T H I S    I S    M Y    S T O R Y . . .

I first fell in love with Les Mis when I saw the TAC video around 1996. I was nine years old back then and I didn't really understand all the english songs and what was the meaning of it all. Nor did I know anything about Les Miserables being a stage musical. I used to sing along the songs, like On My Own, I Dreamed a Dream and Little Fall of Rain, but since english isn't my native language (dutch is) I probably screwed them up lol. My parents did enjoy my singing though.

Then in early 2003 I watched the TAC video again, and once more I was stunned by Fantine. When I was younger I always thought that she was very beautiful and I desperately wanted that long blonde hair (maybe that's why I let it grow so long). It was the first time that I watched the whole show (we used to skip some songs like the Runaway Cart and Confession and such) and I watched the credits. I then found out that this woman playing Fantine was called Ruthie Henshall. I decided to look her up on the web. I was shocked to find out that Ruthie actually had black hair, instead of what I had always thought of the blonde hair to be her natural colour. I gave it a rest. But, I had already begun to create an obsession, so I once again visited Ruthie's site and began to learn more about her. And that is how I became more of a Ruthie fan. I was no longer shocked by her hair colour, lol. And now I started to watch the video more and more, and then I decided to create this fanlisting, which was hosted on geocities back then. It has moved a couple of times, but now it is back in it's old place. When I started it, the site was rather crappy and it didn't have all this extra information, it was just a Fanlisting. After a few months I bought the Les Mis TAC DVD from Amazon.com and I watched it about three times a week. I captured (literally) 400 pictures of Fantine (call me obsessed). Then I rented the book from the library and I read it in my summer vacation. It gave me such a different view on Les Mis. A few weeks later I bought the Les Mis 1998 movie with Liam Neeson and Uma Thurman. I also watched that one a couple of times (I know that most people don't like this movie, and I agree that there are lots of errors in it). Then I begged my parents if we could go to see the musical in London. They hesitated but finally gave in. So when we went on holiday to England in October 2003, we went to see it! Of course after seeing it properly I fell even more in love with Les Mis. And it was so different from what I had imagined! I never realized that the TAC wasn't the complete musical. Since then I have seen Les Mis in a total of three times. Which is quite a lot, considering that I have to travel from The Netherlands to London. Some weeks after seeing Les Mis for the first time, I won a signed photo of Joanna Ampil as Fantine. This triggered my urge to buy more Les Mis related stuff. I have the Worth Fighting For poster and a Cosette Logo Poster... Eventually the exitement of buying stuff ceased. Altough I am still a fan, I'm no longer as obsessed as I was. And that is for the best. Sometimes you got to let go, yet still hold on.

C'est mon histoire.