Martin Kemp reveals secret childhood crush on Linda Robson

Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp had a secret crush on Linda Robson when he was growing up.

The 61-year-old bassist and his brother and bandmate Gary Kemp, 63, grew up with the 'Loose Women' panellist on the same street in Islington, North London, and Martin and Linda also both attended the Anna Scher Theatre School in the UK capital.

Martin - who also is an actor and starred as villain Steve Owen in 'EastEnders' - has now confessed he was "madly in love" with Linda just like every other boy knew her.

Speaking at an evening celebrating Linda's 50 years in showbusiness, Martin said: "We remember Linda as this beautiful little girl. I was madly in love with Linda, as was every other little boy."

Linda was more than a little surprised to learn that a future rock star had the hots for her, and admitted she wished he'd have told her because she'd have happily agreed to have gone out with him.

She said: "It’s lovely! We all grew up on the same street, with Martin and Gary, so if only he’d told me at the time, we could have done something about it. He left it too late!”

Martin has been married to former Wham! backing singer Shirlie Holliman since 1988 and they have two children, daughter Harley Moon and son Roman, who is the breakfast show DJ on Capital FM.

Mother-of-three Linda has been with second husband Mark since 1990.