What Caroline meant to me
Hi. So I haven’t posted in a while, and if I did it was always just fic. Honestly I was planning on never posting on here ever again. I was even for a moment gonna delete everything, cos it felt disrespectful or something to leave all of it up. But I couldn’t, and then I got my blog stats for the week and saw that I’d had over a thousand pageviews, something that hasn’t happened in years. So I felt I had to say something. In case anyone wanted to read it.
Firstly, I am so utterly devastated about Caroline’s death. She was the best person, a beautiful and kind soul, and it’s so tragic and unfair that she thought the only way out was to take her own life. It still doesn’t feel real, and honestly I’m not sure it ever will.
I know there are so many people to blame, the press and the media, and social media, and the CPS. But I don’t want to focus on that, because to me, I’m sad either way, I’m devastated either way. And I don’t have it in me to tunnel all my energy into anger and justice, right now all I have is sadness, deep and complete sadness.
Caroline was so many things to me, she was a crush, and an idol. She was one half of my OTP. She was a person who made me want to believe in myself more, love myself more and give less fucks. She got me into writing. She was the reason I know some of my favourite people in the world. And somehow, she was someone I knew.
I first became a fan of Caroline’s in 2011, like so many of this fandom, because of Carolly, because of Xtra Factor, because, and I still believe this, those two were soulmates, and it was clear as day to all of us.
We watched them and fell in love with them, and they made us so happy, besides when we were yelling at me for being idiots. Caroline was always my favourite out of the two, whether it be because I fancied her and not Olly, or because she had the most infectious personality. She was the type of person I could imagine going to the pub with, someone I’d want to be mates with, because she sparkled.
I started writing fic in 2012 and on it sailed from there, I wrote my last fic in November 2019, seven years of being in her and Olly’s heads, and making up all sorts of happy endings for them. It breaks my heart that they never got one, that Caz never got one.
I first met Caroline on December 1st 2013. She was in a car and she stopped and chatted to me and my friend. The driver kept trying to drive away and she kept telling him to stop. She said she liked my coat, and I got the worst pictures ever. But she was amazing and I was so happy.
I next met her at Viral Tap in 2014. I met Jo and Chris. I gave her a burger necklace(‘Oh my god! This is the best thing anyone’s ever got me! I’m gonna put it on!). We chatted for ages, got much better pictures, and she was so lovely, funny, and genuine.
Then I didn’t see her until during X Factor 2015. I saw her plenty before that, I saw Strictly live, both the actual show and the tour, plus A Night With Olly Murs, and I basically lived at X Factor. But I hadn’t actually met her in a year and a half.
It was her book signing, I was really nervous, she had unfollowed me on Twitter after I drunkenly insulted her boyfriend on there. Course she didn’t remember that. She didn’t remember meeting me before but did after a bit of prompting. We talked about Strictly (‘You won six hundred pounds cos I won Strictly?! *turns to her team* ‘She won 600 pounds cos I won Strictly!) and her book (‘I read it in a day’ ‘What was your favourite bit?’ ‘Any bit with Olly’ ‘Of course’), I kept calling her Caz (‘I love that you call me Caz!) and we took our first selfies. She signed my book ‘Lovely to meet you AGAIN’ and in one for my mum wrote ‘You have a wonderful daughter’.
I saw her at XF soon after that and the first thing she said to me was ‘I’ve met you before!’ before much Olly chat and XF chat and how brilliant she was chat. She always chatted to you like you were her mate, telling us about her mum coming to visit and what Olly got for her birthday(‘A coat and a purse’ ‘What brand?’ ‘Yves Saint Laurent… who needs a boyfriend when you have Olly Murs’) my poor heart could barely handle it.
The weekend of the X Factor final, I got about 5 hours sleep and saw them kiss on the stage, still one of the best weekends of my life.
Next time I saw her was April 2016, outside of BBC, there was 3 of us there and we all talked for ages. I remember saying something, maybe about having met her before, and she went ‘I do know who you are!’, I never worried she didn’t after that. Also thus began the habit of her taking my phone and taking selfies from all the angles whenever I saw her.
Honestly after that it starts to meld together, I served her at work in 2017(‘Oh my god it’s you! I haven’t seen you in ages!’) at her radio show where she was about to get in her car, turned around and saw me and got back out again. There was all the times at Chicago and the one time at stage door for Crazy for You, chatting to her at Aftersun, and even when I was at the back of the room, seeing me, pointing and waving.
The last time I saw her was last year at her River Island launch. It was so nice. There was a big queue to see her and when I got to the front she hugged me and went ‘Hey you’. We were chatting for a while about Olly and how I was seeing Take That a lot right at that moment in time (How many times?’ ‘20’ ’20!!’), I told her I couldn’t afford any of her collection and she went all whispery ‘Don’t worry, I’ll send you some’ (she never actually did but still a very sweet gesture). There was a queue forming behind me so she said she’d catch me a in a bit.
I sat down on the sofa and after a while, she came and sat down next to me (‘Is it just me and a load of Instagrammers?’ ‘Yeah’ ‘Do you know anyone else here?’ ‘No’). We took some more pictures (‘Oh my god the camera on your phone is so good’) and chatted about Love Island and the rest. Eventually I left after the place emptied out and she had to go do some promotion pictures. I can’t believe it’s the last time I ever got to talk to her, I’m so glad it was so good. I have not one bad memory of meeting her and I will treasure every second of it all always.
She wasn’t my friend, but she knew me, she followed me on Twitter and Instagram, and always asked about my work (she always remembered where I worked after I served her) and how I was. She knew me and I knew her. I always used to say ‘We’re not friends but we’re friendly’ when people at work would take the piss and call her my mate.
My work, honestly, have been so understanding. I found out at work, someone took me aside and told me, and took me home. I wasn’t in for 4 days and when I did go back I couldn’t stop crying. I cried on so many people. But they got it, they all got it, how much she meant to me and how much I loved her and cared about her and knew her. They didn’t dismiss it just because she was famous, they understood completely.
Honestly, ever since Caz died, I have never known such kindness and love in all my life. I had about 200 messages from people the night it happened, and people who have been checking how I am every day. I couldn’t sleep for a week, I’m still struggling to eat, and there are so many tears. But having so much support and being surrounded by love has helped so much. I only wish Caz had known how loved she was, I hope she did know, that she was so so loved by so so many. I can’t stop thinking about her family, about Jo and Chris, and her friends, poor poor Lou, and Sam, and Olly. I can’t even imagine how they feel, and I can do nothing but hope beyond anything that eventually they will be ok.
It’s hard as a person who doesn’t believe in heaven or the afterlife to find any solace in this. People find comfort in that, that’s she ‘in a better place’ and ‘at peace now’ and ‘looking down on us’. I get that helps people, but to me, there’s no better place, the place for her was here. And now all we have is memories, and thinking of her sad and alone, and it breaks my heart time and time again.
Caz was an amazing person, she was kind and generous and funny. She had a good word to say about everybody and no matter who you were, treated you just the same. She wore her heart on her sleeve, loved so deeply, felt everything so much. She was one of a kind, a good soul and the most beautiful person, inside and out and this world is a poorer one for her no longer being in it.
So what did Caroline mean to me? She meant the absolute world, and I’m gonna miss her so very very much.













