John Sturgis

Are we on the verge of forgetting Amy Winehouse?

  • From Spectator Life
Image: Getty

Before she became associated more with tragedy than comedy, there was a joke which went: ‘What’s Amy Winehouse’s favourite tube station?..High Barnet’.

Not the best joke admittedly and one that required a degree of knowledge of rhyming slang – but it did anchor the beehived chanteuse and the borough she came from together in the popular imagination.

I should be clear from the outset that I’m a fan. For me she was the last great pop star. Back to Black is one of the best albums of all time and she isn’t remotely out of her depth in that dead-at-27 club alongside Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin et al. Even if she was out of her depth in life.

It seems strange then that ten years on from her terrible death – the anniversary falls this Friday – there is, in Barnet itself, practically no sign of her ever having existed.

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