Carol Decker: ‘A glass of wine in my local is £21 — ridiculous!'

Times

2 days ago

Carol Decker is the lead singer of the band T'Pau, which she formed in 1986 with her boyfriend at the time, Ronnie Rogers. The pair enjoyed their biggest success with the single China in Your Hand, which spent five weeks at No 1 in 1987. She has also acted on the West End stage and appeared in the TV series Doctors and Benidorm, and films including Nine Dead Gay Guys and Running Time.
Decker has also taken part in the singing competitions Just the Two of Us on BBC1 and, this year, ITV's The Masked Singer, when she was the fourth contestant to be eliminated. In 2016 she released her autobiography, Heart and Soul.
The 67-year-old lives with her husband, Richard Coates, in Henley-on-Thames. They have two grown-up children, Scarlett and Dylan.
I have a beautiful Coach wallet that my husband bought me but there's no cash in it. Ever since lockdown — when if you touched any money you'd explode — I've just never ended up putting money back in my purse.
A Mastercard, which is linked to my iPhone, and doesn't have a limit on it, so I could just go out and tap my phone and buy a car. I prefer using a credit card as I have a larger spending limit on it than a debit card.
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A little bit of both. I love a bargain. When the kids were little they thought I shopped in a supermarket called Reduced because there was a yellow 'reduced' sticker on so much of our shopping. Do I still do that now? Oh, yeah. Today I brought home some awful sausages with hardly any meat in them because they had a yellow sticker. My husband is a wonderful chef. He's all about the ingredients, but I'm all about the budget. I can't help it. I didn't really catch a break in my career until I was about 26. I was broke for a long time, and I come from quite an ordinary background. I'm not tight but I'm used to just watching my pennies.
Yes, we bought this house in Henley-on-Thames for £625,000 in 2005. It's a huge, slightly ugly dormer bungalow, with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a swimming pool, a gym in the garage and half an acre of land. We all have our own space, which was particularly useful when we went through the horrors of lockdown.
Yes, probably. I don't know what my dad's salary was, but we had a very pleasant life. Eventually. We didn't ever have a bad life, but we were evicted on to the street in the early 1960s when I was little because they fell behind on the rent. But then Dad did reasonably well, and we ended up with a four-bedroom detached house with a big garden. He had a steady salary. When T'Pau took off, after years of being completely skint it was a bit like winning the lottery. Suddenly a ton of money came in. I managed to keep some money, and I'm still paid very nicely for what I do. I think I probably do earn more than they did.
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I'm not going to tell you, but it had a nice number of zeros on the end.
My first ever job was when I was 16 and I was working behind the till on a Saturday at a shop called John Menzies, which was like WH Smith. It was utterly terrifying because they didn't add up for you then, and for me maths felt like Russian. It was about 50 years ago but I can still remember the queue of people huffing and puffing while I worked out their shopping.
I guess when Ronnie and I bought a three-storey Victorian house in London for £205,000 in 1988. Some money had started to come in, and we upgraded the car and then we thought, let's go for it. The record company said, 'Well, there's a lot of money coming in through the pipeline. Do you want an advance on what's coming?' They gave us £200,000 to help us buy the house.
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God, yeah. I was skint even when we were recording [their debut album] Bridge of Spies. I was absolutely brassic. I remember there was ice on the inside of the windows of our flat because we couldn't afford to put the heating on. We had to sit in sleeping bags. The pipes froze really badly on quite a few occasions. And I remember going out and collecting snow and boiling it to wash my hair. That's why I can be very resourceful, because I had to be back then. I was shopping in charity shops and wearing some old bloke's blazer long before it was trendy.
Our first album, Bridge of Spies, because obviously the big hits came off that. China in Your Hand still keeps me very busy. I'm not going to give royalty numbers — it's not as much as you think because of streaming. Because it's such a popular song and people seem to still love the 1980s, it gives me a platform to keep working — most of my money is from live work. I appeared on The Masked Singer and it was a lot of money. The other week I performed at a club in Bedford and, after paying the band, I came away with about £3,500. Two years ago I performed in the Night of the Proms tour across Germany and Luxembourg with a 60-piece orchestra, and that was really nice and really good money as well. Nice gigs just crop up, which is lovely. And it gives me some financial stability as well.
With the way these governmental pickpockets behave and change their mind and break their promises, I'd say probably property. I just have this home. I haven't gone down the buy-to-let route. I don't want the responsibility of making sure other people are happy. I really don't. And then if you give it to an agency, there's a huge percentage to pay. I did start a private pension years ago, and I completely forgot to top it up. There's not that much in it, not really. I do have other things like Isas, and a few stocks and shares.
Probably my house. I can be a bit flutterish about other things, but I gave it quite a lot of thought — about the location, what the house was going to give to us, how we could move our lives forward. And I always think at the end of the day, if the work dries up, if the money runs out, I have the house. We've nearly paid the mortgage off. I could pay it off if I wanted to. There's about £3,000 left. I treasure my home.
I don't think I've made one, because I'm not courageous or curious.
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Wine. I regularly order a box from Majestic, or one of those really nice wine companies. I have an amazing capacity to sit and watch Netflix and drink. I probably spend about £70 a week on wine at home, and then if we go out and eat, that's way more expensive. It could be about £150 a week on wine, easily. The place where I like to go has put a large glass up to £21. £21! F***ing ridiculous. They have a captive audience here. It's very, very expensive here and in Marlow. When I'm out, people say, well, why don't you just buy a bottle? I go, because that would be unseemly, but I usually end up drinking a bottle. But I think if I drink it by the glass it looks better.
In about 1991 I spent two grand on an Azzedine Alaïa dress. It's what they call bodycon. Really tight. It's like wearing a corset. You can't breathe in it. I just didn't like it in the end. I gave it away to a mate.
My kids. I just want to make sure my kids will be OK. I think it's quite tough out there for them at the moment.
I'd buy my kids a house each so they've got something. And I'd probably fund an advertising campaign for a record, because that's what I miss. Ronnie has a studio, I can negotiate terms of musicians — I can cover all that. I did it a few years ago, but where the money is needed is the advertising. On the promotional campaign, making videos, ads, all that kind of thing. I miss that. I know you can use social media, but it's really hard to break through. I find it frustrating that if I put a new song out, nobody really knows. You're preaching to the converted. And so I think I'd spoil myself with an advertising campaign.
I've started to focus my support on local organisations. I used to donate to the big charities but now I don't trust them any more. I think it's a business. I tend to focus on a local hospice and special needs centre for kids. I'd rather see exactly where my money goes.
That it's freedom. I don't know how I'd cope if it all disappeared tomorrow. I'm used to being able to do pretty much what I want, within reason.
For tour dates and new music visit tpau.co.uk