Former Wham! Shirlie Kemp, a backer, and Martin Kemp, the father of EastEnders legend and I’m A Celeb star, have two children named Roman and Harleymoon. However, the couple had a relationship during a vacation and fell in love.
Shirlie Kemp has shared how a request from her son Roman saved her family from being caught up in a catastrophic natural disaster. The former Wham! backing singer, 63, and Spandau Ballet bassist Martin were planning a family holiday back in 2004.
The family’s “very spiritual journey,” according to Shirlie, a mother of two. Roman, a presenter for The One Show at the time, had his sights set on a trip to the Bahamas where he could slide through a sea of sharks.
On Travel Secrets the Podcast, Shirlie disclosed that Roman’s insistence led the family to choose a Caribbean getaway over Thailand in 2004. This was the year when the Boxing Day tsunami wreaked havoc around the Indian Ocean, claiming the lives of around 200,000 people across 14 countries, including Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
We did not want to go there, according to Shirlie during the podcast because Roman wanted to go to the Bahamas, the Atlantis Hotel, and we did that. And he was obsessed, and he requested that we go, “Please let us go, we can go through a slide and go through sharks.”
I wanted to travel to Thailand and spend a lot of time there. When the tsunami struck Thailand, Roman was successful in doing so. Never have I been so appreciative of your children. He’s like, “Come on, mum, come again,” when I fell down the slide.
There were some risks in Martin and Shirlie’s holiday adventures. When Shirlie ended up rolling a Mini during a rally through a rice paddy during their three-week journey to Vietnam, Martin described a hair-raising incident where he was encased inside the overturned vehicle and was taken to the hospital.
He recalled that “you have to go through these rice paddies because we’re on this big rally within a rally and we’re on this big rally.” I’m navigating while Shirley is driving. You have to put your foot down because it’s a race, which is kind of a time trial. Shirlie puts her foot down as we get going.
Someone told me before we left that if you crash, never hold on to the roll bar because you can get trapped inside because we were in this old Mini. Shirlie places her toe down in the rice paddy, and the entire car turns around and we are upside down in the rice paddy.
What should I do since there is no water in the rice paddy? Grab the roll-bar. Therefore, my hand has been stowed between the rollbar and the roof. Shirlie has since unbuckled herself and fled. I’m trapped upside down in the middle of nowhere in a car that has just been filled with gas and glass.
When Martin saw that his hand had “gone blue,” he was concerned he might “lose my fingers” or something. On the other hand, Shirley recalls being “screaming” until two rice field workers noticed their predicament.
The former soap star was saved and transported to a hospital that resembled “like a little shack.”
Shirlie further explained that the car rolled because Martin’s knee “unintentionally” “knew the navigation system, which prevented her from being notified of an upcoming sharp bend.” She continued, “I’m going too quickly and there’s a huge tree in front of us, and if I don’t, we’re going to have to roll this car.” We will be killed by that tree.
Fortunately for Martin, sensation returned to his hand “a few weeks later”. The Gold singer is currently appearing in I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!on ITV One.
He will be back on our screens alongside Angry Ginge, Kelly Brook, and rapper Aitch from 9pm tonight (November 20).
Source: Mirror
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