Well, yes, absolutely, please, please, please!

["Collinson, Wendy" <Wendy.Collinson@olsy.co.uk>]

For a long time, living in Melbourne, Australia, my friend Helen and I
could only read about the various Kate goodies that were not within our
reach.  We got the occasional copy of Homeground, in which we read of
demos, the Cathy book, conventions, etc.  

Then one night, we popped into our favourite record store, Gaslight,
were chatting with one of the staff about Kate Bush, when he said "oh,
we've got a copy of the Cathy book coming over from the States.
Interested?"  Well, yes, absolutely, please, please, please!  It was
going for about AUS$350 and it took us ages to pay it off but oh, the
excitement of finally being able to take it home, look at it, finger the
pages lovingly, and really feeling rather fortunate!  

The bonus was that when we got to the end of the book, sandwiched
between the end papers was a letter, in mint condition and on Kindlight
letterhead, from John Carder Bush to an executive at EMI in America.  He
was offering her a copy of the book as a promo, and said that it was
being released as a limited edition along with the Hounds of Love.
Well, it wasn't a personal note from Kate herself but we were pretty
excited at the time!  We share the Cathy book between us:  Helen brought
it over a few years ago and it's going back to her in Australia in
October!

So, to the demos.  Finding the Cathy book seemed the start of it all.  I
went to Sydney to see my family one time and went into Red Eye Records.
They had the Japanese TKI, the leotard cover, which I hummed and haahed
about buying.  I decided against it at the time but changed my mind and
went back at the end of the day.  It had been sold ... but looking
through the stacks again I found the extended single of Rocket Man on
vinyl!  As I purchased it the sales assistant said, "you interested in
Kate Bush?"  Well, yes, absolutely, please, please, please!  He ducked
into the back room and pulled out two cds I had not seen before.  One
was a bootleg version of the Hammersmith Concert, another contained the
live demos with the band plus demos of Hammer Horro, Kick Inside, Davey,
Keeping Me Waiting & Rose Growing Old.  It was truly one of those mind
altering moments!  I could not believe what I was holding in my hands.

Later on, I hooked up with a record dealer in Melbourne who made regular
trips to the UK - through him I got a whole cd of piano demos, the
Lionheart boxed set, and a vinyl single of Kate's performance at the
Tokyo Music Festival in 78/79, featuring Moving, She's Leaving Home &
The Long & Winding Road.

Since coming to England, I've had other opportunities like going to the
premiere of TLTCTC and seeing Kate herself, going Kate-spotting in East
Wickham with my friend Helen on one of her visits.  Finding the demos
though has been one of the magical moments in the life of this Kate Bush
fan's life.  I'm not overly fussed about collecting all the various
editions of albums etc - like most Kate Bush fans, if not all, I just
like her music more than anything else.

Wendy