weeping crumblies.
After this she became something of a fixture at funerals.
When I recently gave her a hard time about the dark
quality of her lyrics - the first song she wrote was called
My Boy Builds Coffins - she said: 'You made me sing at
funerals. What do you expect?'
Florence spent her later teenage years in a mysterious
group called the Toxic Cockroaches. Her mother and I,
by now divorced, probably did not pay enough attention.
Having won a place at Camberwell School Of Art, she
sang with a band called Ashok.
On one occasion she called me from Greenwich, angling
for a lift home. Her band, she said, weren't there but
there were some others around who she might play with.
I turned up and watched her sing two songs, which were
phenomenal.
No, she said afterwards, she hadn't rehearsed. No, she
had had no idea what she was going to sing when she got
on stage. This stunned me then and still stuns me now.
Florence and her bandmates were 'spotted' by an oldschool music manager and there was talk of a contract.
'Don't sign anything until we've had a chance to have a
look at it,' we implored. 'Yeah, yeah,' said Florence - and
went ahead and signed it.
That's where it all could have gone off the rails. She was
19 and miserable, in the wrong band, life signed away,
career over before it had begun. Despite my misgivings, I
became a bit of a rock dad, and phoned a friend who was
a music lawyer.
THE FLOW MAGAZINE ISSUE 6 | APRIL 2014
It turned out the contract was only binding on Florence
as part of the band, so all she had to do was resign. After
that we paid a bit more attention.
Florence engaged her present manager, Mairead Nash,
one half of the achingly fashionable Queens Of Noize
club night promoters, by trapping her in a club
washroom and singing an Etta James song at full volume.
Their partnership has worked pretty well so far.
Once established in her own right, and aided and abetted
by Mairead and the 'thunderous' Machine, Florence's
progress has been swift and spectacular.
Last year I was the one driving Florence and a two-man
Machine around Europe in her stepmum's camper van,
following in the wake of the MGMT (another popular
band) tour bus - all for the princely sum of €75 a gig.
This year it is a professional driver, Florence, a five-piece
Machine and a road crew in their own tour bus.
I still go to some gigs, but my small part in this drama is,
to a great extent, over. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and my
early days as de facto tour manager are a great source of
envy to my fifty-something chums who would give their
eye teeth for the chance to go 'on the road' with a band,
man.
There are, of course, alarming aspects to the whole thing.
I have witnessed Florence clambering up the gantry at
Glastonbury in 6in heels and I have seen her being passed
around the audience at a gig with Pete Doherty.
Indeed, I shared a light ale or two with the rock and roll
Rimbaud and found him to be quite charming, if a trifle
vague. I must