KEY POINTS:
Ten years ago, they were telephoning special hotlines, distraught with grief at the end of an era.
Yesterday, they were in ecstasy, screaming with joy.
It's a rollercoaster ride, being a loyal Take That fan.
After topping the charts on Sunday with Patience, their first No 1 single in a decade and a year and a day after they announced they were reforming, the boy band made a personal appearance in the HMV store in London's Oxford Street.
And there to greet them were some of the same fans who a decade ago, as schoolgirls, were in floods of tears when the group split, and are now adults in their mid-twenties.
"I'd do it again in a heartbeat," said Rachel Grant, 24, who had queued since 3.30pm on Sunday to see band members Gary Barlow, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Howard Donald sign copies of their comeback album, Beautiful World.
When the band broke up, she said: "I took three days off school and cried.
I was devastated." She had come prepared, she added, with "a sleeping bag, a chair, food and thermal socks".
"I had a few hours of sleep," she said. "The TV crews coming round in the morning woke us up."
Lisa Vale, 26, from Dagenham, and her sister, Yasmin Johnson, 18, from Hornchurch, were first in line, having queued since 6am on Sunday morning.
They were rewarded with bouquets of flowers from the band.
Ms Vale said: "You don't think about the cold when you know what you're going to get at the end of it. It was freezing but I think the adrenalin kept me going."
She added: "Ten years ago my mum wouldn't let me camp out." Her sister added: "It was absolutely amazing. I can't even think. I kissed every one of them."
Caryn Webb, 43, from Croydon, nicknamed "The Crinkly" by the crowd, confessed to having met them 20 times; on Sunday, she celebrated the No 1 with champagne: "Once a Take That fan, always a Take That fan. We have waited 10 years for this."
The success of Patience, which comes after a 30-date sell out tour this year, suggests that Beautiful World is likely to head for the top of the album charts rapidly, possibly knocking their rival's Westlife off the No 1 position, which they also achieved on Sunday.
It also represents a massive vindication for the four Take That members, who were long overshadowed by the huge success enjoyed by Robbie Williams after he left the band in 1995 in search of artistic fulfilment, a move which precipitated the final break-up.
Williams mocked the subsequent solo career of Barlow, who was Take That's principal songwriter, in a hidden track on his 2002 Escapology album, Where Has Gary Barlow Gone? Although William's last album, Rudebox, reached No 1 in October, both singles taken from it, Rudebox and Lovelight, have failed to top the singles charts.
However both sides have appeared to patch up their differences.
Williams has publicly approved of the band's comeback and withdrawn his criticism of Barlow while at the same time speaking admiringly of the latter's settled domestic life in contrast to his own troubles with drink and drugs.
And both Williams and Take That have spoken of performing again together in the future.
That would give the fans something else to scream about.
- INDEPENDENT
