Freddie Mercury Blue Plaque footage and Press

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Brian May Kashmira Cooke Unveiling Freddie Blue Plaque 01092016 – https://youtu.be/3Sh7jv_KNk8

DAILY MAIL
HERE’S WHERE HE WAS JUST A POOR BOY, FROM A POOR FAMILY:
QUEEN BANDMATE BRIAN MAY UNVEILS BLUE PLAQUE AT FREDDIE MERCURY’S CHILDHOOD HOME
1 September 2016 (updated 2 September 2016) by Jennifer Guay

– The childhood home of Freddie Mercury, Queen’s flamboyant frontman, was honoured with a blue plaque
– Mercury spent his teenage years living in the Feltham home with his parents, who fled from Zanzibar
– Bandmate Brian May honoured the singer with a touching speech about his lasting legacy on music
‘It’s a happy occasion with a tinge of sadness because he should be here – he should still be here creating’

Queen guitarist Brian May said it was a sad occasion when he unveiled an English Heritage blue plaque at the childhood home of his former bandmate, legendary frontman Freddie Mercury.

Mercury died in 1991, but May said he could feel his presence when he revealed the memorial at the terraced house in Feltham, west London. Mercury was living at 22 Gladstone Avenue with his parents when he met May – who also grew up in Feltham – and Roger Taylor, his future bandmates.

May said: ‘The last thing we would have thought is that I would be here at this point, commemorating him with a blue plaque. It’s a happy occasion with a tinge of sadness because he should be here – he should still be here creating.’

Mercury’s parents, Jer and Bomi Bulsara, bought the Feltham house in 1964 when Mercury was a teenager.

May continued: ‘As boys we conquered the world in a way that was beyond our wildest dreams, which is why we are here today. What I remember of Freddie is hard to sum up. He was a shy boy and embarrassed of still living with his mum, so he often slept on people’s floors to feel like he had broken away.’

BBC News Entertainment & Arts

Freddie Mercury’s family home awarded blue plaque 1 Sept

Freddie onstage and blue plaque
Freddie Mercury / Blue plaque PA / English Heritage

The childhood home of Freddie Mercury has just been awarded a prestigious blue plaque from English Heritage.

Queen guitarist Brian May and Freddie’s sister Kashmira Cooke unveiled the plaque at the terraced house in Feltham, West London which was the singer’s first home in England.

His parents bought the house in 1964 after the family left Zanzibar for the UK and Freddie was still living there when he first met his future Queen band mates, Brian May and Roger Taylor.

Freddie’s sister Kashmira told the BBC she and her mum are very proud of the honour…

“Secretly [Freddie] would be very proud and pleased that he was being honoured in this prestigious manner. He was always sketching for his college art work and sometimes asked me to model for him…. listening to music, particularly Jimi Hendrix. He loved watching Tom & Jerry cartoons… [He] spent hours in the bathroom grooming his hair. At the time I wasn’t best pleased as there was only one bathroom. I remember he always used to tap his fingers and be humming, as if thinking of his next best song.”

Brian May also remembered his times hanging out at the house with Freddie when he was younger…

“It is a pleasant duty to help install this little reminder on Freddie’s parents’ house in Feltham. It was here that I first visited Freddie soon after we had met through a mutual friend. We spent most of the day appreciating and analysing in intimate detail the way that Jimi Hendrix had put his recordings together in the studio – listening to Hendrix on vinyl played on Freddie’s Dansette record player… Feltham was the childhood neighbourhood for both of us but we never knew it until we met in the cause of music.”

Freddie's house frontage
Freddie Mercury house
English Heritage

Freddie, who died in November 1991, would have turned 70 on 5 September and to mark the occasion The Queen Extravaganza are performing the album A Night At the Opera live at a special Birthday Party in Montreux this Sunday, 4 September. The whole thing will be streamed live on Queen’s YouTube channel from 20:25 BST.

BBC Music tweeted: https://twitter.com/bbcmusic/status/771331566693978112

BBC Music tweet

BBC LONDON
Blue Plaque unveiled on Freddie Mercury’s first London home
1 September 2016

EVENING STANDARD
Freddie Mercury’s unassuming childhood home gets blue plaque 25 years after his death
1 September 2016

KASHMIRA COOKE: “I’m just very happy and proud to be here today and to unveil this blue plaque for my brother Freddie.

BRIAN MAY: Freddie was so visible, you know, he was so iconic in his own lifetime and it was quite hard for him to be normal. But then again he didn’t want it, so in a way it was okay.

Kashmira: It rally make me feel honoured that they’ve done this for my brother. He’s amongst other famous names and there’s not many singer, you know. John Lennon, I think, and obviously Jimi Hendrix, his idol, and Mozart. So all musicians, so that’s fantastic.

BRIAN: He’s very much part of the Queen show always, he’s a part of what we’ve built together and that’s the way it always will be.