Pepsi And Shirlie, It’s All In Black And White

Okay so a little while ago, I read a book which is called Pepsi and Shirlie, It’s All In Black And White. Pepsi and Shirlie were Wham’s back up dancers. They both wrote a book together, talking about the revelation of Wham and their experiences. After they left Wham, they became a pop duo called Pepsi And Shirlie. I was completely blown away by this book, I thought it was absolutely amazing .

{ Trigger warning, there are some very disturbing and awful details to traumatic child hoods so if you’re sensative towards these kinds of things, I suggest you don’t read this part of the post}

I love that they took turns talking about their experiences, I thought that was really cool. In this book, they talk about their childhoods and their upbringings. They both had quite tough and traumatic childhoods to say the least, I had no idea they had it hard. Pepsi grew up in a rough household, her mum was caring and gentle and she was trying to provide for her family as a mother and her dad was an alcoholic and he would go out, drinking and sometimes he wouldn’t come home. If there was ever a reason why he wouldn’t return home then usually it would be a really bad thing . He would get drunk and then he would shout and get really aggressive, when things got a bit too much, it would really weigh in on both of them. And then, one day, their worlds turned upside down when her dad got stabbed by a Teddy Boy whilst he was back from a night out at the pub. The Teddy Boys were a gang that would hang around on the streets during the 60s and the 80s. They’re really quite nasty and at the time, there was all this speculation about whether or not they’re racist and they weren’t racist but they were dangerous . So after that, they didn’t want him going out all by himself just in case it would happen again and maybe next time, he might not come back alive, so they didn’t want to chance anything . So there was a lot of uncertainty and fear. It was indeed a racist attack and you know, back in those days, racism was on the rise and there was a lot of hate crime, you could literally go outside and walk the streets and someone would attack you just for your skin colour or any other reason so it was quite pungent back then . I had no idea about this story, it’s absolutely horrible, must have been frightening. No one should have to go through that. Pepsi had such a hard child hood but she’s just absolutely amazing, to go through all that and still be strong and fabulous, respect .

Shirlie’s child hood was also quite difficult . She talks about her experiences with having meningitis at a young age, that must have been scary, Meningitis is a horrible disease, she’s lucky to be alive since many don’t make it. She also had anxiety when she was younger. I had no idea about all this, this book was so eye opening, they really went through so much, it makes me respect these young ladies even more, cheering everyone up and inspiring young girls with their music whilst they also dealt with some hard ships in their lives.

It’s quite ironic because my recent book post was about Wham and Pepsi and Shirlie are the back up dancers . We don’t really see much of them since they’re mostly in the back round dancing and singing along with George and Andrew. These girls are just amazing, such an inspiration. Their friendship is untouchable.  When times got tough, Pepsi was always on hand to cheer Shirlie up and make her laugh, we all need a Pepsi in our lives . She couldn’t get through it on her own. This is why I don’t agree in all that independent woman crap.  It works for some people but not everyone. We all need someone in our lives to help us get through certain moments. Shirlie could never have done all this alone, I think that Pepsi joining her in certain events in her life made it a lot more enjoyable, they were great friends and they spent all those years just lifting each other up and supporting each other.

In this book, they obviously go into Wham since they were the back up dancers. It talks about when Shirlie met Pepsi for the first time on her way to an audition and they bonded over the same things, they both liked Shirie Bassey hence that’s where Shirlie got her name from. Yeah, this book was amazing, I really enjoyed reading about their beautiful friendship.

I think I also loved it because it’s the 80s. The 80s was a very interesting decade, especially for music and film. I just love reading about all this, it’s so fascinating . They also talk about when they both left Wham to become a duo when it was obvious that George Michael was going to become a solo artist. I liked reading about all that as well.

Yeah I mean, I don’t want to give too much away because if you any interest in this kind of topic, I suggest that you read it yourself so I’m just going to keep it nice and short. But yeah, I really loved this book, it was a real page turner and when it ended, I really wanted to read it again, just a really beautifully crafted book about their wonderful friendship and navigating your life whilst being in the public eye. For those of you who are Wham / Pepsi And Shirlie fans, I totally recommend this book, you’re going to have so much fun reading this. It feels like you’re going on a journey with these incredible talented young ladies, I loved this so much.

Thank you so much for reading this post, I hope you all have a lovely day, love you guys.

More work to come on Big Blog Theory