She wrote incisive lyrics, sang exquisite harmonies and graced arguably the greatest
Christmas single ever. Yet Kirsty MacColl has somehow been erased from the story of
British pop. Will the re-release of her first four albums finally change that?Next Sunday in Soho Square, central
London, a group of people will gather around a park bench. On that bench is a metal plaque with the words: Kirsty MacColl 1959-2000 "One Day I'll be Waiting There/ No Empty Bench in Soho Square". Assembled will be MacColl's family,
Friends and fans, come – as they do every year – to celebrate her birthday on the nearest Sunday.
MacColl would have been 53 on 10 October, and who knows what she would have been doing now ("You could see her writing a musical," says the
Actor and comedian Tracey Ullman, "or a play at the Royal Court with
music.") had she not been killed in December 2000, run over by a speeding motorboat while diving with her sons in
Mexico.