You can depend on me

It’s been a year since my last blog about my Jason Donovan escapades. But 1 June is his birthday (and also Tom Holland’s before my daughter rolls her eyes at me for not mentioning). And while 2026 wasn’t quite as excessive as the Doin’ Fine 2025 Tour, this tour was just as special. Although it did highlight more than ever the North-South divide between the Posh Southerner and Northern Nutter.

We’ll start in February in Watford. Just over a year since the tour started in 2025 when we learnt just what a fab setlist it was. Although at the time we had no real inkling of just how much fun we were going to have over the following seven weeks. But back to 2026. Who knew that trying to get a Northerner out from Central London to Watford would be so tricky?! And before anyone tells me off for stereotyping or generalising, I’m really not. It’s just so blinking hilarious how different the two of us are. She moans about the tubes, the rudeness of Southerners, the constant rushing about of people in London and how hot and loud it is (we’ll come back to the pigeons later!)

But eventually she made it. And I went and collected her from the station. I’m good like that. But after we checked into the hotel and then sat down over a drink before heading out, I stopped. For the first time in months. I looked at her and said, “this is the first time I’ve stopped since Christmas.” To which she responded, “I thought you were going to say since 6am!” And this is the gift that being a Jason fan has given me this year. The gift of time. The gift of stopping.

You see from December onwards, life had been pretty full on. My daughter had sustained a knee injury (not great when you’re a performer), my nan’s house had been sold in mid-January and as a family we’d been having to empty the house to get it ready for sale, including multiple tip runs every weekend, I’d been having challenges regarding Nan’s care, I’d been working full time and all the usual aspects of being a widow and solo parent. At the end of January, life had been so overwhelming that I’d literally broken down in tears at work and needed to recalibrate. Just the week before the Jason concert in Watford plans had the potential to be thrown into disarray due to my daughter’s knee. So, even getting to Watford had felt like an achievement.

But as we sat there over a Bottomless Brunch at dinnertime (seriously, how can it be called a brunch in the evening?!) I stopped. I just relaxed. For the first time in nearly two months. We put the world to rights. We had random conversations. We had our standard photobooth photos. We had fun. And all this was ahead of the main man the following day.

Again, the following day, I relaxed. I sat in PJs for most of the morning and didn’t have to rush around. It’s a privilege that doesn’t happen often when you’re a solo parent. After I’d spent a lot of the day stressing and overthinking what I was going to wear, we then headed off for our Meet and Great ahead of our first night on Doin’ Fine 26 Encore Tour. We got there a little bit too early (another North-South divide) but somehow this meant we ended up first in the queue for the Meet and Greet. Seven-year-old me would be so excited at going in to meet Jason and hearing his tour manager say, “you obviously know Vicky and Emma.” Imagine that. Nearly forty years after decreeing I was going to marry him, this was how I was introduced. It was as fun as ever. He didn’t have his glasses so had to borrow Vicky’s. He jabbered on too much to get a sensible, smiley photo and then signed my memories of 2025. Whoever said don’t meet your idols definitely lied. That night Jason wore glasses that recorded footage of what he was seeing… and just a few days later that footage was live. For anyone who had ever wondered what a Posh Southerner and Northern Nutter look like at a Jason concert, now they could find out. My child said I looked special; I didn’t believe that this was a compliment. But what this video showed was me dancing and having fun like it was 1988. Relaxed, carefree Emma. Not juggling widow and solo parent Emma. Jason sings ‘You Can Depend On Me’ and I really can. I can depend on him to to make me forget about all my worries and stresses for an evening.

Just two weeks later, we did it all again. In Skegness. The intervening period had been standard for me. Tip runs, physio appointments for my daughter, working, juggling life and everything in-between. And we were now also in March. One of the two months of the year I find most difficult. And this year was proving just that tad more difficult. Because six years after a death means that everything falls on the same day it does when the death happens. In 2026, everything was hitting on the same days as in 2020. Plus my birthday at the end of March was one I felt that I was rapidly heading towards and didn’t want to happen. Because then I would turn the age my late husband was when he died.

As in 2025, being able to be seven years old and relieve memories of a time when I didn’t have a care in the world was so well timed. Skegness saw a spoon of truth, a visit to the Seal Sanctuary, relaxing in a hot tub, putting the world to rights and finding snacks that even spelt Jason Donovan! But as the two of us got ready for our Meet and Greet, I just couldn’t help but feel how lucky I was. My sister had once again travelled with me. My Northern Nutter and my adopted Mummy were there. The latter are only people in my life because of Jason.

Unlike Watford, we were the penultimate people to go into the Meet and Greet. Again, seven-year-old me had to pinch herself at getting this opportunity. I honestly do struggle to believe it at times. The banter, the chat, the selfies. It’s what I could only dream of in the 1980s. I know people think we’re mad. I know people question why we do it. And I guess we probably are on a level when it comes to Jason. But we all have our vices don’t we?!

And just a few days later, we had the final night on this tour. But this one was that little bit more special. Because this was the first time that my daughter had come with me to a Jason gig. Yes she’s done musicals before not never a gig. Although she made no attempt to hide the fact that she was only coming because my sister and the Northern Nutter were coming too. Once again, the North-South divide was evident. I had to travel across London to rescue said Northener from the pigeon that attacked her. Who knew they were so scary?! But unlike the previous two dates, I didn’t really switch off to begin with as I needed to make sure my daughter was sorted to get to us. And of course, life doesn’t go to plan. The train was running late, and then they changed the route so that she couldn’t get off at the station she needed to. Cue a rescue mission from my sister which meant that only then could I finally relax into my evening. As we went into the venue, I knew that any shred of credibility I might have built up over the years was about to disappear. In a flash. Because I knew that once my daughter saw me at a Jason concert, her opinion of me would no doubt change forever.

Yet for once in my life, I didn’t let my overthinking stop me being me. I danced as I usually do. Because I wanted to give her a little indication of me when I stop worrying about the world for a few hours and enjoy myself. I didn’t stop being me for fear of embarrassing her. I just knew I’d deal with the consequences. And she was as brutal as her father would have been had he ever come with me to a Jason concert. The response “yes” to the question “did I embarrass you?” said it all. But this response didn’t really bother me in the way it might have done once upon a time. It just meant that I’d been me and she’d been able to see a side to me that she hasn’t really seen before. And one she certainly didn’t see for a very long time because I was in survival mode.

Nights like that and weekends away like Watford and Skegness felt beyond unachievable in March 2020. I’d never have believe that six years later I’d be doing things like this. I felt that the world would be shut down forever and I would never have a normal again. I had no concept of when I might be able to smile or laugh again. The fact I’m able to and a lot of this has come down to Jason means so much to me. That my birthday gift from the northerner was the lyrics to Talk You Down, the song that became our song over the course of this tour means so much. Even if my late husband would be rolling his eyes at it all!

We’ve got one more Jason date lined up this year and then that’s it for 2026, unless of course someone would like to apply to take me to Australia to see him in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We then have nothing lined up for 2027…. yet!

However, as part of my aim to try to live a little more deliberately before I become older than my husband ever got to be, I’m hoping to weave Jason in somehow before January 2027. A suggestion was made by a fellow Jason fan that one of my moments should be a meet up with as many Jason fans as possible for a day out somewhere random and I love this idea. I’m yet to figure out how to make this work, or even if it’s possible, but it’s definitely something I want to try to do. I’ve already got one amazing friend as a result of being Jason fans, why not mark The Time In Between with many more?