'˜I nearly got strangled by female fans' says Portsmouth singing star

As part of Sweet Dreams, who represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1983, he performed a show that summer in Portsmouth’s Guildhall Square in front of hordes of excited fans.

Bobby, who comes to the Kings Theatre, Southsea on Sunday with former Bucks Fizz members Cheryl Baker, Jay Aston and Mike Nolan, said: ‘I nearly got strangled when we were leaving the Guildhall. The security guy said there were loads of girls waiting, so they were going to rush us out to the van.

‘I had this satchel over my shoulder and as we were coming out, the girls started to grab me. The security guy lifted me up and the girls were pulling me the other way.’

Bobby’s come a long way since he grew up in Buckland and had a paper round delivering The News. But he’s never forgotten the day he came back home as a star.

He explained: ‘After that last show, the rest of the band went back to London and I said I’d stay with my mum and dad in Portsmouth.

‘The next day my dad asked me to get the paper and I was standing in the queue in the newsagents. There was a picture on the front page with the headline “Sweet Dreams Mania”. I wanted to say ‘‘Look, it’s me!”’

Bobby was invited to join Mike, Cheryl and Jay as a group as they had stayed friends since the early 1980s.

He said: ‘The first time I sang live with them, it was very nerve-wracking because they’ve been singing these songs for 30-odd years and I was the new kid.

‘But because we’d known each other for years, it made it easier. It sounds clichéd, but I should have been in the group from the start. We have so much fun and I’m really looking forward to playing in Portsmouth again.’