He's on the Beach. But They're in Shepherds Bush: Number 1, 1985

Kirsty MacColl and producer Steve Lillywhite must be one of the most successful couples in pop but they're still pretty normal at home. She's grouchy in the mornings. He has trouble tidying up after herself. As for baby James - he drinks champers and is good mates with Paul Rutherford. Martin Townsend takes a trip to Shepherds Bush and meets the Lillywhites at home. Steve Rapport made the baby cry ... er ... smile for pictures.

When Kirsty MacColl and Steve Lillywhite met in late 1983, she was settled in the flat in Shepherd's Bush after the success of Tracey Ullman's They Don't Know - which she wrote. And he'd bought a three-bedroomed house in Fulham after producing albums for the likes of U2, Simple Minds and Big Country.

It was a whirlwind romance. They met on November 5 and he proposed on New Year's Eve the same year at a Big Country concert in Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow.

"The first thing I said in 1984 was 'Will you marry me?"' says Steve. Ahh. Steve moved out of his Fulham house and "emigrated to Shepherd's Bush" as Kirsty puts it. They now live together in what Kirsty describes, in her best estate agent's voice, as a "ground floor Victorian flat in a large house, many original features including cornicing and wooden shutters! When I first moved into it," she adds, "there was no furniture. I just had my mattress and a stereo. I used to sleep in a different room every night 'cos it didn't matter where I slept. I slept in the kitchen sometimes."

She'd spent so much on the deposit for the flat that she only acquired bits of furniture very gradually. "I lived on Weetabix for three weeks when I was really broke." Luxury!

Steve has brought the lounge settees and coffee table from his old house, but a lot of his stuff is still in storage so the flat is mainly filled with Kirsty's possessions.

Here are Steve and Kirsty gazing proudly over a large hand which Kirsty made before she get "thrown out" of art college. it's made of hessian and newspaper with a large empty roll of sticky tape for a wrist.

There's also a rude black statue which Kirsty's dad, folk singer Ewan MacColl, bought her in Papua, New Guinea: "It's a sort of fertility symbol. When I was at home my mum made it a pair of shorts so his dong wasn't hanging out. But I took them off 'cos I thought he ought to get the air to it." And a signed picture of 60s superstars The Everly Brothers.

"People see that and they say 'Gosh, you're not that old are you?'" says Kirsty. "But it's an old picture and I met Don Everly quite recently and got him to sign it."

On Kirsty and Steve's kitchen pinboard there are postcards from friends, photo-booth snaps of them pulling silly faces, a Teddy bear picture that squeaks and a little finger puppet head. There's also a postcard from a certain 'Terry' in Australia which provided the solid inspiration for He's On The Beach. it even says it's 'Brilliant' out there, just like the lyric.

The bedroom is dominated by the raised, high-tech. wooden bed built by Kirsty's brother who is "not a carpenter, just good at it".

At this point Steve grabs Jamie and starts goo-gooing at him. "Pretending that you play with him," sneers Kirsty, laughing. "For the Press. Pathetic. You're just like Joan Crawford."

This is Jamie Lillywhite the proud possessor of a furry Garfield the cat, donated by Paul Rutherford. "Paul came round to dinner one day-Sunday lunch," says Kirsty, "and said 'i couldn't find an off licence open, so bought you this instead!" And Jamie's first words, Kirsty? "Pass the champagne."

The window shutters in the background were once heavily painted over. A friend of Kirsty's restored them. "He didn't think it'd take him long," she says, "two months later ..."

Kirsty and Steve are currently looking for a house - probably in the Chiswick area, since the flat's getting a bit cramped for three. Meanwhile Steve is mid-way through recording the Rolling Stones' new album in Paris, while Kirsty's keeping a careful eye on the progress of He's On The Beach, for which she's just completed a "complicated" video. And they put up with each other's (very few) annoying habits. "She's not normally as good as I am in the mornings," hedges Steve, diplomatically. "That means I'm incredibly bad tempered. It takes me five hours to wake up", declares Kirsty. And how about Steve's annoying habits? "Do you have an hour..?" says Steve, miserably. Kirsty smiles. "He's very good. He's not too good at clearing up after himself some times but he does try. He tends to buy a new car when the ashtrays are full in the old one!"

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He's on the Beach. But They're in Shepherds Bush: Number 1, 1985

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