Bucks Fizz star risked getting kidnapped by the IRA during Eurovision

Irish Daily Mirror

26-05-2025

Bucks Fizz star Cheryl Baker has revealed she risked being kidnapped while in Dublin during the Eurovision Song Contest.
In 1981, the UK were crowned winners of the song contest, which was hosted at the RDS, with their song, Making Your Mind Up.
But Cheryl has now revealed the 'stupid move' she and her co-star Mike Nolan made hours before taking the win.
In a new interview with Slingo, the singer shares how she and her bandmate Mike Nolan snuck out despite being under strict orders to stay in their hotel rooms as the song contest was under threat from the IRA.
She told Slingo: 'The event was threatened by the IRA, as was the British contingent, that's why we were kept separate. We had armed guards for each of us.
'Outside our hotel rooms and when we travelled, we travelled in a coach, just us, no other countries.
'We had outriders, I felt like royalty! You don't think of the danger, you think of excitement. We were going on the wrong side of the road, through red lights, it made you feel special.
'We were in Dublin for a few days, and we had a few hours to spare so Mike, who is from Dublin, said to me, 'should we go shopping?' I said, 'no, we can't, we've been told to stay in our rooms'.
'He said, 'let's sneak out', so we did. I can't remember how we did it, but we sneaked out of the hotel, and went shopping.
'I can remember the dress I bought, walking along the streets of Dublin with Mike feeling really free, but we were stupid, really stupid, we had a price on our heads at the time.
'It was the excitement and the freedom at the time. When we got back, we got such a telling off from our people, our record label and everything, but especially by the Irish police who were looking after us.
'The discovery we'd disappeared, we might have been kidnapped! They didn't know, we were so silly, you're stupid like that when you're young, that was a bit naughty, I have to admit to that.'
Cheryl revealed how Bucks Fizz had to return back to their hotel room hours after winning because of the security threat.
'It's weird, after we won, we went back to our hotel, we had a different hotel from all the other contingents because of the IRA, they were very active in those days and they had threatened to disrupt the competition, so they kept us in a completely separate hotel, none of the other countries were there.
'They were all staying in another hotel, and it must have been fun for them. They could all go to the bar and have a bit of a party, whereas we were on our own with our record label and production company.
'They cracked open the champagne and the orange juice obviously, so I went to my room in the hotel and rang home.
'Home for me at the time was a council flat in Bethnal Green. I rang and my sister answered the phone, my real name's Rita, and there were cheers everywhere, music playing in the background and immediately, my eyes filled with tears, and I just thought, I want to be there.
'My sister said, oh Reets, you should have seen it, I get upset talking about it! I was born in that block of flats, there were three blocks of flats, and people then, if they lived there, they lived their most of their lives, so everyone knew me.
'I was like their friend, their daughter, and so when we won, people came out, I'm getting tearful! People came out on the balconies, threw open their windows, it was so moving. I just thought, I want to be there, I want to be back home.
'We flew home the next day, to Heathrow, came home to the arrivals lounge and everyone was there, my family, my friends, they'd made banners, the music was playing and I fell to my knees and cried and my dad forced his way through and took me in his arms and gave me the fatherly hug I needed at the time. It was strange, it really affected me and made me very emotional.'
Cheryl says life for them changed 'immediately'.
'It changed for us immediately, after the show had come down, we were all ushered into an area where there was a stage, we stood on the stage and we were completely surrounded by paparazzi, film cameras, photographers, everyone was standing round and calling us.
'I thought, blimey, my life's just changed. We went from being nobody to being everyone worldwide wanted a piece of us, it was crazy. It was absolutely crazy and our lives changed so dramatically because of it.'