Where do I start?

At the beginning I suppose.

But where did my life as Labia Lefeure actually begin?

She didn’t experience the growing up poor in the East End of London. It wasn’t her who had to fend for herself due to the absence of parents.

Labia didn’t throw those punches at school because she couldn’t take the teasing of her tattered uniform anymore .

It wasn’t Labia’s lips that David kissed during that careless fumble down the alleyway one summer’s evening.

Those formative years belonged to someone else….another me. A nobody called Molly Jones.

Labia’s story, the one I am telling, begun on 12th February 1967 .

That was the day that she was born. Neatly coinciding with the death of the previous me and with it the life I could have led.

Labia’s birth did not take place in a hospital but instead it was in a little nightclub hidden away in the grimy streets of the East End.

There were no midwives encouraging the soon to be Mother to push but instead a crowd of jeering men shouting futile words of encouragement that I might take my top off.

Proud Fathers were replaced by absentee husbands, taking a detour from a busy day at work to get a quick release before returning to their dutiful wives.

Labia didn’t grow up surrounded by a multitude of siblings, she had a different family. Perhaps there is some similarity here, we don’t get to choose our family and Labia certainly didn’t get to choose hers. Someone else did and that person would prove to be far worse than any overbearing Father.

He put together Precious Comfort Love Thrust, created a family so dysfunctional that what we experienced in four years was enough to fill a lifetime. Fights, love, betrayal, tragedy and somewhere within all that…music. But as you will read music was very much secondary to everything that Precious Comfort Love Thrust was about.

And it all began on that fateful evening in February when Labia was born…..

When I was born.

That night if I had just said no I’d still be simple Molly Jones. Maybe I would have made it as a singer, perhaps I would have settled for the quite life as a secretary, got married, had kids and led a perfect life living in a three bedroom semi in Essex. By now I would have grandchildren at my knee, wistfully seeing out my remaining years playing bingo and complaining about the weather.

Instead I said ‘Yes’ and the life I should have experienced evaporated instantly. No turning back.

Why I agreed to his request is something I have often thought about. Perhaps it was the exuberance of youth. Maybe even by the age of 20 I had tired of Molly Jones; when he asked me the question I was desperately looking for a way out of my life.

He approached me with the opportunity to be someone different. To swap one life for another. He just neglected to tell me what the cost of this new life would be.

For years I’ve tried to forget I was even a part of Precious Comfort Love Thrust but try as I might I just kept getting dragged back into it.

Even news of his death brought me no comfort. I thought it might bring me a sense of freedom but instead it just reminded me of the hold he always had over me.

All because of that one night in February.

Then there was Stef…My poor sweet Stef. She didn’t deserve to die alone in that place, no-one knowing what she truly achieved, what she meant to the band….to the country for that matter.

I know I am on the same path as Stef; to die alone taking all those secrets to my grave. My life hidden away in some secret vault never to be revealed.

Yet she had that suitcase. A collection of vague memories that to the casual observer would seem nothing more than unwanted memorabilia of a band long forgotten. Why she kept that stuff is a mystery to me.

I was surprised to be alerted to a reference to Precious Comfort Love Thrust online. Even more surprised that the curator of our curious history was some blonde girl who thought Unicorned Squirrels would make a good story.

I could have sat back and just watch her create an acceptable version of Precious Comfort Love Thrust; one that even I would find pleasant; a place in history we did not deserve. Although the way she works to schedule I’d have been lucky to still be alive before she got to our first tour.

But even if allowed Selina j to reveal Precious Comfort Love Thrust to the world it would be a lie. The entire life of Labia Lefeure is a lie. If this is to be my swan song surely it should end on the truth? My one final ‘Fuck You’ to him and to truly honour those forgotten.

Dick, Vanda, Kaku, Regis and of course, Stef.

So, I write this story.

The true story of Precious Comfort Love Thrust.

The true story of Labia Lefeure.

The true story of me.

And it all begins on the one night in February.