"Maybe I'm lonely, and that's what I'm running away from. Sometimes I think 'Well I don't need anybody because I've got him' - little Jason - he's always there... Like I've built him up inside me, almost like an imaginary friend - somebody so special, that nobody could compete with that anyway. So maybe that's why I'm digging my own grave in a way." [mpeg: 3.2MB]

About this site

I never watch soaps. In fact I find it hard to watch more than five minutes of Eastenders without getting a fit. And docu-soaps from hotels and airports are just marginally more interesting. The fact that one might pick up a few pieces of learning are only just exceeding the boredom of the situations. So why did I start watching Paddington Green in the summmer of 2000?

Somehow I must have missed the fact that she was once a boy. When I saw the teaser with this beautiful girl selling her body to pay for cosmetic surgery, I felt it had to be the epitome of vanity. I could not understand how she could pay the price of walking the streets just to perfect her looks. So I sat down at eleven to find out.

Now, I used to think I was pretty fast to spot "trannies" (which btw is not derogatory where I come from). While watching The Crying Game a friend of mine kept remarking how much he fancied Jaye Davidson's character. When Dil disrobed he had to rewind the tape to check if he'd been hallucinating, and was very quiet afterwards. A short time later he repeated the incident watching M Butterfly. I've strongly discouraged him ever going to Bangkok.

However, unless being told I would never have guessed that Jackie was born as anything but a regular girl. Her sweet, feminine face and light voice seemed like they could never have belonged to a boy. And she was as girly as any girl I've ever dated. So I was fascinated to watch, and soon found her irrestistibly charming. Her life on the streets fueled by Marlboro and gin & tonic was in stark contrast to her gentleness and humanity. When she took her HIV test, I was almost as nervous as her. If it had been positive I would have been devastated. After some time her bandages came off, and she went off in a car, not to be seen for several episodes.

I was enraged. I cursed the BBC for leaving us in the dark about what would become of Jackie. Instead they put on an insensitive locksmith who dumps his girlfriend for a jerky chicken. Apparently, I was not alone in wanting to know what had happened to her. A flood of letters to the Radio Times demanded her return to the screen, while the residents of Paddington Green were surged by potential punters and Jackie-spotters.

Turning to the Net for information, I was surprised to find hardly any info at all, and what I could find was often contradictory. Some said she had released a CD, but in a Radio Times interview she said it was just a rumour. I almost believed it was a hoax until after a long time I finally located it at HMV. However it appeared that she had managed to get out of prostituion, and she was leading a much better life.

Seeing as she must be about the only artist releasing a CD without neither her own nor any fan web sites, I figured why not make one? After all it's what I do for a living. So early August 2000 I started collecting material and jotting down notes. I started taping the programme, one finger on the pause button to edit out anything but Jackie. I played the tapes several times a day. I found myself thinking of Jackie and the site on the way to work and back. Evenings were spent surfing the net for more traces of her life. Most nights I did not go to sleep until 5-6 in the morning. Luckily I had delivered notice at my job and the boss was away, so I could manage to get to work around lunchtime.

After a long time working on the site (which you can read more about in the diary, I finally made the big jump, got a domain and a permanent server and started spreading the word. The only thing I lacked was a name. The temporary site had been titled "We love Jackie" (a pun on the We Love Lucy show), which reflected my original intent to let Jackie know how much people loved her and perhaps alleviate some of her loneliness. But then I figured she knew that well enough by this time. However, just after I got the server I read somewhere about how in medieval times people believed you could change your sex if you walked underneath a rainbow. Unfortunately this is very hard to achieve. But in my heart I'm convinced there was a rainbow over Hackney in March 1970, and that's why this lovely girl got a harder start at life than most of us can imagine.

The original goals (some more relevant than others) of this site were:

• to gather interviews and other public information on Jackie,
• to find out if her life had turned for the better after the show,
• establish a medium for Jackie's fans to show their admiration,
• inspire others in Jackie's situation to understand they can also be accepted for what they are,
• and finally, to get off my chest how much getting to know Jackie has meant to me.