How a strong friendship and George Michael’s talent created the beloved Christmas hit Last Christmas

Christmas 1984 was a bit of a bumper year in the annals of pop history.

The number one position on the music charts used to be determined by the popular vinyl records purchased by teenagers with their allowance money. Band Aid secured this top spot with their charity song Do They Know It’s Christmas.

But it was, arguably, the song that claimed second place that year – Wham’s Last Christmas – that would go on to cement itself as the perennial star on top of the festive music tree.

It’s not, of course, just the lyrics – George’s angst-ridden tale of love given, and lost, at Christmas – that have entered the collective consciousness.

The video – celebrating its 40th anniversary – is a vignette of Eighties nostalgia, a snow-filled montage of seasonal fun (and moody glances across a crowded room) in which George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley throw snowballs and lark around with a collection of similarly bouffant-haired friends in the Swiss resort of Saas-Fee.

It all looks so very real, so heartfelt, and, frankly, so much fun. Didn’t we all wish we could be there too?

And we now know why it looks so convincing: the young men and women in the video were genuinely a group of friends and family members of the pop duo, plus the odd actor.

Two of them, David Ridler and Jonny Fowler, were old school friends of George and Andrew; 21-year-olds, fresh out of college and short of cash, they’d jumped at the chance of a two-day, all expenses paid trip to the Swiss Alps, with their old, and now seriously minted, pals.

Their bond went back years, forged in the classrooms and then the pubs and clubs of Hertfordshire, where all they grew up. And, as they tell the Mail, its a bond that continues today.

The creation of the music video is poignantly revisited in a BBC Two documentary Wham!: Last Christmas Unwrapped, in which Andrew Ridgeley, backing singers Helen ‘Pepsi’ DeMacque-Crockett and Shirlie Kemp and some of those old pals make a pilgrimage back to Saas-Fee.

The poignancy is, of course, there in the absence of George Michael, who died, unexpectedly, on Christmas Day eight years ago, aged 53.

As Shirley, now married to former Spandau Ballet musician, turned actor, Martin Kemp, says in the programme, Christmas was a special time of year for George.

‘I think he had the insight that, it’s quite a lonely business, you travel a lot, so he wanted all the people he knew really well around him.

‘He was always the more the merrier, the more friends we have got with us, the better.’

George and Andrew’s friendship was the bedrock on which Wham was formed. The pair had been best friends since the day Andrew was the only child at their Bushey Meads comprehensive, in Hertfordshire, to put his hand up when the teacher asked someone to look after the new boy, Georgios Panayiotou.

Both sons of immigrant fathers — Michael’s was Greek Cypriot, Ridgeley’s had Egyptian/Italian/Yemeni roots — music was the glue that brought them together.

Shy, self-conscious Georgios – soon shortened to Yog – had talent in abundance and found the drive and confidence he needed in the more self-assured, stylish Andrew.

David Ridler, meanwhile, met Andrew at sixth form college in Watford. Soon, David’s best-mate Jonny and Andrew’s mate Yog, were added to the mix, paving the way for a riotous camaraderie that would continue through the Wham years.

‘I think I first knew George when he was an usher at the Odeon cinema in Watford, this chubby curly-headed mate of Andrew’s,’ recalls David.

They stayed in touch when David and Jonny went away to polytechnic: David to Bristol to study business and Jonny to City of London.

‘By the time we finished, Wham were very big, getting number one records, getting plaudits from the music press. It went a bit crazy,’ he says.

‘It was amazing, Jonny and I had no money, we were fresh out of university, and Andrew and Yog just sort of involved us in everything. 

‘We were whisked off everywhere, we would head up into town, frequent nightclubs and bars and have a completely wild time.

‘Andrew’s mum would keep scrapbooks and there were pictures of Andrew, myself and Jonny being thrown out of nightclubs, playfighting, so many funny stories. 

‘We were 21 and having a rare old time.

‘The three of us were wild. Yog would sort of look on, shaking his head sometimes, laughing other times.’

Now a commercial landlord, and father-of-two, back then David was a part-time windsurfing instructor, surviving on the bank of Mum and Dad, and by his own admission scraping by without a ‘pot to p*** in’.

Then came 1984 – a particularly special year for lots of reasons.

‘We did all of our 21sts,’ he says (George’s was in June and Andrew’s in January), then in November, as Christmas approached, they were asked ‘do you want to come out with us and do this Christmas video?’

Well, of course they did. The fact that they were to be paid £1,200 each for two days getting drunk and larking around, sweetened the deal, although David quips wryly: ‘We would probably have done better out of the royalties wouldn’t we? It’s been downloaded and played something like a billion times.’

David’s stand out moment in the video is as ‘log carrier’, ambling through the door of the chalet with a stack of logs in his arms and a fresh snowball melting on top of his head, a blink and you miss it moment, but which lead to 40-years of ribbing.

As for the rest of the two-day jaunt it was, he says, best described as ‘raucous’.

Particularly raucous was the scene in which the assembled guests gather for a festive, wine-fuelled dinner, at which George Michael’s character looks moodily along the table at Ridgeley’s character, snuggling up to the woman (played by actress Kathy Hill) who viewers realise was the object of his own affections last Christmas.

The wine glasses had to be emptied for visual effect and the guests were only too happy to oblige.

‘Andrew, myself and Jonny were sent off stage because we were too loud and raucous and drinking all the wine,’ laughs David. ‘Andy Morahan who produced it was great he just said you are a load of mates, you are doing a video, just act like you are a load of mates, so we did.’

Indeed, Andrew was so puffy-eyed as cameras rolled, that by the time the final scene of party guests collapsing on to sofas was filmed, he was absent. Sent away to ‘get some rest’.

‘The scenes around the table didn’t have to be acted, because we were having great fun; it had all the flavour and atmosphere of a Christmas party and it did have casualties, of which I was one,’ recalls Andrew.

Jonny, a father-of-three, can trace his own long career as a music industry executive to those party-filled days and speaks with nostalgia of where it all began.

‘I’ve had 40 years of the p*** being taken out of me and the wonderful thing is, every year there is somebody new who doesn’t realise it’s me.

‘People say ‘doesn’t it get a bit tedious?’ Well, not really, it’s a joy to have been there. ‘It was all very genuine, an invite to mates, ‘come on, let’s all hang out’.

‘George enjoyed Christmas so much, we used to go carol singing, George would put a wig on and we’d go out in Kensington, where he lived and just have a bit of a giggle and this was just another excuse to do that.

‘By the time we were asked to fly to Saas Fee, David and I were something of a permanent fixture, I mean really legitimate hangers on. I’m sure some of the professionals around us found it quite tiring, but I think we bought a layer of normality to the boys whilst things were going crazy.’

As Andrew states on camera, by the time he and George rocked up in the resort for filming, his pals had already been in situ for several hours and were ‘drunk as lords’.

As rugby club lads, who liked to party as hard as they played, Jonny and David happily led a skinny dipping plunge in the hotel pool and a naked steeplechase tour of the hotel balconies.

‘The hotel balconies weren’t really suitable for it, but we decided to strip down to our moon boots and go for a little wander.’

If music video lovers wonder why George has his hood up in much of the outdoor footage, Jonny has the answer: ‘During the shoot, we decided that George, who was very, very sensitive about his hair, all throughout this career, was going to get it, so we loaded with ammo and snowballed him to death.

‘He took it very well. He always took it very well. He had this way of raising his eyes to the heavens, but smiling.’

The famous quiff, however, didn’t hold up so admirably, and had to be hidden under a hood.

The group would continue to roll in and out parties and nightclubs together.

‘They would be doing shows and would come off stage and there we would be in the back of the van as they went to do a runner when they came off stage, George’s face would drop and he’d go ‘you two again!’.’

David and Jonny memorably accompanied Wham on the Australia leg of their final tour in January 1985.

‘It was a riot,’ says Jonny. ‘They were at the back end then of what had been an extraordinary run and we were very, lucky to be part of it.’

David agrees, and marvels that no one ever fell out. Backing singers Pepsi and Shirley, in particular, never seemed to object to them tagging along. 

‘We were an absolute pain in the a***, Jonny and myself, but they never ever said anything,’ says David.

In fact, David and wife Claire live a few doors down from Shirley and Martin Kemp in Hertfordshire, today.

When the short-lived Wham era came to an amicable end in 1986 – the band would perform their final concert at Wembley, in June 1986 – Jonny would go on to work with Andrew, later opening a bar with the musician and David in Rickmansworth, at which George Michael was the opening night guest star.

There is inevitably, a sadness about all these memories. Sadness in the knowledge that the ‘director of operations, creatively,’ wasn’t around to make the nostalgia-fuelled anniversary return to Saas-Fee, not to continue making the music that made him a global superstar.

George Michael died on Christmas Day in 2016. Last Christmas finally earned its number one place in the charts on New Year’s Day, in 2023.

It’s said to generate £300,000 in royalties every year – all of which is donated to charity.

‘George could write number one records in his sleep,’ says Jonny. ‘I know it’s subjective, but frankly, I think he was as close to genius as it gets.

‘There is no question he was a star. Through all the peaks and troughs of his career, he was a good buddy, a lovely lad. 

‘On most of his gigs and tours, I would invariably have a seat on the private jet. I was very, very blessed.’

Both Jonny and David recall the telephone calls they received from Andrew, eight years ago, telling them the singer songwriter had died. Their sadness can not be quantified with words.

They struggled to listen to his music. But now, even more so having retraced those footsteps of those fun-filled two-days in Switzerland, they are happier recalling the chapter that Andrew Ridgeley called ‘golden’.

‘I’m able to listen and look back very fondly these days,’ says Jonny. ‘It was pretty special.’

As for the song itself, says David: ‘My wife loves it; well, it’s a lovely song isn’t it? It’s weird, I just don’t get bored of it.’

Which, pretty much, speaks for the rest of the nation.