WHO’S LILY
ALLEN?
On one Singapore–London flight in
2006, there was a bit of a fuss among
the English first- and business-class
crew: ‘Oh, my God, it’s Lily Allen!’
This was apparently a reference to the
pretty young girl in the last row of
business.
1
‘Who’s Lily Allen?’ I asked, because I’d
never heard of her.
‘She’s a star!’ The Essex girls were
positively frothing with excitement. I
was working in first so I thought I’d
wander down to business to catch a
glimpse of the star. She was sitting
with her assistant and had an
earphone in one ear that connected
with an iPod.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘The girls are all fainting in
first. I hear you’re a star; what do you
do?’
‘I’m a singer. I’m Lily Allen. I’m
number one in the UK right now,’ she
said.
I apologised for my ignorance,
explaining that I was living in Brussels
and commuted a lot. Later, I found
out that her father was the British
actor and comedian Keith Allen and
her mother, Alison Owen, was a film
producer.
‘Oh, my God. I don’t believe you don’t
know who I am. I’m number one in
Belgium too and the rest of Europe,’
she laughed, clearly finding it
hilarious.
‘Well, you’ll have to let me have a
listen to you on your iPod.’
She handed it over, at the same time
introducing me to her record label
assistant, who just happened to be the
sister of William Baker, the guy who
reinvented Kylie Minogue by putting
her in the gold hot pants.
So that’s how I ended up preparing
the first-class meals while listening to
Lily’s album with her hit ‘Smile’ on it.
I was quite impressed.
Later, when service was over and beds
had been made up for passengers, I
invited Lily up to the first-class galley
for a drink and a gossip. What a
delight! She was a proud Londoner
and happily chatted about her life.
The conversation turned to the music
industry. She told me she was
returning to the UK after visiting
Australia for a promotional tour –
that was what an artist had to do if
Quietly, I pulled
aside the curtain
that separated first
class from business
class so she could
peep at the
stretched-out
sleeping passengers.
‘Darl, this is what
you can look forward
to when you have a
few more numberone hits.’
their first release was a hit.
‘It’s about establishing yourself
internationally and creating a buzz
with flow-on effects,’ she explained.
At the time Lily was twenty-one and
said she was finding the whole
celebrity thing pretty funny. She also
told me the business was incredibly
incestuous.
Although fairly new to stardom, she
came across as very confident, and
even had a few predictions. Amy
Winehouse, she was sure, would be as
big as her one day. (Of course, about a
year later, Amy’s hit ‘Rehab’ made
number one on the British charts; Lily
didn’t predict Amy’s 2013 death
following an alcohol binge, after she’d
kicked drugs.) The two of them would
change the Brit girl-band image, she
added. That could have been a Spice
Girls dig; I didn’t like to ask.
We were having a good old laugh in
the first-class galley and she asked,
‘What you gotta do to get up here?’
Quietly, I pulled aside the curtain that
separated first class from business
class so she could peep at the
stretched-out sleeping passengers.
‘Darl, this is what you can look
forward to when you have a few more
number-one hits.’
To reinforce the point, I loaded her up
with first-class goodies – some La
Prairie cream, a bottle of Dom
Perignon and some Qantas pyjamas –
and told her to remember me when
she was a big star. Laughingly, she
said would never forget me.
As I was leaving Heathrow, I saw
Lily again: she was crossing the road
and getting into a waiting car. She
saw me, took a swig out of the $300
bottle of Dom Perignon, and yelled,
‘Nice one, Owen!’
I blew her a kiss and headed home to
bed; although I was living in
Brussels I was overnighting in
London. Later that afternoon, I
received phone calls from two
Qantas crew asking me if I’d seen the
Metro newspaper, a free London
publication that was read by
millions.
‘My God, Owen you’re in the
newspaper! Lily’s thanking you for
all the first-class goodies you gave
her.’
My immediate reaction was that I
could lose my job – that expensive
bottle of Dom alone would be
grounds for dismissal! Until I could
get a copy of the paper, I was
sweating on it, wondering what
exactly the singer had said.
Management was bound to be in
touch so I worked out how I’d plead
my case: Lily was a rising star and I
was upselling, I’d say.
When finally I read the article, which
turned out to be one of several artists’
blog entries and appeared under the
heading ‘They’re blog’n’roll stars’, I
was relieved and pleasantly surprised.
She’d written, ‘big up to Owen’ and
only mentioned the pyjamas. How
flattering that of all the people Lily
Allen had met, she mentioned me, and
she’d gone out of her way to do so.
Management didn’t call; they
probably figured the publicity was
good. They didn’t seem to ever realise
how close we flight attendants
sometimes got to passengers in a
single flight and what an asset we
could be.
Lily had told me that she was
scheduled to appear in Brussels a few
weeks later and invited me to her
concert. Unfortunately, I never made
it as I was on a flight to Singapore at
the time. But we stayed in touch for a
while and, last I heard, she now lives
in LA with her husband, Sam Cooper,
and two children. Lily has recently
come out of self-imposed retirement
and is notching up number-one hits
again; she had two songs in the UK
Top 10 at the end of November 2013.
Extracted from Confessions of a Qantas Flight
Attendant:True Tales and Gossip From The Galley
by Owen Beddall with Libby Harkness.
Reprinted by permission of Random House
Australia.
AUG / SEPT 2014 | THEGAYUK 23