{"id":698390,"date":"2026-07-18T12:36:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T12:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/698390\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T12:36:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T12:36:24","slug":"andrew-ridgeley-wham-concerts-changed-lives-in-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/698390\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Ridgeley: &#8216;Wham! concerts changed lives in China&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He finds the music continues to inspire young people, not just in China but across the globe, because of its &#8220;vibrancy and vitality&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;To know that it has the sort of impact on people&#8217;s lives, and still does, that&#8217;s something that I don&#8217;t think we could have guessed at,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For Ridgeley it was an unlikely meeting at Bushey Meads School in 1974 that changed lives around the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was there that a 12-year-old Ridgeley first met the &#8220;new boy,&#8221; Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, who later became George, but is still known to his friend as &#8220;Yog&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When a teacher asked for a volunteer to help the newcomer settle in, Ridgeley was the only pupil to raise his hand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He says he does not believe in fate, but admits: &#8220;It was a sliding doors moment&#8230; it shaped the rest of our lives, which is quite something.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At the time, Ridgeley could never have imagined that a small act of kindness in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-39455667\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hertfordshire classroom<\/a> would eventually help change lives on the other side of the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Do you have a story suggestion for Beds, Herts or Bucks? Contact us below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He finds the music continues to inspire young people, not just in China but across the globe, because&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-698390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}