ANDREW RIDGELEY

We were in a little bubble to a degree, but you'd never really know what was going on elsewhere, you'd done a tour in the States and then you wouldn't really know what the reaction was out of the shows because it wasn't immediate on Instagram and Twitter. It wasn't perhaps as broad as it is these days, it was fab though.

I think it'd be pretty juvenile to make a record as a reaction to my critics.

It's an amazing privilege to perform for an audience paying to hear the music that you've recorded.

One has to spend time sort of really going back through one's memories. When you do start doing that then, you do recall more as time goes on.

We were both dabbling with music but no, I persuaded George, railroaded him really into forming a band. I think we both had the belief that we would make it. That was the central pillar around everything else.

George is very, very single-minded in his approach. And I think a lot of the things that he has said and done have been misconstrued as arrogant rather than the single-mindedness they really are.

Despite the pain of his death, George is still very much alive in my memory today. A few years on from that tragic Christmas, I'll sometimes catch myself thinking of our friendship and those years together as young kids in Wham!

We made a decision very early on that George would be the main songwriter because it was very apparent to all of us that he was better at it.

George probably wanted to be rich and famous - most of us do, I think - but I don't think he ever wanted to be a star.

The great thing about dancing is it's a way to get close to a beautiful woman you have never met.

George felt the group wasn't giving him the freedom he needed to develop his songwriting. But I have to admit the end came a little sooner than I expected.

Give yourself a healthy bit of distance between your fame and reality because they are two different things.

My parents actively tried to discourage me from going into music - especially Dad, because of the troubled times he had in his youth.

I had posted a note on my bedroom door for my mum to 'wake me up-up before you go-go' - and that gave George the idea for the song.

Certainly that's what I like in a lot of the music that I listen to, kind of a sexual energy. Guitars and rock get it across best for me.

A terrible additional worry was the emergence of AIDS. I know I wasn't the only friend of George's who worried about him during that uncertain, frightening period.

George is so prolific as a writer.

I achieved my ambition early in life.

We were bringing Wham! to a close, but we weren't bringing our friendship to a close.

People get very put out when someone is as forceful in their views and in their methods as George is.

I've always listened to Top 40 music.

It's very difficult to put it into words or really put your finger on exactly what it was that people found so attractive about Wham! But it was a lot to do with George and me and our friendship.

George was adamant his sexuality should be kept under wraps, which created a wholly unwelcome extra level of stress for him to manage.

One of the promises we made to each other was that Wham! would never be resurrected because it was about being young.

A loss of a great friend is traumatic and emotionally tough.