Looking at the Stars by Lewis Hine

Author:Lewis Hine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blink Publishing
Published: 2018-10-07T16:00:00+00:00

‘Hey Nick, do you remember me? It’s Lewis from the Teen Awards. I need some advice on the planning of the massive prom I’m organising. Thanks from Lewis.’

I sat on the sofa with Mum while she willed me to send it.

‘Are you really going to do it? Go on, you press it,’ she said.

‘Here we go.’ I hit send and looked up at my mum. ‘Done.’

We stared at the screen together. ‘Oh my God, it’s got two ticks, it’s actually arrived,’ she said.

‘Crazy! What am I doing?’

‘I can’t believe you’ve just texted Nick Grimshaw asking him for help,’ said Mum, giggling. ‘OK. If he doesn’t reply, don’t worry. People must ask him for help all the time, so let’s not get too excited.’

I sat there for a serious moment, thinking. Then: ‘Hey, yeah!’ I said, throwing my arms up in the air. We lay back on the sofa and laughed.

I was convinced Nick wouldn’t even remember who I was. He must meet hundreds of new people every month.

But he did remember. A few hours later I was in the kitchen with Jess when a text came in. It said, ‘Hey Lewis, great to hear from you. That sounds fun. Why don’t you come to Radio 1 one day and meet us and chat through some ideas?’

I couldn’t believe it. A few days later I was sitting in a big swivelly chair at the Radio 1 studio telling Nick Grimshaw all about our plans. He was incredibly enthusiastic – although he did point out that major pop stars’ diaries are ‘insane… actually they work like dogs, they literally work every single day!’ So the chances of getting Ed Sheeran or The Vamps to play at a prom in Portsmouth were quite slim.

When he saw that I was disappointed, he said, ‘The night needs to focus on the people going there and the reason why they’re going. They’re going to experience the prom they missed out on – you don’t want people asking for tickets so they can see a star perform.’

It was probably the best advice anyone gave me.

Nick offered to help us find an up-and-coming band, and suggested that we ask people coming into Radio 1 in the weeks leading up to the prom to record a message of support that we could broadcast on the night. The roll-call of celebrities walking through those doors is impressive, and before we knew what had happened, we’d had shout-outs from the likes of Olly Murs, Emeli Sandé, Rita Ora, Clean Bandit, Niall Horan, Jess Glynne, KSI, Louisa Johnson, Two Door Cinema Club and even The Vamps. And we also had the very brilliant indie singer Jerry Williams lined up to play. She’s from Portsmouth, too, which was good.

We also needed clothes. I didn’t want money to be a barrier at my prom, so everything was going to be free. That meant we needed enough dresses and suits and pairs of shoes for everyone – with spares so there was a choice of styles and sizes.

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