THE last time I saw David Cassidy in concert I was wearing my very best clothes - a rather fetching ensemble consisting of pale blue fake-fur bomber jacket, petrol blue parallel trousers and the highest pair of metallic blue platform clogs ever.

Thankfully last night my best clothes had grown up a little. But then, I suppose, so have I.

However, as soon as the love of my youth stepped on stage I, along with a theatre-full of other 40-something women, was transported back to the days when I would spend hours in my bedroom, reading David's column in Fab 208 and putting his Cherish LP on replay .. again.

It's been 30 or so years since this Partridge Family heart-throb graced our shores but he still looks good. Yes the famous shaggy hairstyle has disappeared and in its place rests a somewhat bouffant hair-do but, it was still our darling David up there and I was surprised to discover he actually has a jolly good voice.

I had never heard him sing before, I was always screaming you see.

And I have to admit to doing a bit of the old yelling last night, especially when he launched into the oldies we all wanted. Pity he insisted on intercepting it with bits of his Las Vegas-style shows which came across a

tad shambolic I thought.

However he did not let us down completely and the strains of Could It Be Forever, Cherish and I Think I Love You soon echoed round the Apollo.

And with an encore of the spine-tingling How Can I Be Sure there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

But the night was for all those women who, probably like me, had been waiting for years to see their idol again. We had been waiting for him to transport us back in time even if only for a couple of hours, to those days when our only money worries were finding the 50 pence for his latest single and we thought a spare tyre was something our dad had in the back of his Ford Capri.

And as my poor bewildered husband sat and watched his wife lip-synch to every memory, it happened, just like it had in 1971 - David Casssidy was singing to me and no one else! Karen Stephen