BACK in the early Nineties, when I was a cub reporter on a weekly newspaper, I was invited to see a new boy band playing a gig at what was then Maestro's nightclub in Bradford.

 

"They're going to be huge," gushed the PR girl on the other end of the 'phone. "We'd love you to come backstage afterwards and interview them."

 

I'd never heard of them, and wasn't particularly enthusiastic about giving up an evening to watch some awful group singing cheesy pop tosh to a handful of teenagers. I muttered an excuse about being busy that night, and offered it around our little newsroom. The other reporters grimaced and shook their heads.

 

Six months later that boy band nobody had heard of were on Top of the Pops. They were called Take That. And, just as their PR girl predicted, they became pretty huge.

 

Fast forward 25 years and I'm sitting within a few feet of Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald at a press conference launching the UK tour of their new musical, The Band. It took place at Manchester's O2 Apollo, where Take That played their first ever gig in 1992.

 

"It feels quite emotional being back here, where it all began," said Howard, recalling the band's early days. I thought of those five lads starting out, playing smalltown venues and plugging themselves to anyone who'd listen.

 

They went on to become one of our biggest bands of all time, with 15 No.1 singles and seven No.1 albums in the UK, selling over 45 million records, winning six Ivor Novellos and eight Brit awards. Internationally they had 54 No.1 hits and 35 No.1 albums.

 

Tickets for their show, The Band, went on sale on Monday and within the first two hours the box office took £2 million - making it the fastest selling theatre tour ever. The show is coming to Bradford for two weeks in October.

 

Note to self: never turn down an opportunity to interview an up-and-coming band. You never know who they might become.

 

* WHEN it emerged that Emmerdale was going to tackle the complex issue of dementia, I braced myself for the trite coverage that is so often the fate of health and social concerns in TV soaps. You know the kind of thing - one week a character is an alcoholic, or anorexic, or has cancer or mental health problems, and within a couple of months they've recovered and it's never mentioned again.

 

But gradually, it became clear that Emmerdale's treatment of vicar Ashley Thomas's vascular dementia was being handled in a way not seen in TV drama before. This moving storyline, developed in consultation with the Alzheimer's Society and MHA Care Homes, has spanned two years, and along the way viewers have seen the impact of dementia on a man still relatively young, with a job, a wife, children, and potentially years of life still ahead of him. Just as poignant has been the effect on his family - a teenage daughter struggling to understand his confusion, a little boy trying to engage with a dad who is fading away, and a wife whose heart breaks when he no longer remembers her name.

 

Soaps reach millions of people; broadcast to living-rooms every evening, they're hugely influential. This week I attended a preview screening of Friday's moving episode of Emmerdale, which says goodbye to Ashley. Actor John Middleton, who plays him, told me "every aspect" of the storyline had come from people he's met, largely through Bradford Pathways, with early onset dementia.

 

"Dementia is the biggest health issue we will face this century," said John. Raising awareness of this aspect of the disease is crucial - and Emmerdale has done so in a responsible, incredibly moving and ultimately warm way.

 

* I LOVED the T&A report about three Bradford friends who showed their Starsky and Hutch video to the stars of the '70s cop show. Nadeem Butt, Riaz Ahmed and Zafar Amin met at a school reunion and, reminiscing about their favourite TV show, decided to make a Bradford version. Shown at a Comic-Con event, it impressed Paul Michael Glaser, David Soul and Antonio Fargas.

 

I adored Starsky and Hutch; being allowed to stay up for it on a Saturday night was thrilling. As these three friends have shown, it's one of those TV memories that stays forever.

 

* THERE are certain bonding rituals between a father and his son. Kicking a football around the park together, showing the boy how to shave, and taking him to the pub for his first legal pint are rites of passages that spring to mind.

 

And now we have taking your son for his first tattoo...

 

Brooklyn Beckham has shared on Instagram a snap of a Native American design he's had inked onto his arm, matching one of his famous father's tattoos. David, said to have over 40 tattoos covering his body, looked on proudly as his oldest child went under the needle.

 

Sorry, but it's tacky. Yes, the boy is old enough, but he's now stuck with a hideous design for life. Couldn't they just stick to kicking a ball about..?