6 April 3, 2022The Sunday Times
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‘T
his house is special for us.
This is the first house we
have put together with just
us in mind,” says Martin
Kemp, the twinkly-eyed
Spandau Ballet bassist, actor and DJ.
“What happens is you go past the empty-
nest syndrome and you start to appreciate
each another again. You realise how you
started. So we’re at that spot now.”
As every child of the 1980s knows,
Martin, 60, has been married since 1988
to Shirlie Holliman, 59, the cool-girl
backing vocalist for Wham!. Their
relationship is famed for its longevity and
fondness, and in their new house in
Hertfordshire the couple will be starting a
stripped-back, acoustic version of their
life. The eight homes they have shared to
date have been tailored to family living.
Now their daughter, Harley Moon, is 33
and their son, Roman, is 29, they are
renovating the ninth for themselves alone
and documenting the project on
Instagram (@maisonnumber9). The first
room they tackled was the kitchen. Martin
says: “It’s a cheesy old saying, but it really
is the heart of the home. It never really
becomes our house until we change
the kitchen.”
When the couple met they were both
still living with their parents. Shirlie
moved out first and remembers: “The first
place I rented was a bedsit with another
girlfriend of Spandau Ballet, who was a
model, in Crouch End. I got the short
straw and I had a little room with a single
bed. I remember going to Marks &
Spencer and buying all these floral sheets
with roses on — I was very girlie — and
Martin used to come and stay there
because obviously we didn’t want to go to
his mum and dad’s and we didn’t want to
go to my mum and dad’s.”
To cut a long story short, Martin bought
his own flat in Highbury Park, giving the
couple more room to manoeuvre. “It was
perfect for me because it overlooked the
park and every Wednesday I could watch
Arsenal training,” says Martin, a lifelong
Gunners fan.
Shirlie recalls: “That was lovely. We
made the second bedroom into a dining
room, because I loved having dinner
parties.” And their kitchens ever since
have been designed around entertaining.
When they have guests, Shirlie is the
cook and Martin (whose speciality dish is
cheese on toast) the cleaner-upper.
“If I have girls over for a dinner party he
will do all the washing-up for us. I love
that,” she says. “I come into the kitchen
thinking I have to do all the tidying up
and it’s all been done.” Martin chips in:
“That’s so that I can have a nosey on
the conversation.”
Shirlie, whose father was a builder and
who remembers drawing house plans for
him to build for her as a child, takes the
lead in matters of decor. “I’m just so
passionate about it. It means so much to
me — it can draw me to tears if Martin
disagrees about something. I’m so
passionate about homes, and kitchens are
one of my biggest loves. I’d love to design
kitchens for a living, to be honest.”
Her new kitchen has made her think
about childhood Sunday lunches. “My
mum loved cooking, and to this day I hear
her voice all the time. She had five kids
and when she made roast dinners there
was nothing she didn’t cook. She had a
kitchen that was literally 4ft by 6ft. Tiny
but every cupboard was stacked.
Whenever I look at kitchens I think it
doesn’t matter how big a kitchen is, if you
are a good cook you can make it happen. I
wish my mum was still around to see the
kitchen we’ve got now. My mum always
wanted a beautiful kitchen but she never
had that. I don’t know if I’ve taken on her
yearning to have the gorgeous kitchen.”
They began the renovation inOLD
ROMANTICS
The Spandau Ballet legend and his wife Shirlie’s ninth house heralds a
new chapter — with a cool kitchen for discos. By Katrina Burroughs
HOWDENS; INSTAGRAM: @MAISONNUMBER9